This is not right.  On my mac it takes less than 2 min to load.  I am using an SSD too, but it is CPU limited.

However, it may be a crash.  Occationally, I see Armory crash when reading a block, in particular if I start it while the Satoshi client is catching up.  I guess it gets confused by reading a block while it is being written to disk.  That could in principle also hang your client.

No, as I remember they say that documents in non-roman letters must be notarized, i.e. if you were Russian, Greek or Chinese they would not be able to read your name.  Probably your docs are OK.  Try submitting them before wasting money on a lawyer.

But do you really want to do this?  Personally, I am a little wary of sending such documents to a company far away.  It seems that these documents would be very handy for someone wanting to steal my identity.

Since you are situated in the EU, why don't you use Bitstamp or Intersango?  Both handle transfers in EU very well.  Right now Intersango is in a bit of turbulence, so I would probably use Bitstamp instead.

No, playing the market implies trying to make money on the price fluctuations by buying and selling.  That is very different from buying a stash of BTC for later use (although I admit that if you do it hoping that the price goes up in the long run, you *are* playing the market - as opposed to if you plan on *spending* you BTC).

Yep, that is what I meant.  My wallet showed the BTC as unconfirmed almost instantly, but of course it on average took 10 min to get the first confirmation.

I have had quite good experience with them.  Twice transferred Euros to them, it appeared after a few days.  In one of the cases, the payment appeared as "need approval" and stayed like that for 24 hours, at which point I opened a ticket.  An hour later I got a reply, and the money appeared in my account.  In several cases have I withdrawn BTC from my account at Intersango, in every case the BTC have appeared in my wallet within seconds after making the request.  So all in all, I am a satisfied customer.

BUT there are two issues potential customers should be aware of.  First, they are currently having trouble with their UK bank, so transferring money in/out in GPB is currently impossible.  Second, they are at the receiving end of a Bitcoinica-related lawsuit.  I think it is unlikely that they will get their funds frozen, but nothing is impossible when lawsuits are involved, so I do not recommend leaving large sums on Intersango for extended periods.

I would think most users would prefer using bitcoin on an existing Linux distribution, but there may be a market for a light-weight linux distribution focussed on security, bitcoin and anonymity (i.e. with a few good clients installed - I second the comment about Armory, and TOR installed in such a way that the bitcoin clients go through TOR).

The main reason *not* to use such a special distribution would be security updates.  But if you base it off a recognized distribution, you should be able to provide security updates, or better yet let the base distribution do it.

Hi,

It is not that hard to use an exchange like MtGox, or BitFloor (or BitStamp if you are in Europe and prefer to pay with Euros).

Essentially, you register with the exchange.  Then log in, click on "Add Funds" (the name varies by exchange).  You probably want to make an ordinary bank transfer, with your budget the banking fee is probably insignificant.

At MtGox you can then choose to buy at market value, many other exchanges have a similar possibilities.  Otherwise you just choose a reasonable price and place a bit for the amount of bitcoins you can get at that price.  So what is the reasonable price?  If you are doing a medium to long term investment, place the order at the current ask price and get the coins right away.  If you are planning to day-trade, you can place your bid a tiny bit above the current bid price, and hope that somebody choose to sell to you soon.  But the difference is going to be marginal compared to the long-term price drift.

Finally, I recommend using two-factor authentication if the exchange supports it, at least if you plan on leaving money on the exchange.  Google Authenticator is really easy to use if you have a smartphone.

Happy bitcoining



PS. Bitfloor appears to be down today.  Not a good sign.  I have never used it, so I cannot recommend it, but many others do.  MtGox is the largest exchange, but personally I am not a great fan of it, and I hear that sometimes bank transfers end up being converted from USD to Yen and then back to USD by the intermediate banks when they see that they are transferrring to Japan.