UK newbie looking for guidance

[coastalcoin]

Hi All

New to the forum so please go easy on me.
I've done a fair bit of reading and watching youtube vids etc, but the more I read the more confused I get.
So just looking for a recommendation for my situation.

Live in the UK and wish to purchase around £100 of Bitcoin/Litecoin to get me going
Do I download a 'hotwallet' to my android phone (Electrum?) - To save my Bitcoin/Litecoin
And then do I register with coinfloor - To Buy my Bitcoin/Litecoin

Finally I keep reading about fee's. Where do the Fee's come in?
Coinfloor states there are no Fee's...?? 

Am I on the right track?

Thanks for any help and recommendations.

[ikilledcobain]

Hi All

New to the forum so please go easy on me.
I've done a fair bit of reading and watching youtube vids etc, but the more I read the more confused I get.
So just looking for a recommendation for my situation.

Live in the UK and wish to purchase around £100 of Bitcoin/Litecoin to get me going
Do I download a 'hotwallet' to my android phone (Electrum?) - To save my Bitcoin/Litecoin
And then do I register with coinfloor - To Buy my Bitcoin/Litecoin

Finally I keep reading about fee's. Where do the Fee's come in?
Coinfloor states there are no Fee's...?? 

Am I on the right track?

Thanks for any help and recommendations.

I'll try to help as best I can.

I'm not familiar with Coinfloor, but it looks to be an exchange. While they may not be charging you transaction fees, it looks like you'd be losing about 3 pounds to buy the Btc. Not too bad, really. It looks to be a 3% fee. You might find better, but I don't have any recommendations.

You can hold your Btc in the exchange, but most people prefer to send it to their wallet - which is where things such as Electrum come in. I only tend to keep Btc in an exchange when I'm looking to buy/sell/ or trade.

Although they say, no fees, it's a bit of a misnomer. You can see their actual fees here: https://coinfloor.co.uk/fees

Some things are 'free' but there's always going to be fees for withdrawing/transferring.

Hope that helps some. 

[coastalcoin]

Hi ikilledcobain

Firstly I hope you didn't  big Nirvana fan

Thanks for your reply and it is definitely a start for me.
So if I've understood thier fees page correctly. I'm looking at losing £5 to deposit cash into the account and then a further £10 when withdrawing. Ie need to make some decent gains through trading to make it worthwhile.

So next question, are these fees pretty standard or do some sites have significantly lower fees. Also is transferring Bitcoin to a wallet classed as withdrawal?
Or is withdrawal purely for currency back to your bank account.

Thanks again

[ikilledcobain]

Hi ikilledcobain

Firstly I hope you didn't  big Nirvana fan

Thanks for your reply and it is definitely a start for me.
So if I've understood thier fees page correctly. I'm looking at losing £5 to deposit cash into the account and then a further £10 when withdrawing. Ie need to make some decent gains through trading to make it worthwhile.

So next question, are these fees pretty standard or do some sites have significantly lower fees. Also is transferring Bitcoin to a wallet classed as withdrawal?
Or is withdrawal purely for currency back to your bank account.

Thanks again

No problem.

Nah, I didn't actually - I think that was Courtney, lol.

Yeah, now that you mention it, those fees are pretty high - I didn't take a close look at them. Most places charge a percentage instead of a flat fee.

You might want to check out a few other places and look at their fee schedule. Here's another one for comparison: https://www.bitstamp.net/fee_schedule/

Generally speaking, yes, transferring to a wallet is considered a withdrawal.

There are other options for buying bitcoin with lower fees, but they can be a little riskier than sending to a verified business. Paxful.com is one such place where you can send Paypal or gift cards and get Bitcoin in return - if you go that route, though, I'd recommend finding someone with lots of feedback and that has a reasonable trade rate.

[UAdrian]

You should Invest some money in altcoins, also is not bad if you can put some money in bitcoin and you should wait for The market to go up and down and you sell/buy, also you can try mining but is not that profitabile anymore, but still you have those options
- investing
- ptc/ptp
- fauces
-! get a nice job in rlf!
- make blogs and advertise sites

[TheQuin]

Coinfloor is a new one on me as well. I spotted one problem, if you only want to buy £100, the minimum deposit is £1000.
To buy a small quantity like that you'll run into the same problems with minimum deposits and fees with all the exchanges. I suggest using localbitcoins.com where you can deal directly with a private individual. They provide an escrow service and check IDs etc. I've been using it for 3 years and never had a problem.

[gentlemand]

Coinfloor is long established and is pretty much the only UK exchange with any oomph.

There are two ways to buy on there, the exchange itself and the Coinfloor market which is P2P like Localbitcoins. The sellers are vetted by Coinfloor.

The Coinfloor exchange is zero fee, not the market. And the Coinfloor exchange has pretty high withdrawal and deposit fees.

This is most comprehensive list for buying BTC in the UK - http://bittybot.co/uk/buy-bitcoins-uk/

Wallets are your choice, but it's important to get one that gives you control over your Bitcoin network fees. The Bitcoin fees they impose on you are insanely high and out of whack at the moment. Coinomi offers fee control. Electrum does on PC, dunno about the phone version.

[tothetop]

I recommend blockchain.info wallet. This is the trusted company from Luxemburg.. And the wallet has simple standard interface..

Here you are also able to customize you fee when sending BTC..

Don`t be scared about stating extreme low fee, even when stating the red-colour size your transaction will be completed anyway, just wait for a while..

Cheers!

[coastalcoin]

Morning All

Thank you so much for your assistance.

Localbitcoins looks like a much more user friendly exchange than Coinfloor, so that is a great recommendation thanks.
The value of the Bitcoin from each seller on Localbitcoins varies and is generally higher than the value seen on CoinMarketCap website. Is that because each trader can set their own bitcoin value?
As in the stocks and shares market, these localbitcoin traders are essentially a Market Maker. They set the price based on buy/sell pressures. is that correct?

And I am finally understanding the Fee's. So once I have purchased some portion of a Bitcoin from whoever on Localbitcoins, I will then transfer that bitcoin portion to my 'Wallet'.
The fee I pay is to cover the 'miners' who assist with the electronic transfer of my bitcoin into the wallet. Hence the fee is variable depending on current blockchain traffic and the speed of which I want the transfer to take place. Is that a correct understanding?

Thanks again

[TheQuin]

Correct, the sellers are making the market. They usually have it set to update automatically at a certain offset from the exchange prices. You'll find if you look at different times of day the prices get better later on as there is more competition from sellers as they wake up.

You got the Bitcoin fees thing right as well. A couple of websites to look at to see if it's a good time to make a transfer or not:
http://bitcoinfees.21.co/
https://core.jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#2h

If you don't mind waiting you can usually get a low fee transaction through from your own wallet but when you send from an exchange or web wallet you often don't get a choice, they just send it as a priority transaction and pass the fee on to you.

[coastalcoin]

Correct, the sellers are making the market. They usually have it set to update automatically at a certain offset from the exchange prices. You'll find if you look at different times of day the prices get better later on as there is more competition from sellers as they wake up.

You got the Bitcoin fees thing right as well. A couple of websites to look at to see if it's a good time to make a transfer or not:
http://bitcoinfees.21.co/
https://core.jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#2h

If you don't mind waiting you can usually get a low fee transaction through from your own wallet but when you send from an exchange or web wallet you often don't get a choice, they just send it as a priority transaction and pass the fee on to you.

Thanks for the links, that shed's some more light on the matter.
It is certainly confusing trying to understand everything in one go, hence why I am starting out low.

Can I ask, whats stopping me from leaving my Bitcoin in the LocalBitCoin Wallet? Is it purely a convenience and safety measure to move it into a personal wallet?

Cheers

[TheQuin]

Can I ask, whats stopping me from leaving my Bitcoin in the LocalBitCoin Wallet? Is it purely a convenience and safety measure to move it into a personal wallet?

Cheers

Yes, the general rule of Bitcoin is if you don't own the private key you don't own the coin. I usually have a small amount in my localbitcoins wallet. The site has been around a long time, it's got 2FA etc. but it could still get hacked or whatever. With all online wallets, exchanges or whatever there is some risk, just don't store all your coins in the same place.

[tothetop]

Can I ask, whats stopping me from leaving my Bitcoin in the LocalBitCoin Wallet? Is it purely a convenience and safety measure to move it into a personal wallet?

Cheers

This actually depends on your plans for BTC you just bought.. If you plan to transfer your money to several places in the nearest future, you could do it directly from localbitcoins wallet avoiding extra fees which will occur if you will transfer via your personal wallet..

Keep in mind that they have a withdraval amount minimum, otherwise some of your residual BTC may finally stuck on the service until you buy more to reach the minimum limit.

Cheers..

[tothetop]

You got the Bitcoin fees thing right as well. A couple of websites to look at to see if it's a good time to make a transfer or not:
http://bitcoinfees.21.co/
https://core.jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#2h

This fact was new for me, it turns out I can choose the time when it's better to make a transaction..very good!

[Myfe]

Does Coinfloor pay you interest on your balance? If they're keeping the private keys they should compensate you for your risk.