Hi guys

At first glance this may seem a topic that has been discussed ad nauseum, but bear with me.

I am a financial journalist and recently learned of BitCoin. I was surprised that I hadn't come across it before as I have been a Linux user for many years and talk of BitCoin is rife on user boards - which then made me realise how little community engagement I've been doing…

Having now done some research on the currency I am working on a story about it for a leading financial publication I write for. I thought it would be best if I wrote the article from the perspective of someone who is actively trading in BitCoin.

The problem is that it is impossible to get going. Mining coins now seems to be a waste of time unless you have your own data-centre. I live in a country where sending cash or checks (cheques) to the USA would be impossible or more difficult than it would be worth.

Services that used to accept PayPal for BitCoin have shut down and the community of traders online won't sell currency to anyone who isn't in their circle of trust - and getting into that increasingly closed circle is difficult if PayPal is all you have to offer.

The only viable option seems to be meeting someone in person and paying them cash, but in my country there are very few traders and no one in my city.

So my question is - how should I get started? I have no goods or services to sell for BitCoin, no way to buy BitCoin except PayPal - and I fully understand and agree with the community's reasons for not wanting to use PayPal. I also do not own my own data centre to mine with

Any suggestions would be welcome. But for an "open" currency system, this is all very closed at the moment…