Newbie Exchange/Speculating questions

[FractalEyes]

I'm new to BTC, and I've been doing a fair bit of research. I have gathered some great starting points from different sources including here. I am thinking of daytrading on an exchange. This leaves me with a few questions, and while I have found answers, I'd like to probe the BTCtalk forum as it seems alot of you have good experience.

Which exchange do you prefer and why?

How quickly do orders process the major exchanges?

How much BTC and USD would you consider safe to keep in the exchange for the day?

When you cash out, which method do you use? (How do you get you USD or BTC back to a completely safe place, how long does it take, what are the averge fees?)

If you could contribute any experience you have with wait times in general, please do!

[mjc]

MT Gox does the largest volume but it is by no means the only place to trade.

Cash out can happen from MT Gox and other exchanges.  I have found coinbase to be an easy cash out point.

With the large swings in the market right now day trading might be good.  In the recent past buy and hold worked.

I don;t day trade, but that's my input to your questions.

Good luck and welcome to the community.

[NO2squik]

Welcome to the world of BTC. I hope you're acclimating well. I suppose I can answer a question or two (I'm a newbie on the forum, but not a newbie to btc).

Which exchange? I've been with MtGox since June 2011 (around the time of the crash). That exchange moves fast enough and there is enough volume (amount of btc being exchanged) that I don't have to worry about lag. Now this past week has been extra laggy, and the site has had problems, but I think it has righted itself.

There are other exchanges, but I can't exactly give a good description of the exchange speed on those. I can say, though, that MtGox generally gives me an instant exchange as long as I exchange at the current price.

How much? I keep most of my bitcoins on my computer, and keep a few in my MtGox account for exchanging. My fiat stays on the website since it's not easy to get it off. I actually haven't cashed out yet, but when I do, I think I'll go with the Dwolla approach. I have to get my account verified though since I don't remember that being a requirement back in 2011. Another option I've heard about is to transfer a bitcoin coupon to Bitinstant, and withdraw to Paypal. I don't know the validity of that, and I'd like to see some positive reviews for them.

[agentbluescreen]

Mt Gox is the main Bitcoin "Future Securitized Derivative Contract" wholesaler for most major currencies. You will generally only find wholesale (lowest buy cost) large volume prices for Bitcoin Future Derivative Contracts on that Reserve Bankstering Exchange.

Local dishonest, and risky "Reserve Bankstering Exchanges" (in your own country) trade out of commingled reserve pools of Bitcoins that they buy in bulk and mark up before sale to their local clients. This means they will easily go bankrupt in a crash since they keep everything in "their" BTC pool, unless/until extra large withdrawals occur. Otherwise they pay-out small withdrawals out of new deposits before risking the surplus of them on more backroom Bitcoin for them to play with behind clients backs. If you can figure out a way to buy BTC on Mt Gox and sell it on local Reserve Bankstering Exchanges, you got a steady spread of income, regardless of the price

An honest local "Live Trading Exchange" will keep both your funds and BTC totally segregated from their own at all times and at all stages and is much lower risk but they may still use a marked-up reserve pool of BTC of their own to conduct client trading upon, again making buying more expensive but selling better than Mt Gox prices. Technically even a totally honest and above-board exchange is at catastrophic risk of (asset) ruin from a crash, but at least they could return client cash-funds and BTC (not in Escrow) that are not theirs, afterward.

Mt Gox appears to have had problems of it's own this last week and I do not know into which group to class them as far as commingled client funds risk goes, but it's also a lot harder and more costly to arrange to get cash into them (hence, the mark-ups?). Also being the Mother of all exchanges they have no choice but to be the main "reserve", nor way to avoid "bankstering".

More about "commingling" here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=177252.msg1845510#msg1845510 (Mt Gox and other withdrawal Issues)

More about "stability, fiat, derivatives, labour-exchange currency, pyramids and speculation" here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175708.msg1832923#msg1832923 (price stability vs bubbles)

[FractalEyes]

Thanks

[agentbluescreen]

Thanks

the good news is that the soon-ness and the suddenness of the BTC value's radically self-destructive volatile rise an fall (2 day event) is probably what saved most exchanges from outright bankruptcy, as thy had only refilled their pools with devastatingly costlier newly deflated BTC perhaps once or perhaps only by half.

It seems the Fed Gold Pharaohs, flush with their Quantitative Counterfeit, may now be planning to become BTC Pharaohs and wanted to do a little "Stress Testing".