Getting into crypto = WTF y'all???

[nicky5286]

To begin, I'm not new to cryptocurrencies, I bought and spent around 2BTC in 2015 with a little bit leftover. Recently I discovered this leftover had grown by a bit and put it to good use in Crypto20, then catching up with everything that's going on in the crypto space these days and buying a lil more.

Back then I bought my coin off a local exchange called CoinHako, which accepted deposits from a PayPal-like service called Xfers. Today, CoinHako's bank deposit has been down since November, while Xfers is also having problems. Then I visit Coinbase/GDAX, which I had verified myself on way back then but didn't use it due to unfavorable exchange rates. They've "disabled buys" on my account for some reason?(!) I try to resend verification again (paper bills, passports, ID, the lot) and it's been 3 weeks and NOTHING. Coinbase's reputation is basically the online equivalent of regurgitated vomit anyway so I give up on that and hit up a few other exchanges to get verified on any of those. BitBay, BitStamp, BitFinex, HitBTC, Luno, GateHub, and Kraken are all spewing the same bullshit along the lines of "we're busy and make take longer to verify you/respond to your tickets". It's not like I'm trying to do any illegal shit, you want my ID fuckin take it jesus.

Meanwhile, Gemini gets off their asses and verifies me within 6 hours, awesome. I then send about US$2000 their way (and it's the middle of the week mind you) which should take 1 working day - even says so on their site under "how long before my deposit shows up?". But it's been almost three days, the money is long gone from my account but there's no sign of it anywhere.

You'll say "oh nick why don't you just get it off other people eg. localbitcoin/remitano". I actually used the second option to buy some ether locally to top off my investment in Crypto20 a bit more and it's a painless, instant transaction thing but the premium you pay for that kind of shit is nothing short of daylight robbery.

Can someone advise how a regular joe is supposed to get into cryptocurrencies or is this some kind of geeky plaything limited to a small circle of elite hodlers, whales and speculators? So far my entire experience with the whole ecosystem is nothing short of extreme frustration and I fail to see how ANY coin is going to gain widespread practical usage the way things are right now. Everything seems to be either stupid, broken, congested or overloaded.

[just a man]

To begin, I'm not new to cryptocurrencies, I bought and spent around 2BTC in 2015 with a little bit leftover. Recently I discovered this leftover had grown by a bit and put it to good use in Crypto20, then catching up with everything that's going on in the crypto space these days and buying a lil more.

Back then I bought my coin off a local exchange called CoinHako, which accepted deposits from a PayPal-like service called Xfers. Today, CoinHako's bank deposit has been down since November, while Xfers is also having problems. Then I visit Coinbase/GDAX, which I had verified myself on way back then but didn't use it due to unfavorable exchange rates. They've "disabled buys" on my account for some reason?(!) I try to resend verification again (paper bills, passports, ID, the lot) and it's been 3 weeks and NOTHING. Coinbase's reputation is basically the online equivalent of regurgitated vomit anyway so I give up on that and hit up a few other exchanges to get verified on any of those. BitBay, BitStamp, BitFinex, HitBTC, Luno, GateHub, and Kraken are all spewing the same bullshit along the lines of "we're busy and make take longer to verify you/respond to your tickets". It's not like I'm trying to do any illegal shit, you want my ID fuckin take it jesus.

Meanwhile, Gemini gets off their asses and verifies me within 6 hours, awesome. I then send about US$2000 their way (and it's the middle of the week mind you) which should take 1 working day - even says so on their site under "how long before my deposit shows up?". But it's been almost three days, the money is long gone from my account but there's no sign of it anywhere.

You'll say "oh nick why don't you just get it off other people eg. localbitcoin/remitano". I actually used the second option to buy some ether locally to top off my investment in Crypto20 a bit more and it's a painless, instant transaction thing but the premium you pay for that kind of shit is nothing short of daylight robbery.

Can someone advise how a regular joe is supposed to get into cryptocurrencies or is this some kind of geeky plaything limited to a small circle of elite hodlers, whales and speculators? So far my entire experience with the whole ecosystem is nothing short of extreme frustration and I fail to see how ANY coin is going to gain widespread practical usage the way things are right now. Everything seems to be either stupid, broken, congested or overloaded.

Just keep working man.
There is only a few Bitcoins being sold in the market, you can get them if you keep on working.

[Winner]

To begin, I'm not new to cryptocurrencies, I bought and spent around 2BTC in 2015 with a little bit leftover. Recently I discovered this leftover had grown by a bit and put it to good use in Crypto20, then catching up with everything that's going on in the crypto space these days and buying a lil more.

Back then I bought my coin off a local exchange called CoinHako, which accepted deposits from a PayPal-like service called Xfers. Today, CoinHako's bank deposit has been down since November, while Xfers is also having problems. Then I visit Coinbase/GDAX, which I had verified myself on way back then but didn't use it due to unfavorable exchange rates. They've "disabled buys" on my account for some reason?(!) I try to resend verification again (paper bills, passports, ID, the lot) and it's been 3 weeks and NOTHING. Coinbase's reputation is basically the online equivalent of regurgitated vomit anyway so I give up on that and hit up a few other exchanges to get verified on any of those. BitBay, BitStamp, BitFinex, HitBTC, Luno, GateHub, and Kraken are all spewing the same bullshit along the lines of "we're busy and make take longer to verify you/respond to your tickets". It's not like I'm trying to do any illegal shit, you want my ID fuckin take it jesus.

Meanwhile, Gemini gets off their asses and verifies me within 6 hours, awesome. I then send about US$2000 their way (and it's the middle of the week mind you) which should take 1 working day - even says so on their site under "how long before my deposit shows up?". But it's been almost three days, the money is long gone from my account but there's no sign of it anywhere.

You'll say "oh nick why don't you just get it off other people eg. localbitcoin/remitano". I actually used the second option to buy some ether locally to top off my investment in Crypto20 a bit more and it's a painless, instant transaction thing but the premium you pay for that kind of shit is nothing short of daylight robbery.

Can someone advise how a regular joe is supposed to get into cryptocurrencies or is this some kind of geeky plaything limited to a small circle of elite hodlers, whales and speculators? So far my entire experience with the whole ecosystem is nothing short of extreme frustration and I fail to see how ANY coin is going to gain widespread practical usage the way things are right now. Everything seems to be either stupid, broken, congested or overloaded.

Bitcoin is pretty much everywhere there is an electronic payment option. Look at coinmarketcap if you want to see what coins are out there.

[GreatOrchid]

Can someone advise how a regular joe is supposed to get into cryptocurrencies or is this some kind of geeky plaything limited to a small circle of elite hodlers, whales and speculators?

Are you aware that the current monetary system is actually working by the same way?

Do you really think that the real wealthy that we are facing with US dollar - Gold - Silver is distributed by a good manner?

Of course not, and the big whales that we have right now really deserve that, because they were the first believers on this new technology, a lot of them have already left this party, but most of them are already in here.

Let's start being more positive about it, it is not only controlled by speculators and the big whales.

I guess that if you were  a big whale too, you wouldn't be writing this crap at the moment.

[Romolus1]

I kind of agree with OP, though not with the same aggressiveness. I had two friends brought into crypto who wanted to invest in some coins/projects but they are actually having problems getting verified almost everywhere for two weeks. After some time I can understand the frustration and the pain the exchanges can bring, and this is not something good for the widespread of crypto.
And now Bittrex doesn't accept new users while Bitfinex requests an invitation code. I've been passing hours on reddit trying to help people buy coins but it seems that sometimes the system itself doesn't want you. The only real user-friendly platform seems Coinbase, which obviously became overloaded in seconds the last weeks.
I don't want to be too negative, just it is fundamental to notice the importance of exchanges in this ecosystem and more important for the spread of the cryptoworld. Hopefully someone will take advantage of this lack (I think some big money could be made with a nice user-friendly exchange) and the existing ones will try to improve.

[zenrol28]

To begin, I'm not new to cryptocurrencies, I bought and spent around 2BTC in 2015 with a little bit leftover. Recently I discovered this leftover had grown by a bit and put it to good use in Crypto20, then catching up with everything that's going on in the crypto space these days and buying a lil more.
 

Hi welcome back to the cryptocurrency world. There's a lot of stuff happened from 2015 til recent. Especially this 2017 where waves of money are coming in. That's why you're getting a hard time. Don't worry, everyone is experiencing it. So be patient mate, very patient. I suggest try to find some local exchange where you can easily cash-in. Maybe there's 1 available in your place by any chance. Here in our place there are i think 2 of them that i can cash-in from banks and can buy bitcoin. But sadly the rates were unfair compared to those in international level. Just think positive and keep on searching.