Localbitcoins would be the easiest method but most traders require identity verification when buying coins from them. They might not need you to do it if you will sell.

If you are not in a hurry, apply for Cryptopay visa card. The advantage is you can use their app to easily convert your coins to GBP which you then load into your card. It's a quick procedure and all done in under a minute. All UK banks honor Cryptopay's visa card. If you fully verify your Cryptopay account, you can withdraw up to £1,600 per day:

https://cryptopay.me/bitcoin-debit-card

Alternatively, there are bitcoin ATMs in London which buy coins. It will dispense cash but this is something I would not recommend. Their rates are horrible.

When borrowing money, borrowers are supposed to mention the amount and the collateral to be given.

Collateral is mandatory. Without a valid one, it will be difficult for lenders to consider your request.

If your associate owns 3 companies in China, wouldn't it be much more feasible to borrow the money from him? I can imagine someone who owns and manages multiple businesses will have the resources to cover the cost of this mining equipment. The reason I say this is because lenders here require collateral to be transferred to them (or a trusted escrow) until the conclusion and repayment of the loan.

If you have altcoins or other valid coins which satisfy the collateral requirements of lenders here, then you stand a chance of getting this loan.

If the collateral you have in mind is something along the lines of tangible property or real estate in China, then it is unlikely you will get a loan here.

Did you just wake up from a yearlong hibernation? Yobit has been doing this for ages. There are hundreds if not thousands of scam accusations and complaints here. A simple search will give you enough reading material to read for weeks.


That part, if true, sounds like a ruthless scam. It's almost like extortion (or it probably is). It sounds like saying thanks and paying the fee is not optional. It's in fact required! You paid 0.0001 BTC and you are then reminded to say thanks and pay 0.001 BTC. That's audacity at it's worst.

Stop storing coins on any exchange. You risk losing access to your coins if they encounter operational and compliance issues. HitBTC and all other exchanges own the coins while they are stored in their system. The private keys are known to them only. Their customers only see numbers on their phone or laptop screens which represent what they own but they are just that... numbers. Nothing more. To truly say you own and have the coins, you must have them in a wallet with keys you and you alone know, own and control.

Do your due diligence before sending coins to anybody or any exchange or service. Don’t be enticed by their website’s futuristic graphics and impressive words. It’s what their developers are paid to do... create a selling product.

Yes, you will find takers from newbies and others who will ask you to send first and then leave you hanging... forever.

PayPal is reversible. Up to 180 days. With reversible transactions, the person paying can unilaterally reverse the transaction in a definitive way, without any way for the seller to appeal the reversal. And as it stands with credit cards, PayPal allows 180 days maximum for a charge back which basically means the person sending PayPal has a generous six months to make up his mind on any transaction they do on their PayPal account. Established merchants (such as airlines and online stores) with a strong and solid transaction history will of course have a near 100% chance of winning the dispute but bitcoin traders will struggle fighting a charge back. For this reason, PayPal is only recommended if an extremely trusted person is paying for the bitcoins.

Escrow can offer no protection when paying by PayPal.

“Sticking my 2 useless cents” is far better than a criminal like you looking for opportunities to defraud people of their coins. You should grow up and find a decent paying job, instead of feeding yourself with food paid for with stolen coins.

But of course one can’t expect incorrigible criminals to earn honorably and honestly. Especially habitual scammers like you who offer to build shady exchanges overnight and sell them to unsuspecting buyers sans escrow protection!

You should modify your thread and add information about the escrow arrangements. There are several highly trusted and reputable escrow providers on this site who can hold coins while trades are completed.

The idea is for people here to feel protected when dealing with you, especially because you have a rather new account. A trusted escrow can reassure sellers that they have your bitcoins in hand. Sellers from anywhere in the US can then overnight their stuff to you, you then appraise it and instruct escrow to release a certain amount of bitcoins to the seller.

Offering escrow protection will encourage reluctant sellers to come forward and offer something to sell.

You forgot the golden word: COLLATERAL.

Without it, you can't borrow even 1/100th of a bitcoin here. It's the rule of the year and is the reason why most accounts who ignore it are given a splash of red paint. You should quickly clarify the issue of collateral and explain what you will provide if you want to avoid being tagged by a DT member. An account tainted red is not a nice one to keep unless you manage to have the red paint removed. It might take much more than paint thinner to get that done.

Investing is lending and can also be seen as gambling. Investors are enticed to put their money in something and hope for an ROI. Gambling follows the same definition. So does lending which is why collateral is mandatory for bitcoins loans.

If you cannot provide collateral, this thread will end badly. There will be no happy ending. Count on it.

Your 2013 work experience on your Bitcointalk CV is usually overlooked when measuring credibility and integrity. I suggest you trade continuously and earn trust ratings as you do it. Increasing your trust count will encourage others to put their confidence in you and choose to accept high-risk payment methods from you.

The problem is PayPal's reversibility and disputability up to 180 days. I know I sound like a broken radio by posting this again and again but if it will help others realize bitcoin's and PayPal's incompatibility, then I don't mind being that broken radio.

I strongly suggest that you try to trade even smaller amounts and get as many green ratings as you can. The trust system is this community's way of looking at one's financial CV. Trading and gaining green trust consistently is the solution to the PayPal dilemma of some traders here. 2017 was a year of so many scams which is why trust is now a precious commodity. If you don't have it, you will find it hard to trade with others. Not even escrow can help.

You can't use a ponzi hyip account as collateral. It's not a valid form of loan security.

If the ponzi and btctalk accounts are all you have to offer, then I don't think you will get a loan from anyone here.

It's almost tomorrow so just wait for that cheque. Ripple will still be around by the time you cash out that cheque. It's the one and only reasonable thing to do, considering the circumstances.

This is the "increments" scam, a variation of the full blown scam itself. The scammer usually tried to extract the maximum or entire coins from you first. If you refuse or hesitate, the scammer will quickly try to save the day by asking for a deposit instead. Small talk and rapport building are then used to try to rebuild and win the victim's confidence and when the time is right, he will go for the kill by asking for 50% or more upfront. By this time, the victim will have been pressure-cooked into doing it. Something like a hypnotized state of mind. After sending coins, the scammer disappears and that's the last you hear from him.

Never ever transact with strangers without escrow. Coins paid upfront are coins forever lost. This is the basic and core rule of Online Transactions 101. Never let a user's rank affect and influence your decision to pay first or to use escrow. Scammers have learned to farm and buy well-aged accounts and use them to portray themselves as established and trusted members.

I just sent him a PM and asked that he defend himself on this thread. If he doesn't, then a DT member should please tag the account to give him a 0.054 btc lesson to remember.

Unfortunately these decisions they make are almost always not eligible for appeal. The after careful consideration phrase usually implies they did a serious analysis of your fiat and crypto transactions and decided there is something they don't agree with. Perhaps excessive inward and outward movements which might suggest structured transactions. A structured transaction is a suspicious series of transfers which a bank (in this case Bitstamp) suspects might be related to money laundering.

As you can see, they asked a lot of questions. These are usually questions asked when money laundering or an AML policy violation is suspected.

If you suspect this was an unfair decision, you can escalate the matter by writing to the Luxembourg financial regulatory authorities or the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier. The website is http://www.cssf.lu/en/

I suggest you continue trying to contact Bitstamp first and let them know that you will advance the matter to the CSSF if they do not allow you access to your funds. Try contacting them on their Facebook and Twitter pages. You should also PM their representative here and inform them about your intention to escalate the matter to the CSSF for arbitration or clarification.

If they have a solid case against you (for example, if there is indeed a strong suspicion of money laundering after they carefully studied your account's fiat movements) then they have a right and even an obligation to close and sanction your account (which is what the account closure is). The money you have on that account, if any, must be explained. Will they return it or not? If they are not returning it, then it's probably because they suspect your account was used to commit money laundering.

Exchanges will also close accounts if assets within that account are, after considering a balance of probabilities, difficult to ascertain as truly yours and yours alone. When money laundering is suspected, they usually consider the possibility of third parties being the true owners of some or all of the funds. 

Bitstamp is not a scam exchange. They have proper audit and accountability systems in place.

Thanks for that. Noted and will point to that updated link in the future.

If You have absolutely no idea how or what the password is composed of, it will be extremely difficult to decrypt it. It’s time-consuming and hard enough to brute force wallet files despite knowing certain letters, numbers and symbols, the way they are positioned and transposed, how much more if the password is unknown?

Hypnosis might help you remember the password. It’s not something I totally believe in but I have a friend who swears it works.

If the wallet contains a lot of coins, then you might want to focus your time and effort in attempting to remember the password’s structure and content. At the same time, it is also important to be realistic and to expect failure in decrypting the wallet. While aiming for a successful decryption is a good goal, holding on to well-balanced expectations is a healthier option.

Good luck! You will need it.

Don't blame Coinbase exclusively. There is a small chance of your bank being the culprit. Some banks see the money is coming from a cryptocurrency exchange or from a correspondent bank which has flagged the transaction as high risk. Your bank will then refuse to credit your account with those inward funds. What they then do is hold the funds in a suspense account while they do internal check on the source of funds or even a discreet AML investigation. They won't tell you about it. It's all behind the scenes and the purpose of the non-disclosure is to prevent you from doing something that might materially affect the outcome of their investigation. Now this is one situation to consider if you definitely see a "settled" transaction descriptor on your Coinbase account.

It's either your bank or Coinbase. Nothing in between. So you can narrow down the blame to both. If it's not your bank, then Coinbase might have marked the transaction as settled but has still not executed the transfer. Some payment processors execute wires in time (or even day) specific batches for cost reasons. Now you mentioned 12th December so you can conclusively exclude this assumption.

Try contacting your bank and ask if they can check for inward wires on your account. If they can't help, then you will need to wait for Coinbase to address and resolve the issue.

Two ways to stop scammers on their tracks are 1) use a reputable escrow for all transactions, be they high or low value, and 2) use irreversible and recall-proof payment methods.

Another important advisory is to never fall for the increments scam. This is a scammer's plan B when plan A (pay the full amount upfront) doesn't work. The way this works is the scammer asks for a deposit and to make the deal tempting, the victim is enticed or convinced to pay some coins first and the rest of the coins later. There is no later. As soon as the deposit or increment is paid, the scammer disappears and is never to be heard of again.

Case in hand, there are scammers who "sell" phones and laptops and wait for victims to bite the bait. When pm'd they will ask for payment upfront. If the victims resists and refuses to pay, the increments scam is used to try to extract a deposit.

To frustrate scammers, I recommend using a trusted escrow and to insist on using one for the full amount and not just for part of the price of whatever is being sold. If the seller is legit, he will agree and will work with the escrow and buyer to quickly conclude the transaction. To check and detect if the seller or buyer is a scammer, offer to use escrow when transacting with anyone. If this is refused, you have your first major red flag. Proceed with caution.

Yes, why would anyone trust you? If you were on this list:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=855778.0

then I wouldn’t mind letting you act as middle man and collateral custodian.

Trust is a contentious and sensitive element of crypto transactions. Far more trusted members here struggle to win the trust and confidence of traders. Why would they choose your escrow and broker service instead?

To win the trust of the community, you must have had a history of contributing positively and constructively on this forum. An impeccable trust rating, an unblemished reputation, verifiable references and flawless credibility all count and qualify one to act as escrow.

Fly by night services created overnight are seen as dodgy. Shady.

Very nice stones. I had plans to buy a cushion cut diamond (half ct with good clarity) and I actually almost bought one when I was in Europe last year. The idea was to set it on a plat men's ring, preferably similar to the Niessing tension ring style. However I decided not to move forward after I realized jewellers in Thailand might not know how to create customized tension rings.

I would be very interested but will need to first check how the local Customs duties component will affect the overall price of the stone. I'm not a fan of paying wildly overpriced duties. This happened when I imported a motorcycle a few years ago so I'm a bit wary and cautious.

How do you ship the stones?

Buying exchange software without the proper operational and technical know-how is akin to playing with fire. Software can be modified to allow a seller to install some form of backdoor access or even allow control of the software system from a remote location without the buyer's authorization.

Engaging any kind of third party service to develop and install a business's security system (and businesses accepting bitcoin will almost always incorporate such a system) requires one to do extensive due diligence and trust checks on such a service.

It's hard to trust anyone these days. Just visit the scam section and it never sleeps. It's an endless cycle of scam accusations, mostly unresolved.

OP, you would be better off engaging or hiring a vetted and trusted website developer. Be careful of offers here where you are required to pay upfront. This is where the "increments" scam also sees huge potential for success. It will usually involve an offer to develop and customize your business website or perhaps sell crypto merchant software. The initial attempt will be pay the full service fee upfront. If that doesn't work, you will be asked to pay a deposit upfront. The deposit is the incremental payment. When paid, it's the last you will hear from the scammer. Don't fall for this trap.

Rent bitcoin? I never heard of such a thing. Or do you mean borrow BTC?

I doubt it would be possible to borrow or rent $15K worth of bitcoins without providing valid collateral to whoever offers such a service. That's an awfully large amount of money to lend someone. And I'm sure an exchange such as Poloniex will take extensive precautions before letting anyone borrow from them. Withdrawing your own coins and funds from their platform is already a challenging thing to do, how much more if you were to borrow or rent 1 BTC?

Or are they offering some kind of internal loan system for users to hedge? I can imagine there might be some kind of system where someone can actually loan a coin or two which they can then trade or hedge internally within that system (but external withdrawals are blocked). Not sure if this is a Poloniex feature and if it is, I'm sure it will come with strings attached. Long strings.