New to Bitcoins, having trouble getting them.

[dnbjunglist]

Hey everyone,

I'm sure there are about a thousand threads like the one I am about to forgo, but alas I simply do not have the patience to dig through pages and pages to try and locate one, so I will start my own. I'll think of it as a new, fresh beginning to an old, probably hijacked number of threads.

Anyhow, I am new to the bitcoin world, and I have done everything and searched everywhere I can to try and figure out one (should be) simple question:

How the heck do I get bitcoins?!

I have set up two accounts at bitcoin traders:

First I did VirWox as it sounded appropriate to use my paypal account and not have to link my actual bank account and have my information out there. So I verified my paypal account. Oh, I also have a bitcoin wallet that gives me my unique like 30 something long "address". So I have that. And it has acquired all of it's "blocks".

But, there was no option to send money from paypal to virwox and turn them into bitcoins to add to my wallet.

So I figure what the hell, let me try tradehill. So i set up my personal bank info to tradehill. Routing number, etc. Waited 2 days to verify. It did.

Same thing now. I have an empty bitcoin wallet, and a virwox and tradehill account both with $100 USD in them.


So, my question is, how the hell do I get my money out of these banks and turn them into bitcoins so I can join the rest of you in this new movmement?


Thanks so much in advance!

[gochk]

You can mine or you can buy. I am new to bitcoin too, so take this with a grain of salt.

Tradehill is a place to trade. I have never traded there before. Looks like trading is down at tradehill for a few days - https://www.tradehill.com/InstantBuy/

A few of these exchanges are down, probably due to MtGox.com (another trading place) was hacked a couple of weeks ago.

If you really just want a taste of bitcoin, you can try bitcoin faucet - http://freebitcoins.appspot.com/ ... sometimes (when funds are available), they will send you 0.001 bitcoin for FREE. So you can try out to see how bitcoin works ...

Hope that helps.

[binocle]

Hi,

If you have 100$ in your tradehill account, you just have to make a buy order.

You choose how much BTC you would like to buy, at what price, and if your buy order match a sell order, you get the BTC, the seller get your dollars… et voilà

[dnbjunglist]

Hi,

If you have 100$ in your tradehill account, you just have to make a buy order.

You choose how much BTC you would like to buy, at what price, and if your buy order match a sell order, you get the BTC, the seller get your dollars… et voilà

Ok, so once I do this, how do I get that buy order into my ewallet?

[msb8r]

Ok, so once I do this, how do I get that buy order into my ewallet?

You withdraw you bitcoins from TH to your Bitcoin address

https://www.tradehill.com/WithdrawOverview/BTC

[bitcon]

there needs to be an easier way to purchase bitcoins.  the time and effort it takes discourages many people, slows growth and value.

[mizike29]

I must say I am pretty educated and good at computers and it did take me an entire day to figure out what to do and how to get bitcoins and trade, buy and sell.  

What you want to do isnt that far from where you are now.  If you have money in tradehill you propose a buy order at a certain price.  When you are sold them, you will see the coins in your account at tradehill and your money down to 0.  THere is no reason to take those coins out of tradehill at that moment and probably better not too depending on what you plan on doing.

Same goes with MTGOX which is what I use to buy my bitcoins.  This is how it goes and what I did, and once you do it once, its not that hard.

Step one, set up an account at DWOLLA, link your bank account there.  Set up your account at MTGOX, tradehill is too small so you  want to go with MTGOX.

Now you want to add funds to your MTGOX account, its simple.  You transfer money into your dwolla account from inside the dwolla website and it will show you have your say 100 bux there at dwolla.   Now you go to MTGOX and add funds, its simple for dwolla, they provide a link to click and you can add how much every money you want from your dwolla account in an hour or less right to the MTGOX account.

Now you have your money in MTGOX and your ready to buy.  You hit BUY BITCOINS.  YOu put in what you want to pay for a bitcoin, if you look up top on the yellow bar it will show you what the latest buy and sell prices are etc.  So if you want some coins say today, you would put in  10 coins, at 17 bux a coin and your buy order would be put in quee, and then someone would sell you 10 coins at 17 bux for 170.  You can put any price you want but it takes longer to get them or you wont get them at all say if you put 15 bux in , no one would sell them to you so you would just sit there.

Now up top right you will see how many bitcions you have at MTGOX.  Simple.  Now you can withdrawl those coins at anytime as cash if you choose to sell them on MTGOX for whatever price or as bitcoins to your wallet.  No point in taking them out of MTGOX to your wallet unless you want to buy something somewhere using bitcoins.  If you want to just buy and sell bitcoins you keep them in MTGOX, where there basicallly safe lol, after you get a certain amount say 50 coins, then you could withdrawl 40 coins to your wallet, back it up and keep it safe, and use that for bitcoin based purchases.  Other then that you buy and sell the bitcoins on MTGOX.

SO RECAP.  SET UP DWOLLA ACCOUNT.  SEND MONEY TO DWOLLA FROM BANK ACCOUNT.  FUND YOUR MTGOX ACCOUNT WITH THE DWOLLA LINK ON MTGOX.  PUT A BUY ORDER IN AT MTGOX.  PEOPLE SELL THEM TO YOU.  YOU BUY MORE, or SELL THOSE or WITHDRAWL WHAT YOU BOUGHT TO YOUR WALLET TO BUY OTHER ITEMS WITH YOUR BITCOINS OR SELL ELSEWHERE BESIDES MTGOX.  LOL EASY

ANother method is over pay for coins on ebay right now lol.  HOPE THIS HELPS

[FractalUniverse]

you can try to purchase them directly here on forum in the Marketplace/Currency exchange section

also there is a bitcoin-otc channel on irc where you can post your offers

but be careful there are also scammers around. many people don't want to trade with someone without some track record and positive rating so its not so easy to find someone willing to sell you bitcoins directly. not impossible though

[Nasakioto]

there needs to be an easier way to purchase bitcoins.  the time and effort it takes discourages many people, slows growth and value.

Agreed. But getting funds from the old world banking system, where some transactions are reversible, is tricky. As bitcoin adoption grows from the techies to a wider audience, new exchanges will hopefully cater to this mass market and make it very straightforward to buy bitcoins.

[BitcoinPorn]

Bitcoin faucet is up and running http://freebitcoins.appspot.com/  Get your free coins if you have not already.

You all are welcome

[cbeast]

there needs to be an easier way to purchase bitcoins.  the time and effort it takes discourages many people, slows growth and value.

If you want to invest $10 in bitcoin, you can purchase a fraction of a bitcoin. If you want to invest $10 in gold, you would need to find someone with dust to sell such a minute quantity. That's much harder to do than buying bitcoin. Anyone with substantial funds to invest should know how to make a wire transfer.

[dnbjunglist]

Same goes with MTGOX which is what I use to buy my bitcoins.

Didn't MTGOX just get hacked, like, in the millions of dollars??

What is there to do to protect me from this?

What happened to you as a result of this hack?

[Photon939]

MtGox is back up and running. The hacker only got away with a handful of coins due to the daily $1000 withdrawal limit set in place to prevent things like the recent event from turning into a nightmare.

To protect yourself from future events, you need to withdraw funds from exchanges as soon as you're done and protect your wallet by storing it on an encrypted volume and making backups.

I haven't really posted here on the forum but I've been doing mining and trading for several months now. The hack at MtGox has not changed any of the ways I go about business although it has given me good incentive to increase the data security on my computers.

[The_JMiner]

there needs to be an easier way to purchase bitcoins.  the time and effort it takes discourages many people, slows growth and value.

Agreed I have been just wanting to see just ONE HUNDREDTH of  a coin in my wallet and have been mining now and waiting to reach the minimum (tenth)  .01 requirement with many pools.

[The_JMiner]

Same goes with MTGOX which is what I use to buy my bitcoins.

Didn't MTGOX just get hacked, like, in the millions of dollars??

What is there to do to protect me from this?

What happened to you as a result of this hack?

Thats the whole point of bitcoin your responsible for yourself and what you do with your bitcoins. It's the complete opposite what most people are used it and IMO how most of the world works. Only in the US do such things as chargebacks and "hey he screwed me doing something" really exist

[mizike29]

THe hack was blown out of porportion, it wasnt bitcoin that was hacked, it didnt change anything except help us out by MTGOX INCREASING there security and having a better exchange for use traders.  Just to go the bitcoin faucet and you will see your first part of a bitcoin in about 10 minutes lol.  Mine with a pool, might take u a bit to get a coin, make sure your connected and set up correctly and all your settings are optimal.

[dnbjunglist]

MtGox is back up and running. The hacker only got away with a handful of coins due to the daily $1000 withdrawal limit set in place to prevent things like the recent event from turning into a nightmare.

To protect yourself from future events, you need to withdraw funds from exchanges as soon as you're done and protect your wallet by storing it on an encrypted volume and making backups.

I haven't really posted here on the forum but I've been doing mining and trading for several months now. The hack at MtGox has not changed any of the ways I go about business although it has given me good incentive to increase the data security on my computers.

Ugh. this poses a whole other can of worms for me having to learn how to make backups. but thank you everyone for all this magnificent feedback. Off to google/blow my brains out. brb.

[jstorm]

but be careful there are also scammers around. many people don't want to trade with someone without some track record and positive rating so its not so easy to find someone willing to sell you bitcoins directly.

This is what worries me...I'm honest. I don't want to be screwed nor do I want to screw anyone but how do I prove that as a newbie to bit coins? No one is going to trust. 

We live in such a nasty world.

[josephholsten]

We live in such a nasty world.

So true. But bitcoin's issues here aren't any worse than cash, it's just easier for you to do business with anyone anywhere.

One method of getting bitcoins you don't hear much is Ripple. Ripple is basically a peer-to-peer clearinghouse for credit transfers, bitcoin is just one of the currencies supported. It only attempts transfers between folks who already trust each other, but it creates a web of trust so credits can practically be transfered to anywhere once you've got a good trust network.

If you worry about being scammed, you should check it out.

[dnbjunglist]

We live in such a nasty world.

So true. But bitcoin's issues here aren't any worse than cash, it's just easier for you to do business with anyone anywhere.

One method of getting bitcoins you don't hear much is Ripple. Ripple is basically a peer-to-peer clearinghouse for credit transfers, bitcoin is just one of the currencies supported. It only attempts transfers between folks who already trust each other, but it creates a web of trust so credits can practically be transfered to anywhere once you've got a good trust network.

If you worry about being scammed, you should check it out.

website? also, do you just transfer money to someone for bitcoins?