Am I the only newbie just buying bitcoins?

[insomnicat]

Am I the only newbie right now JUST buying bitcoins and not jumping on the mining bandwagon?

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[NothinG]

If I didn't have computer knowledge as far as how setups work, I would probably be in your boat right now.
I'm a Stock freak.
Right now is a GREAT time to stock up on current BTC.

[KorJax]

Me. I'm not interested in mining. I have an nvidia GPU and mining will just get harder and harder as time goes on.

However I don't quite understand the trading fully. I hear it takes several days to get money into Mt. Gox to trade with due to the obscure middlemen they require, and the same goes for withdrawing.

However TradeHill.com seems good, but I don't know if it is worth it compaired to Mt. Gox considering the prices are currently lower on Gox versus Tradehill. And I don't know what the turnaround for them is. Not to mention, trade hill is a much much smaller market so I'm cautious to invest into something that'll take me a long time to buy and sell from due to scarcity. It's hard to tell when they aren't on the bitcoin market graph website and their website offers very little info on their actual trading numbers.

I just don't want to jump into signing up for all these services just to get money to trade with, only for it to take 5 days for everything to settle and me missing out on a good buying opportunity with cash stuck in my Mt. Gox account with no way of getting it out.

It's a shame no newbies here on the forum seem to be educated at all on the actual trading of Bitcoin since my thread and this one is the only one I've seen reguarding trading, and both have been completely ignored by countless threads on what hardware to buy.

[NothinG]

I'm waiting about another month to see how the market works out before I dip into stocks.
I've been watching this project for a year, but for some reason it just boomed.

[BobPanda]

Am I the only newbie right now JUST buying bitcoins and not jumping on the mining bandwagon?

i'm doing both, as i like the sound of fans in my room. 
no, but if you want to build up serious volume it's probably too late to start mining, only.
as i've said i'm doing both but in a relationship of 1:100 (mining/buying-selling).
.

[Economics]

Do you think the significant volume in Bitcoin Trading (e.g. at Mt. Gox) is just speculators or people really using it as a currency?

--E

[pipedr34]

Definitely not. Mining requires a pretty large up-front investment nowadays, both in time and money, and I can't afford it right now. Also, mining is getting increasingly difficult. I'm considering investing some of the bitcoins I bought in one of the companies listed on http://glbse.com.

[BobPanda]

Do you think the significant volume in Bitcoin Trading (e.g. at Mt. Gox) is just speculators or people really using it as a currency?

--E

imho most of the volume i held by speculators. some volume by people just want to own some coins. some others mining and not selling. some belivers. and of course some few that are buying or mining bitcoins to pay something with it different than euros or dollars.

[dinker]

you can buy & mine

[insomnicat]

@ NothinG That's funny that you mention that. I'm actually the opposite by waiting to see what difference the significant increase of miners will play on the market. If in 2 months it's still profitable because the prices of BTC follows or is better than the increase in difficulty I don't see that would be changing. I figure by that time I can sell my BTC and use the profit to buy my mining equipment. I can see your side of things too. I just found it amusing that we can have totally opposite trains of thought yet both be just as speculative. I'm an old day trader back before the .com bust and really this market gives me a lil bit of the adrenaline rush I got from day trading to the point of addiction.

@Economics It's totally a spectators market but that's what makes it so fun! There is just to few retailers out there allowing the use of bitcoins to believe the volume is due to people buying them to use them as currency

[joec0p]

If I  HAD the money, i would be buying. I don't, so there fore I mine. I will in the near future be trading goods for BTC. Once you have btc, you cant really buy more btc unless its gambled.

What is a typical balance to have for a newbie? I've got 0, but intend on having some in the future. I presume there are individuals with thousands? What do they do with them?

[NothinG]

I presume there are individuals with thousands? What do they do with them?

^ Yesh.

[passerby]

right now solo mining would require a remarkable set of equipment, and eat some serious electricity.

As for the market, well, the strong presence of speculators is both obvious and inevitable.

[btctrader22]

Am I the only newbie right now JUST buying bitcoins and not jumping on the mining bandwagon?

Started to read the wikis. Looks like buying bitcoins is not so easy.

[finkleshnorts]

both buying and mining (and for us noobs, the software) are total pains in the ass. I'm not interested in mining, but i can't even get my hands on decent windows wallet software. My university's firewall makes thin clients my only option. I actually just installed ubuntu with wubi, but there are some driver issues with my wireless card so i'm on the brink of "fuck it." I don't want to print out paper wallets and I don't want to use ewallets. If bitcoin is ever, ever going to take off, it needs to get its software streamlined asap. NOBODY wants to download some fucking block chain. And most people where I'm from don't want to mess with linux, command line, firewall ports, or pgp. When accessibility goes up, so will trading volume. And that makes everybody happy.

[finkleshnorts]

And I haven't even started trading.

[bitcoinsarefun]

Am I the only newbie right now JUST buying bitcoins and not jumping on the mining bandwagon?

No, I'm a newb and I'm buying bitcoins ... I don't have the gear to mine profitability right now though I am thinking in investing in some fpga in the future

[btctrader22]

both buying and mining (and for us noobs, the software) are total pains in the ass. I'm not interested in mining, but i can't even get my hands on decent windows wallet software. My university's firewall makes thin clients my only option. I actually just installed ubuntu with wubi, but there are some driver issues with my wireless card so i'm on the brink of "fuck it." I don't want to print out paper wallets and I don't want to use ewallets. If bitcoin is ever, ever going to take off, it needs to get its software streamlined asap. NOBODY wants to download some fucking block chain. And most people where I'm from don't want to mess with linux, command line, firewall ports, or pgp. When accessibility goes up, so will trading volume. And that makes everybody happy.

why isn't the standard bitcoin client not working for you ? it's pretty decent

[NothinG]

both buying and mining (and for us noobs, the software) are total pains in the ass. I'm not interested in mining, but i can't even get my hands on decent windows wallet software. My university's firewall makes thin clients my only option. I actually just installed ubuntu with wubi, but there are some driver issues with my wireless card so i'm on the brink of "fuck it." I don't want to print out paper wallets and I don't want to use ewallets. If bitcoin is ever, ever going to take off, it needs to get its software streamlined asap. NOBODY wants to download some fucking block chain. And most people where I'm from don't want to mess with linux, command line, firewall ports, or pgp. When accessibility goes up, so will trading volume. And that makes everybody happy.

why isn't the standard bitcoin client not working for you ? it's pretty decent

My university's firewall makes thin clients my only option.

Try setting up a client outside of the universality's firewall that you can connect to and you can use the outside one as a node to grab the blockchain.

[never2sleep]

I started mining first... but I'm more interested in offering bitcoin services than actually buying more bitcoins :p