Why is it so damn hard to get hold of Bitcoins?

[chickenado]

MtGox and Bitcoinmarket are frozen, Bitcoin Exchange only selling small amounts, the other traders accept Liberty Reserve, but getting hold of Liberty Reserve itself is tricky  - all the exchanges listed on their site bring up scam complaints on Web of Trust.  Then there's still cash in the mail, but that too is too risky for anything above $100.

It almost feels like someone doesn't WANT me to own Bitcoins.  

[S3052]

I agree.

Perhaps it is some bigger group / government bodies even..

Someone smart here in this forum ought to qwuickly come up with an idea to solve this issue.

where are all the experts?

[Beelzebuddy]

You don't need conspiracy theories here.

Like all real money - funny money conversions, scammers are everywhere, which makes the most convenient routes (eg paypal) steer well clear.

Also, this is the bitcoin community.  EVERYONE here wants bitcoins.  Not everyone wants to part with them, for any price.  Therefore, the local economy here will favor hoarding.  It'll take a concerted effort to shift people into parting with their BTC.

Also also, bitcoins are currently rising in value, at least according to mtgox.  This encourages further hoarding in hopes that BTC will rise more, which in turn does make BTC rise more.  This will continue until people start realizing that their tulip bulbs just aren't going to sell in any significant volume, and the price will crash.

Possible Solution

Forget buying with money.  What else could someone pay you BTC for?  Do you play any games that involve trading?  Do you have any skills to lend?  Post it to the bartertown thread, and look for other people you could sell things to.

[MoonShadow]

Also, this is the bitcoin community.  EVERYONE here wants bitcoins.  Not everyone wants to part with them, for any price.  Therefore, the local economy here will favor hoarding.  It'll take a concerted effort to shift people into parting with their BTC.

Hoarding and saving are the same thing.  It won't take any kind of 'concerted effort' to get those with mass volumes of Bitcoin to start spending when the time is right.  Bitcoins aren't mature yet, not really ready for mass consumption anyway.  This will change at some point in the next couple of years, after the price stablizes.  Which cannot happen while either the market is still in it's massive expansion, or with the inflation of Bitcoin over 10% APR.  I'd say sometime around 2012 bitcoin will either be a maturing technology, or it will become obvious that we've all been fools.

Also also, bitcoins are currently rising in value, at least according to mtgox.  This encourages further hoarding in hopes that BTC will rise more, which in turn does make BTC rise more.  This will continue until people start realizing that their tulip bulbs just aren't going to sell in any significant volume, and the price will crash.

There is no evidence that I've seen that Bitcoin is in a bubble.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

There is no evidence that I've seen that Bitcoin is in a bubble.

There may be a small bubble waiting somewhere, even the hard currencies as gold and silver sometimes get overpriced by speculation.

Lucky for us, bitcoin is even more deflationary than gold, silver or any bullion based currency, so it should be less suspective to price bubbles.

[Anonymous]

Bitcoin  Market appears to be doing well again. I recently sold 3000 coins there with no problem. I recommend them highly.

[FreeMoney]

Bitcoin  Market appears to be doing well again. I recently sold 3000 coins there with no problem. I recommend them highly.

New registration is not open. It has been suggested that it be opened, but PayPal buying blocked. That seems like a good idea to me, haven't heard from dwdollar about it though.

[pointbiz]

how does someone go about getting an invite to bitcoinmarket.com ?

[saqwe]

i understand bitcoinmarket for going back to invite-only, since the media attention, i guess the scammer-rate rose exponentially...

i sell invites for 0.01 if you have an ebay-history 10+ positive reviews

cheers,
jan

[Kevets]

I'm crazy enough to buy an invite.  What info do you need from me?  I'm +390 on eBay.

[saqwe]

I'm crazy enough to buy an invite.  What info do you need from me?  I'm +390 on eBay.

If you have a 10+ eBay-history I'll send you an invite to www.bitcoinmarket.com after you send me 0.01 BTC to
17BVkXsLp1c39KmLE6uTuhc1VoiooM3qMY
Its an invite-only website so send the identifier of your transaction to  jandermann22 @ eBay and the eMail-adress you'd like the invite to be sent to.

[Kevets]

Sent you 0.01BTC and a message via eBay.   Still waiting for transaction confirmation though.

[froggy]

I was going to recommend coinpal at http://coinpal.ndrix.com/ but I've just noticed that Paypal have shut them down.  I was lucky to have used them only about 2 or 3 weeks before the shutdown appears to have happened and got my bitcoins within an hour or so.  The difficulty in transferring dollars/pounds etc to Bitcoins is indeed something that is a bit concerning for the Bitcoin economy. 

[Garrett Burgwardt]

It's not hard at all. There are plenty of people on bitcoin-otc that will take checks (you can fax checks AFAIK), cash in the mail, wire transfer and Western union.

You can use credit cards with western union too, fwiw.