Greetings to the forum
I am noob on the bitcoin scene and trying to figure it out the last 15 days.
My motives to get involved are 1) short/long term investment 2) alternative way to accept payments for my small business.
Google led me to this great source of knowledge (bitcointalk) among many other sources that i find a bit outdated, so i spent many hours reading many threads without posting.
My small search firstly was to try to find out how the bitcoin network works and how i can use it.
My technical experience in algorithms is near to zero tryign to figure it out but soon i found out that is much easier to use it than to completely unrstand the whole mechanism behind a simple wallet and some quick transactions. So i downloaded my first wallets (Armory, multibit and mycelium) to test how they work and went through some faucets collecting some satoshi.
Then my first "problem" was to get a small amount of btc and get started the whole transaction cycle to get familiar before i invest larger amounts.
Soon i found out that Paypal exchange was almost impossible (after some days i found out that i can use escrow) and the only way was the slow sepa deposit on any trustworthy exchange.
I got ignored on localbitcoins trying to find exchange for cash or paypal but then i found out that i can get some with paysafecard.
As a total noob, I got scammed and lost a 50euro card on this site exchange-paysafecard.gr/paysafecardbitcoin and then i found out that i can get some btc for paypal through Virwox.
That worked fine even that the transaction went through after 48 hours and too many fees.
During the 48hour transaction i found out this forum and tried to read as many threads as possible.
First was faucets that i was already into and found out that even you invest your time going through capsta, games etc you dont always getting your satoshis.
Then tried to get into mining.
After some reading and in theory cause i never purchased any gear i found out that investing in mining gear and trying to ROI and profit with my country's electricity charges is almost impossible... (Maybe i am wrong on this cause i havnt tried it)
After this i looked into cloud mining that sounded like a better idea without the costs in power.
I found many cloud mining sites with nice prices but the more i read and trying to find the one i should invest the more confusing it gets.
Many people talking about the X site is scam, the Y site got hacked or the Z site is ponzi and stopped paying...
Still in search of a trust worthy cloud mining site that i could make ROI and dont worry if i lose all my investments.
After i got my first small amount of btc from virwox and moving it in my wallet i wanted to try exchanges to see how it works so i can buy more btc.
This part is more confusing for the same reason as cloud mining.
Hacking, ponzis and scam accusations making it more confusing for me as a noob so i guess experience and time only with help me conclude on this.
I opened accounts on Coinbase, Kraken, Bitstamp, Hitbtc and Bit-x. I made some transaction on all of the with my existing btc making a small profit (thankfully)
The variations among them are many. Fees, prices, volume, interface, verification and others are very different.
On the other hand still havnt made a full cycle (deposit-exchanges-withdrawal) in any of them to see by first hand which is best for me, but again the more feedback i read the more i am getting confused...
I am very excited that i am getting involved on the bitcoin world and trying to learn every day.
I believe that the potentials are great and cryptocurrency will be much more mainstream in the future.
I think it need to be more accessible to noobs like me and adopted from more sites/companies as alternate or even main payment method.
After this small experience of mine, today i read some posts about the "bitcoin death" or the possible split of bitcoin with bitcoin xt.
Not sure exaclty if i fully understand it on the technical side but some people think that it would be better and some people think would be worst for the future of bitcoin.
From a total noob's point of view tho it not good cause its makes people more skeptical and more difficult to invest in bitcoin.
This last added with the above i mentioned making me think maybe this is not a good timing for me to invest in bitcoin or wait or even not get involved at all.
Of course that my opinion and most possible i am wrong cause my lack on experience.
Sorry for the long post and for my bad English
Hope i get some help/suggestions on the cloud mining and exchanges sites i could use and also on my timing to enter the bitcoin scene.
Thank you
