Investing

[ToddG]

Hi everybody,

I literally learned about bitcoins a few days ago. Personally, I think this is a wonderful concept for people who are tired of banksters regulating their money/currency. My initial interest was learning to mine for coins; however, I think investing makes more sense for me.

I started an account with Mt Gox and Sierra charts but not sure the best way to fund the account. Is it difficult to convert Bitcoins into USD? I've done A LOT of reading the past few days. I've encountered a few problems with the charts which I'm having difficulties resolving. Otherwise, I find this virtual currency to be fascinating.




Here is my plan - to dollar cost average or buy a few one-time spaced lots or a one-time conversion within the next 6 months.

I truly think this will gain in popularity over the next year. In addition, it appears the first wave of interest has played out so anticipating the next.

Thought, comments, advice welcome. 

[Dargo]

Welcome to the forum!

Trading is a good way to go, though price has been in a pretty tight range lately. I don't use Mt. Gox, but last time I checked you could only fund the account with bitcoins or Liberty Reserve or Dwolla.

I'm half-expecting the price to tank a bit before it gets going again, say to $10 or even a bit lower. If I were trading instead of mining, I would either be waiting for such a pullback or waiting for price to clear $15 on heavy volume. But buying some now as part of a plan to average in is a good strategy.

BTW, what kind of tools do you get with Sierra Charts? I assume you get basic stuff like trendlines and price levels, but what about fibonacci analysis? (If you don't know what fib analysis is, don't worry about it.)

[ToddG]

Hi Dargo,

I wondered if there was a better exchange to use than Mt. Gox. Who do you use to trade? In addition, are their trading platforms for Bitcoins, or do you follow charts and place an order with the exchange once the price hits your buy or sell targets? I've only seen where you can convert USD (or another currency) for Bitcoins and the buy ask, so I'm assuming the exchanges act like brokerage houses (Etrade for example)

Thanks for the input! I'm having a hard time pulling up historical charts over 1 month; therefore, I can't see past history.

Yes, Sierra charts has TA tools implemented into the program. I'm almost certain I saw fibs as an option (fans, lines, etc).

If you're happy with the currect exchange you use, and can more easily convert dollars to bitcoins, I'd love to know what exchange you're using.

Thanks!

[Dargo]

Sorry, I probably should have mentioned that I'm not using an exchange atm. Just mining and holding. : )

From what I understand, Mt. Gox is far from ideal, but has by far the highest volume and liquidity. For the purposes of doing any kind of technical analysis, I think you at least need a data feed from Mt. Gox. I need to choose an exchange soon, and without doing further research, Mt. Gox, Tradehill, or CampBX are the options I would consider. But I also want to get some good chart analysis off the ground, and I'm not sure what the best option is for this. I take it Mt. Gox by itself doesn't offer much in the way of charting? Ideally, I'd like a way to use the Mt. Gox data feed with my standard stock trading platform (Thinkorswim), but I doubt this is possible.

[FractalUniverse]

Hi Dargo,

I wondered if there was a better exchange to use than Mt. Gox. Who do you use to trade? In addition, are their trading platforms for Bitcoins, or do you follow charts and place an order with the exchange once the price hits your buy or sell targets? I've only seen where you can convert USD (or another currency) for Bitcoins and the buy ask, so I'm assuming the exchanges act like brokerage houses (Etrade for example)

Thanks for the input! I'm having a hard time pulling up historical charts over 1 month; therefore, I can't see past history.

Yes, Sierra charts has TA tools implemented into the program. I'm almost certain I saw fibs as an option (fans, lines, etc).

If you're happy with the currect exchange you use, and can more easily convert dollars to bitcoins, I'd love to know what exchange you're using.

Thanks!

hello
for bitcoins trading you can try all of them and use the ones that suit you the best. (daytrading or just buy&hold..funds diversification..)
currently you can get the largest volume and liquidity with mt.gox, tradehill is second with volume for US dollars about 1/10th of what mt.gox has.

you can have a look at others like bitcoin 7, exchangebitcoins, bitmarket, campbx.com, intersango, britcoin (GBP) ..etc and more exchanges are coming up

(personaly i have an account with about 5 of them but currently trading only small amounts mostly with TradeHill and Ruxum -(my favourite at the moment, imo great potential but currently closed to public pre-beta testing phase))


also you can have a look at the otc markets but beware of scammers

[nmat]

Last deposit I made was at Tradehill, but I used euros, not dollars. I am also trading at CampBX, which sound promising.

In SierraCharts if you press F5 you can see a textbox with "Days to Display/Load". Are you sure that's not set to 45?

[Dargo]

Cool - thanks for the info.

[whonesta]

Market "LOOKS" nice, but functions terribly. I transferred BTC from wallet to account code given by website to begin the fun, only to have that transaction LOST IN SPACE!! Support asks if I am sure I sent it and if account code was for my acct on their site. I love when support starts with the stupid questions and simpleton observations like "Your acct shows no transactions" G'Da a$$-clown, thus the support request for LOST BTC. Although it would seem exciting to trade BTC for many currencies in one location, it is a TOTAL let down to have money lost because some script kiddie auto generates acct codes and does not assign them to individual accts, so to whomever received my deposit...  Salud!! enjoy the 50 bucks, as for this RUXUM...  ==TURD!!  FUNCTION is 200% more important than GUI.

[nmat]

Market "LOOKS" nice, but functions terribly. I transferred BTC from wallet to account code given by website to begin the fun, only to have that transaction LOST IN SPACE!! Support asks if I am sure I sent it and if account code was for my acct on their site. I love when support starts with the stupid questions and simpleton observations like "Your acct shows no transactions" G'Da a$$-clown, thus the support request for LOST BTC. Although it would seem exciting to trade BTC for many currencies in one location, it is a TOTAL let down to have money lost because some script kiddie auto generates acct codes and does not assign them to individual accts, so to whomever received my deposit...  Salud!! enjoy the 50 bucks, as for this RUXUM...  ==TURD!!  FUNCTION is 200% more important than GUI.

Transactions are never lost in space. They are always recorded and publicly available. What are the addresses? You can trace any transactions at http://blockexplorer.com/

[Answer42]

Are you in the US.  I here dwolla works great.

[charity57]

Are you in the US.  I here dwolla works great.

How do you transfer dollars to/from dwolla?  I've never used them before..

[JHen]

I hope the price goes up... Have a good bit of cash in coins right now

[tristian1980]

Well, 10 USD per 1 btc seems reasonable. I wonder, however what is going to happen after block reward change.

[SgtSpike]

Well, 10 USD per 1 btc seems reasonable. I wonder, however what is going to happen after block reward change.

[fbastage]

better in what way?  what's your criteria.

I'm on about 10 exchanges and can give you feedback depending on what your criteria is, your deposit/withdrawal methods, location, volume you want to invest, etc.