BTC ATMs vs. Exchanges vs. localbitcoins.com -- USA Discussion

[OROBTC]

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Buying Bitcoin for me has always been a lot harder to buy than it "should have been".  I live in a big US city, so one would think that it would be easy...

Currently I buy BTC from a BTC ATM and once in a while from buy.bitcoin.com.  The BTC ATM ("BTM") charges around a 13.5% fee while buy.bitcoin.com charges around 7.5%.  (For a short-time I bought from Circle, who offered very low fees, that I liked)

I did a few transactions w/ localbitcoins.com, but it was hard to set up meetings.  localbitcoins does offer the possibility of being able to buy anonymously, at least in theory.

buy.bitcoin.com at first was hard to work with, but has gotten smoother more recently.  That 6% lower fee makes it worth it when working right.

The BTM asks for my cell number for 2FA (and a way to ID customers).


What works best for you all?  And tell us why.

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[szpalata]

I prefer the exchanges over the other options because they allow me the convenience of being at home and using my debit card. I have used paxful in the past and coinbase recently and I think they are cool. Bitcoin ATM's are not common over here so and I haven't used localbitcoins before.

[davis196]

I have bought bitcoins 2 years ago using Coinbase and this is the first and only time i bought bitcoins.
I had to wait for 2 weeks and later i had some other issues with my Coinbase account.
Last year i bought bitcoins using Virwox and the fees were insane.
I refuse to buy bitcoins online or offline anymore.

[requester]

ATM sounds good but we cant afford to move to to physical machine to get out money, and exchange are the  best place because we can get bitcoin anytime anywhere but the problem is scam

[Red-Apple]

i always thought Coinbase is the best/easiest way for Americans to buy bitcoin. have you tried it yet?

What works best for you all?  And tell us why.

i have always bought from either btc-e or local exchanges with local currency. and at some point i never needed to deposit money again since  most of the time i am selling bitcoin and then buying back again and withdraw more bitcoin in the end.