What exchange to do trading?

[viking02]

I have US bank accounts.  I already have account at coinbase but never used it.  I believe im verified at coinbase.  I also have an account at circle but it no longer offers buy or sell bitcoin there.  But those sites are to basically buy or sell bitcoins.  I can get bitcoin from gambling sites because certain sites use bitcoin as a deposit/withdraw method.



1.  I would like to acquire Ethereum but im not sure how i would go about this.  Is shapeshift.co a reputable site?  Does anyone know how much fees you have to pay?  Such as if i want to convert $2000 worth of btc for Ethereum, how much ETH would i get?  Would i pay like 1 or 2 percent fee?   I would like to do some trading.  Such as buy btc and ETH and then sell when the price goes up etc.  Such as if i get btc and eth at a certain price, let say it goes up 25 dollars, i would then sell all of them for profit.  Of course this plan is not good in the sense that it could drop and take a long time to go back up or just don't go back up etc.  I would obviously do this with smaller amounts.


2.  Does anyone have any advice on which site i can do this?  I would like to use an exchange Americans use.  Example let say btc is around $2000.  I buy 2 bitcoin.  So i buy $4000 worth of Btc.  ETH is $250.  I buy 20 of them. Thus i have $5000 worth of ETH.  Then say btc goes up 50 dollars.  I then get rid of those 2 btc and sell it for $4100.  Well that would be $100 profit.  However, how much fees would i be paying to buy the $4000 worth of btc?  Would it be percentage or would it be a flat rate?  


With ETH, same question.  Let say it goes up 50 dollars.  I want to get rid of those 20 ETH.  Well i should profit around $1000 here.  But how much in fees would it cost me to first buy the $5000 worth of ETH and how much in fees would it cost me to sell the $6000 worth of ETH?



3.  How would i fund money in the exchanges?  I have usa bank account such as bank of america.  Im assuming you either have to do a bank wire to the exchange before you can start trading?  I heard of 2 trading exchanges. One is kraken and the other is bittrex.  Are these the 2 most popular US bitcoin trading exchanges?  So im assuming say i want to buy around $4000 in bitcoin and $5000 in ethereum.  i would have to do a bank wire transfer from my bank of america to that exchange?  How long does that take?  Im guessing a few days?  Are there any other methods that i can fund the account that might take faster?  Also curious what is the fee usually?   Is it only the bank wire fee from your bank?  Or its that and the receiving fee from the exchange?


Im assuming once i have funds in the exchange, then i can start trading.  So for example, let say i want to buy 2 bitcoin at $2000 each.  So i have to make a purchase order to buy 2 bitcoin at $2000 each.  Then when i do this, i assume the $4000 + fee is automatically deducted from my account?  So basically the exchange would show what is the selling price of bitcoin right?  I mean who would i be buying the bitcoin from since theres ton of sellers?  I assume the exchange basically puts the lowest buy and sell price right?  Thus if one guy is selling btc at 2000 dollars... another guy is selling it at 2010, then the 2000 dollars is what shows up right?  My other question is how would i know how much bitcoin i could buy at the 2000 dollar price?  Does it show it right there etc?  Im also curious but if the buying price of btc is $2000, what would be the selling price of btc be?  I know the selling price has to be higher than the buying price.  


The same thing with Ethereum.  If i wanted to buy 20 ETH at $250 each, its $5000.  How much in total fees will i have to pay?  I heard something like 0.25 percent.  So if thats the case, that mean a total of $12.50 fee so $5012.50 would be deducted from my account?  But how long would it take for me to receive the ETH once i make payment?  Also what confuses me is how does this process occur?  When i buy 20 ETH at $250 each on the exchange, does the seller of the ETH get his account credited and then gets told to send the ETH?  Or would their ETH be already in their account?  Thus the ETH was already sent to the exchange?  I guess its easier for me to ask this with bitcoin.  Such that if i want to sell btc on an exchange, i assume i have to send the btc to the exchange, then they send payment to my account?  Again how long would that take?



4.  In these exchanges, how long does it take to get the money to your us bank account?  What methods are there to cashout to your american bank account?  is it only bank wire?  Or is there ACH?  What are the fees and is it a flat fee or a percentage?  Also how long does it take?



5.  Are any trades done on any of these exchanges reported to the IRS?  I know with bitcoin, you have to report gains as capital gains etc.  But the way i do things, i usually get bitcoin but then sell it to someone online for bank deposit or transfer.  These are ppl i have contact with etc.  So i know these aren't reported to the IRS but its still a bank transfer i receive so i calculate it later myself.  I ask about this because i want to know if i would receive a 1099 or anything like this from these exchanges.  Im pretty sure you do what i want to be sure.  But if you only do say a few hundred dollar in trades, do you receive one?  Example if you buy $300 worth of btc and sell it for $350.  You profited $50.  But will you receive a 1099 on this from the exchange?  My thinking is if you do, well then you dont really have to calculate gains or losses since that exchange does it for you so its much less work for you.  But of course i know there are definitely ppl that doesn't want 1099 from exchanges etc.  Someone a while back told me coinbase reports to the IRS and sends 1099 but only if you do something like at least XX amount of transactions and those transactions total at least $XX,XXX.  First off, is that true or not?  Also the guy i spoke to a while back on this told me that coinbase send him some ridiculous 1099 where it showed income of something like 6 figures when it was probably like 10k profit or so.  He said coinbase just reported every transfer to and from coinbase as income or something ridiculous like this and he said he had to contact his accountant about this and coinbase because that number was wrong etc.


With banks, i get a 1099 as long as i have $10 in interest.  So i like to know about these exchanges before i do this.  

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[viking02]

6.  The only way to really trade... meaning buy bitcoin and then sell is really use an exchange right?  The thing is i could acquire btc and then sell btc later on to people i know for bank deposit or bank transfer from a few contacts of mine.  But if they dont need btc, well its hard for me to sell unless i use coinbase or something similar.  But are there any traders of btc who do this with out an exchange?  The only other way i could of would be localbitcoin.  But wouldnt using that be less efficient as oppose to an exchange?  Thus you have to contact that guy and then do the order?  


7.  Is the price you sell bitcoin on an exchange typically higher/lower or on par with selling it to a site like coinbase?  What about selling it to someone else or say on local bitcoin?  Because right now it seems like bitcoin is actually worth a bit more than cash since the demand is higher?  For example if you are selling $1000 worth of btc, wouldn't people be willing to offer maybe $1030 or more per bitcoin?  


8.  If you sell btc on localbitcoins, are you getting more than you sell?  Example if i want to sell $1000 worth of btc on lbc, would i be getting more or less than $1000 cash deposit/bank wire etc?  If i buy on localbitcoins, am i paying a premium for bitcoin?  This is all assuming payment is cash deposit in bank or bank wire and not any of those gift cards or those other things etc.



I know my post is very long but i appreciate if anyone can answer my question.  I really am thinking about trading.  I have never traded ever.  Thus never did any stock trading or anything like that as i never even opened an account.  The main thing i know is the idea of buy low and sell high.  I really want to trade but just overwhelmed and not sure where to start and thats holding me back.


Thanks.

[viking02]

Thanks all.

[Wind_FURY]

I believe the best exchange for you would be Kraken. They accept USD wire transfers and you could buy Ethereum directly with US dollars, so there is no need to convert to Bitcoin.

For your concerns about the IRS, it would be good for you to talk to a accountant first before committing money for trading cryptocurrencies.

All your other concerns as far as rates go are all available online.

[pooya87]

(you really need to work on your way of asking questions, it is way too long!)
1. shapeshift is reputable but you can't buy with fiat. it is crypto to crypto exchange. for fees just check the website!

2. i don't quite understand what you thought process on this is! you are making a lot of calculation errors and making assumptions that bitcoin price is lower when you buy ($800 lower) but ETH price is much higher (about $80) when you buy that doesn't make any sense.
and for the fees again you have to check the exchange fee page to know how much they are. trading fees are using 0.15% to 0.25%

3. bittrex doesn't accept fiat deposits they don't even have any market for it. you should use Kraken. or coinbase.
and it is none of my business but i wouldn't invest that much money in ethereum at this point unless you are ready to lose a big chunk of it.

4. i haven't really used any of these to know. but most of the time it is not more than a couple of days and also what takes long is the verification process where you submit your documents and they verify your accounts.

5. as far as taxes go, you have to report it yourself. i don't think the exchanges do report any activities but they may because they are in US and follow the AML, KYC rules. also consult a professional about this not random people on the internet.

6. you either go on a centralized platform like exchanges to trade or do it peer 2 peer. something like localbitcoins for example.

7. the price differences have many different reasons, mostly because in one place there aren't enough sells for example then price goes higher because of increasing demand or usually because the fiat deposits are costlier in one place so people don't deposit money that much there. but in the end they will all get balanced.

8. yes because localbitcoins sellers usually use other methods and since it is a more private kind of trading the prices are usually higher.

[BitAvrillis]

I use kraken.com ,with the sepa-method I get money from my bank account on my krakenaccount, then I can trade with it. If I wanna swap the exchanges you just need to send the coins there

[cafucafucafu]

I have US bank accounts.  I already have account at coinbase but never used it.  I believe im verified at coinbase.  I also have an account at circle but it no longer offers buy or sell bitcoin there.  But those sites are to basically buy or sell bitcoins.  I can get bitcoin from gambling sites because certain sites use bitcoin as a deposit/withdraw method.



1.  I would like to acquire Ethereum but im not sure how i would go about this.  Is shapeshift.co a reputable site?  Does anyone know how much fees you have to pay?  Such as if i want to convert $2000 worth of btc for Ethereum, how much ETH would i get?  Would i pay like 1 or 2 percent fee?   I would like to do some trading.  Such as buy btc and ETH and then sell when the price goes up etc.  Such as if i get btc and eth at a certain price, let say it goes up 25 dollars, i would then sell all of them for profit.  Of course this plan is not good in the sense that it could drop and take a long time to go back up or just don't go back up etc.  I would obviously do this with smaller amounts.


2.  Does anyone have any advice on which site i can do this?  I would like to use an exchange Americans use.  Example let say btc is around $2000.  I buy 2 bitcoin.  So i buy $4000 worth of Btc.  ETH is $250.  I buy 20 of them. Thus i have $5000 worth of ETH.  Then say btc goes up 50 dollars.  I then get rid of those 2 btc and sell it for $4100.  Well that would be $100 profit.  However, how much fees would i be paying to buy the $4000 worth of btc?  Would it be percentage or would it be a flat rate?  


With ETH, same question.  Let say it goes up 50 dollars.  I want to get rid of those 20 ETH.  Well i should profit around $1000 here.  But how much in fees would it cost me to first buy the $5000 worth of ETH and how much in fees would it cost me to sell the $6000 worth of ETH?



3.  How would i fund money in the exchanges?  I have usa bank account such as bank of america.  Im assuming you either have to do a bank wire to the exchange before you can start trading?  I heard of 2 trading exchanges. One is kraken and the other is bittrex.  Are these the 2 most popular US bitcoin trading exchanges?  So im assuming say i want to buy around $4000 in bitcoin and $5000 in ethereum.  i would have to do a bank wire transfer from my bank of america to that exchange?  How long does that take?  Im guessing a few days?  Are there any other methods that i can fund the account that might take faster?  Also curious what is the fee usually?   Is it only the bank wire fee from your bank?  Or its that and the receiving fee from the exchange?


Im assuming once i have funds in the exchange, then i can start trading.  So for example, let say i want to buy 2 bitcoin at $2000 each.  So i have to make a purchase order to buy 2 bitcoin at $2000 each.  Then when i do this, i assume the $4000 + fee is automatically deducted from my account?  So basically the exchange would show what is the selling price of bitcoin right?  I mean who would i be buying the bitcoin from since theres ton of sellers?  I assume the exchange basically puts the lowest buy and sell price right?  Thus if one guy is selling btc at 2000 dollars... another guy is selling it at 2010, then the 2000 dollars is what shows up right?  My other question is how would i know how much bitcoin i could buy at the 2000 dollar price?  Does it show it right there etc?  Im also curious but if the buying price of btc is $2000, what would be the selling price of btc be?  I know the selling price has to be higher than the buying price.  


The same thing with Ethereum.  If i wanted to buy 20 ETH at $250 each, its $5000.  How much in total fees will i have to pay?  I heard something like 0.25 percent.  So if thats the case, that mean a total of $12.50 fee so $5012.50 would be deducted from my account?  But how long would it take for me to receive the ETH once i make payment?  Also what confuses me is how does this process occur?  When i buy 20 ETH at $250 each on the exchange, does the seller of the ETH get his account credited and then gets told to send the ETH?  Or would their ETH be already in their account?  Thus the ETH was already sent to the exchange?  I guess its easier for me to ask this with bitcoin.  Such that if i want to sell btc on an exchange, i assume i have to send the btc to the exchange, then they send payment to my account?  Again how long would that take?



4.  In these exchanges, how long does it take to get the money to your us bank account?  What methods are there to cashout to your american bank account?  is it only bank wire?  Or is there ACH?  What are the fees and is it a flat fee or a percentage?  Also how long does it take?



5.  Are any trades done on any of these exchanges reported to the IRS?  I know with bitcoin, you have to report gains as capital gains etc.  But the way i do things, i usually get bitcoin but then sell it to someone online for bank deposit or transfer.  These are ppl i have contact with etc.  So i know these aren't reported to the IRS but its still a bank transfer i receive so i calculate it later myself.  I ask about this because i want to know if i would receive a 1099 or anything like this from these exchanges.  Im pretty sure you do what i want to be sure.  But if you only do say a few hundred dollar in trades, do you receive one?  Example if you buy $300 worth of btc and sell it for $350.  You profited $50.  But will you receive a 1099 on this from the exchange?  My thinking is if you do, well then you dont really have to calculate gains or losses since that exchange does it for you so its much less work for you.  But of course i know there are definitely ppl that doesn't want 1099 from exchanges etc.  Someone a while back told me coinbase reports to the IRS and sends 1099 but only if you do something like at least XX amount of transactions and those transactions total at least $XX,XXX.  First off, is that true or not?  Also the guy i spoke to a while back on this told me that coinbase send him some ridiculous 1099 where it showed income of something like 6 figures when it was probably like 10k profit or so.  He said coinbase just reported every transfer to and from coinbase as income or something ridiculous like this and he said he had to contact his accountant about this and coinbase because that number was wrong etc.


With banks, i get a 1099 as long as i have $10 in interest.  So i like to know about these exchanges before i do this.  

Sounds like you already have a plan on what you're doing.

You just need to focus on a good entry and exit point. If you really want to invest in Ethereum, it's your choice. However I would at least diversify my portfolio into a mixture of Ethereum and Bitcoin because Ethereum is quite overpriced right now imho.

Shapeshift is a legit service, however they do not give you the best rates. Especially when you are buying $5000 at a time.

I'm pretty sure that certain exchanges like Kraken allow direct USD/ETH trading, maybe you can get better rates from that too. Changelly is another good alternative to shape shift.

[viking02]

If i trade 5k worth of btc for ETH, how much would i get about?