What stops you from opening a local bitcoin exchange business?

[iam2good]

Because there is very security issues associated with that type of business.

[TheUltraElite]

This is not an easy job. Specially in countries where bitcoin is not that popular yet. You need invest some money in it in order to get the exchange ready and working, hire workers, pay electricity bills, renting bills and so on. If you cannot ROI that amount then you are the loser. It would be profitable only in those places where people use bitcoin in the same manner that they would use fiat, otherwise not.

[xuan87]

The first one will be the bitcoin popularity, in my place bitcoin is still not really famous, the second problem will be tax, when you do transaction in fiat with big number, the government will be suspicious and the last one is i believe if i opened a local exchanger i will be accused of money laundry

[carlerha]

The first one will be the bitcoin popularity, in my place bitcoin is still not really famous, the second problem will be tax, when you do transaction in fiat with big number, the government will be suspicious and the last one is i believe if i opened a local exchanger i will be accused of money laundry

despite the fact that bitcoin is still not so much popular in my area, and still very little people know about bitcoin still i am welling to open a local bitcoin exchange business, as our government has not yet declare bitcoin as illegal therefore i have the advantage to open a bitcoin exchange, through this way bitcoin will also be introduce to people and people will start taking interest in bitcoin.

[electronicash]

Besides the security issue of handling lots of money in public what's stopping people who are familiar with bitcoin from opening a 'local bitcoin guy' business charging 10-15% for changing cash into btc?  This would be the same service people list on Mycelium Local Trader and localbitcoin.com.

not having enough bitcoin i guess

Just thinking about meeting with someone i don't know can be a real threat, the thread could be to both parties. there was a thread here where a buyer was robbed upon meeting with a bitcoin seller.

[shield132]

If you want to make business you need money and in this situation huge amount of money. That is the main reason which stops me from opening a local bitcoin exchange business and also in my country most popular bank already has this service and people are using that but good opponent is always good to make service better in both side. I can't open bitcoin exchange business but I am offering people hosting in my country and now I don't have concurent in this job.

[Shenzou]

Few are the people who uses bitcoin so opening an exchange bitcoin business is risky, i would prefer to open a business that accepts bitcoin as a payment method rather than acutely exchanging plus it is a lot of money to handle

[dollarneed]

Besides the security issue of handling lots of money in public what's stopping people who are familiar with bitcoin from opening a 'local bitcoin guy' business charging 10-15% for changing cash into btc?  This would be the same service people list on Mycelium Local Trader and localbitcoin.com.

First of all there is a big competitor here, bitcoin exchanger with best service also there are some people open they service with lowest fee than that exchanger.
As for me there is no way to open your own service unless you have a unique or maybe offering lowest fee than their fee. On the other hand you must have big capital to start this business.

[BingoDog]

I live in a quite small community where just a few people uses Bitcoin. So there will not be a very large number of customers and for the people who are using Bitcoin is more convenient to use online exchangers. In my case opening local exchange wouldn't be very smart business idea.

[davis196]

Besides the security issue of handling lots of money in public what's stopping people who are familiar with bitcoin from opening a 'local bitcoin guy' business charging 10-15% for changing cash into btc?  This would be the same service people list on Mycelium Local Trader and localbitcoin.com.

The number one reason which stops me opening this business is the lack of customers.

I can`t figure out any other good reason.

We don`t need local btc businesses.I wanna build a global btc business.

[JeffBrad12]

Besides the security issue of handling lots of money in public what's stopping people who are familiar with bitcoin from opening a 'local bitcoin guy' business charging 10-15% for changing cash into btc?  This would be the same service people list on Mycelium Local Trader and localbitcoin.com.

A lot of problem, the security and especially about for opening the local exchange are not easy, a lot of people will saying a scam site without knowing about their credibility before. and i think for the operational are so high, but this just applied if you're wanna for opening a local exchange with using the workers.

[CASH_TO_CRYPTO]

I have thought about opening some sort of local bitcoin buy/sell site just like cashtocrypto and accept local payment gateway or local banks so issue regarding security of bitcoin may not become big issue for me as all process will be manual.

But i haven't opened that site till now because i still have some fear of getting investigated by government or getting my bank accounts/payment gateway accounts blocked which are linked to this site. There is no any clear explanation regarding bitcoin like cryptocurrency here in my country. However without site i am already doing buying and selling with good price margin, demand of bitcoin is quite higher right now here.

Hey everyone its Brandon from cashtocrypto.com here. Acquiring customers and dealing with money service business regulation is tough and combining the 2 makes it a very difficult business to run. Whether you are selling on Localbitcoins or have your own website you still face the same requirements as far as compliance goes. You need an attorney familiar with compliance for bitcoin trading companies. There are maybe 4-5 attorneys in the U.S. that have this skill set, and their hourly rates star at about $600 an hour. After you retain an attorney, you will be informed you need to create a bsa/aml policy and a risk assessment, which will cost thousands of dollars to get the right documents. Next comes monitoring all transactions and customers as well as filing suspicious activity reports if necessary. It looks easy on the surface but its definitely not. There are many factors of risk at play, and you have to consider how much risk you can handle.

In the near future, we will be taking on additional sellers at cashtocrypto.com. You will not have to worry about acquiring customers as we already have a large customer base. In addition, I will be available for consulting at an hourly rate (much cheaper than any of those $600/hr attorney). I`ll be able to teach you everything you need to know compliance and otc bitcoin trading to be extremely successful.

[rik3]

Besides the security issue of handling lots of money in public what's stopping people who are familiar with bitcoin from opening a 'local bitcoin guy' business charging 10-15% for changing cash into btc?  This would be the same service people list on Mycelium Local Trader and localbitcoin.com.

No I Don't Think that Anything is Stopping People From Opening a Local Bitcoins Exchange Business and Also Now Bitcoin is Also Telecast By a Popular News Channel Zee News and Now it is Possible to Explain About Bitcoin to People More Easily and Comfortablely and Also I Know That What Problem Arises Or Not and If  I Want to Open a Business Like this Then I Don't Care About the Problems,  I Only Focus On My Business.....

[eternalgloom]

For me personally, it's the investment that's stopping me from doing it. Sure, I could loan money from some people, but I would not feel safe going about it that way.
Plus I'm unsure of the legality and tax issues, seems too much work.

[xdrpx]

So far only large amount of investment in exchange platform web application and registration of the exchange is stopping me from setting it up. Also I don't feel so confident in running an exchange because could of years ago few exchanges have been raided by the Income Tax authorities and they're still under constant watch even though exchanging Bitcoins are legal. I think the sole purpose of the IT authorities doing so was to monitor if taxes are being paid in accordance to the laws.

[Doamader]

Bitcoin is being used for a small number of people, and i dont know how many does uses and know about bitcoin, sure providing an exchange service with my cellphone or computer would be great, but the risks to walk in the streets with money its huge. For me its about the costumers and the risk to walk with money.

[madwica]

if i have enough money to have business like that i do not hesitate to build that one since bitcoin has a good future to be great decentralized currency. I think there is no thing to stop me because that business also promote the bitcoin in my area and i think more people will start adopting bitcoin since there is exchange in our area.

[justdimin]

Besides the security issue of handling lots of money in public what's stopping people who are familiar with bitcoin from opening a 'local bitcoin guy' business charging 10-15% for changing cash into btc?  This would be the same service people list on Mycelium Local Trader and localbitcoin.com.

As in my own case, there are lots of people who do the local bitcoin exchange but they do not accept cash, instead they ask the buyers to deposit the money into their bank account while they send them the bitcoin. By doing so, the risk of facing high security issues is minimized to a greater extent for them. But for bitcoin seller, dealing with bank accounts has lot of complications may attract taxes as per my countries law.

[isen]

First of all I don't want to, besides that a Bitcoin exchange requires big capital which I don't own neither I am willing to loan.And last but not least, a business like this would be a complete failure in my region for the simple reason that there are not enough people who use Bitcoin here.

[pedrog]

Besides the security issue of handling lots of money in public what's stopping people who are familiar with bitcoin from opening a 'local bitcoin guy' business charging 10-15% for changing cash into btc?  This would be the same service people list on Mycelium Local Trader and localbitcoin.com.

There's no demand for such service, I don't open a "local bitcoin exchange" because there's no one to serve...