Safest exchange to use long term

[Teal Deer]

I was with Tradehill until it went bust and I got out, and since have been with Gox.

I have no intention of getting money out any time soon but I've seen a lot of doubt over Gox's future, particularly with the whole withdrawal fiascos (is anyone able to enlighten me any more on that btw?)

So in looking after my btc and cash over the long term, which exchange is looking the best? Bitstamp...?

I'm in Australia, so take that into account.

Thanks

[BadBear]

You shouldn't be using any of the exchanges for long term storage, or any storage at all really.

[Jabbatheslutt]

Well just steer clear of gox for now. Bitstamp and tradehill look good atm.

[crazy_rabbit]

Well just steer clear of gox for now. Bitstamp and tradehill look good atm.

Tradehill doesn't exchange at the moment due to legal issues. So.....

[imrer]

I would choose btc-e for trading but offline wallet for storing my coins.

[Teal Deer]

Surprised to hear about the btc-e suggestions. Why's that?

[Teal Deer]

And also, I shouldn't be keeping USD for any time either? How are you supposed to trade without keeping funds of either sorry there ready to buy/sell?

[Teal Deer]

?

[warpio]

And also, I shouldn't be keeping USD for any time either? How are you supposed to trade without keeping funds of either sorry there ready to buy/sell?

I would like to know this as well. Is there really no safe way of keeping funds that can be immediately liquidated for trading?

[malevolent]

I would like to know this as well. Is there really no safe way of keeping funds that can be immediately liquidated for trading?

If you're not the sole controller of the priv keys you don't own BTC, meaning they are not safe.
As soon as you deposit bitcoins on an exchange you have to place trust in honesty and competence of the exchange operator that your coins are kept safe.

[calian]

And also, I shouldn't be keeping USD for any time either? How are you supposed to trade without keeping funds of either sorry there ready to buy/sell?

If you were in the US you can keep your funds in your bank account and buy through coinbase locking in your price immediately. Works for up to 10 or 50 coins depending on verification level.

As with all this crazy speculation stuff don't put anything in you can't afford to lose. Doubly so for funds held in these start-up exchanges. They're way more risky than simply holding bitcoin. I saw a statistic that at least 30% of bitcoin exchanges have closed down. Off the top of my head I can think of Bitfloor, Tradehill (twice), LibertyBit, Crypto X Change (took people's money), bitomat.pl (hacked, taken over by gox), bitcoinica (users funds lost, stolen, hacked, frozen, etc. lots of drama, just ask Goat).

Bitstamp was operating for a long time without any official requirements. You could just create an account with a fake name, etc. Then over night they required all these documents be sent in to them and if this was not done then no funds would be released. They do have the second or third most volume (which should be first or second most volume since USD can't be withdrawn from gox).

BTC-E is still run pretty much outside the traditional banking system. Don't know if they'll seek to get compliant but thus far you can create a throwaway account and trade there with no real ID. Because it's so hard to get $ into they prices tend to run a bit lower.

CampBX is registered in the US state of Georgia. Dwolla just dropped transferring to bitcoin exchanges which is temporarily hurting their volume (and perhaps price) but they're working on getting incoming ACH transfers going. They currenly will do outgoing ACH for $2.

Bitfinex is located in Hong Kong and they offer margin and some more advanced trading products.

If you don't want to deal with banking rules you could trade on some of the crypto to crypto exchanges like Bter, Cryptsy and maybe Vircurex.

Also there's localbitcoins and bitcoin-otc which are more resilient but not really for the active trader.

[tvbcof]

Well just steer clear of gox for now. Bitstamp and tradehill look good atm.

If locking up funded accounts without even sending e-mail and holding the BTC funds hostage in exchange for ID-theft worthy identity document scan looks 'good', I'd hate to see what bad looks like.

[Teal Deer]

Thanks for the response calian

Obviously I meant 'sort' instead of 'sorry' in that post you quoted
Auto-correct.

I have a decent amount of USD and coins of various sorts in different exchanges. It's hard to know what to do at this point.

If I were to want to get cash out of Gox right now, would it be even possible?

[ninjaboon]

No problems with Bitfinex so far. Been using them since NOV 2012.

[favdesu]

If I were to want to get cash out of Gox right now, would it be even possible?

Most likely not, no. I wouldn't keep any coins on an exchange anyways

I really like localbitcoins and bitcoin.de btw

[Boussac]

I wouldn't keep any coins on an exchange anyways
I really like localbitcoins and bitcoin.de btw

That sounds like a contradiction: in order to trade with bitcoin.de or any other exchange you must deposit your bitcoins by sending them to the exchange platform and they are locked there as long as you have an active sell order.
Therefore you do keep coins on an exchange albeit briefly.

Regarding fiat currency (EUR, AUD, USD, etc), the exchange must be licensed as money transmitter to keep fiat-denominated accounts.
If not licensed directly, the exchange must partner with a licensed money transmitter that will process money flows in fiat currency.
If you trade with an unlicensed exchange that is sending and receiving fiat to and from its own corporate bank account, you run the risk of having your funds frozen.
To my knowledge, bitcoin.de and bitcoin-central.net are the only exchange platforms that are properly partnering with a bank or Payment Institution to date. But they allow only trading in euros.

[jeppe]

use a long term offline wallet and trade on BTC-e thats the safest way

[Nagle]

Well just steer clear of gox for now. Bitstamp and tradehill look good atm.

Tradehill ceased operations months ago and seems to have run off with customer funds.  If they owe you money, file a police report and get a warrant issued for Jared.

[mp420]

I wouldn't call any bitcoin exchange particularly safe. I'd keep the fiat in a bank of my choice and BTC in a cold storage wallet.

But if I had to trust some exchange with significant sums of money for a longer term, I would choose MtGox. Despite their problems, they're pretty big and they have a very good track record of getting back in business whenever there's trouble. What they have poor track record in is communication and making business decisions that look good from the PR angle. I fully expect them to solve the SEPA quota issue within the next 12 months, and the SWIFT issue shortly afterwards. (If they can get their quota lifted in their European bank they can just send the SWIFT transfers from there and give the finger to the JP banking system.)