Trust No One

[Moieur01]

sounds good

[Jaques]

today i trusted bitcoin.com.es
went very smooth and fast

[Flatlinezor]

I guess the best way for a newbie to start selling is if he/she agrees on the terms of the buyer, let it be escrow, sending the goods first, and so on. Hopefully the "community" eventually indeed lets others use the market here as well, to be able to convert assets to BTC.

[inge]

I guess the best way for a newbie to start selling is if he/she agrees on the terms of the buyer, let it be escrow, sending the goods first, and so on. Hopefully the "community" eventually indeed lets others use the market here as well, to be able to convert assets to BTC.

In the end it is a matter or trust. Just like how we trust our banks and our currencies like the Euro or Dollar. If a Bitcoin broker company keeps his promises, more and more people will start using it. Never make a big transaction the first time you use a new service!

[RidleyReport]

Trust but verify.

[Merralea]

aha, a cozy home for my usually unfounded paranoia.
I think I'm going to like it here.

[skibum]

Regarding where to store BTC, I guess it's all about tradeoffs, risks, and risk management. I mean for storing small amounts and conducting small transactions, you would think (hope?) that a leading exchange and using 2-factor authentication would be ok.  But I see your points, especially as the amounts in question get larger.  But if/when size get larger and more material relative to the person, it seems diversification would be in order (to whatever asset classes they see as stores of value against inflation/deflation may be coming).

[kworrom]

The more I've learned about bitcoin related topics the more paranoid I've become in general about the world. Coincidence?

[manfred]

Thanks for the advice, but looks like to late for me.

[willnye]

Trust but verify.

good advice for life in general!

[aryastark]

I just wanted to join to share my bad experience. The caveat being that it is completely my fault for being impatient and overtrusting. I contacted a person by the name of Tamer Seemah on bitcoinary.com as he was selling BTCs. It was my first day on the site and I was reading the FAQ as I was talking to him. He refused to do escrow on our trade and basically a bunch of other huge red flags that I ignored. I fell for his scam and now I am out almost $200. Please spread the word or just know that this person is a scammer.


The paypal address he used with me was  tamersameeh@gmail.com and the name attached to the account is Tamer Sayed Mostafa. Here is his profile on bitcoinary https://www.bitcoinary.com/en/users/2530/profile. After the sick feeling that I had been scammed sunk in, I started looking at his feedback and it looks like a ring of scammers, all giving each other feedback. Don't fall for it like I did. 

[BigFigurez]

Escrow literally takes minutes to set up and can save you $100's

[gogxmagog]

Escrow literally takes minutes to set up and can save you $100's

what escrow houses have you tried, and which do you like best?

[pixelized]

i have a hard enough time trusting myself!!!

[gogxmagog]

1. Put all your coins in a new wallet that has never connected to the network

sorry if this is blatantly stupid, but don't you have to connect to a network to download and sync a new wallet?

[cleric]

Some people remember in their heads a long pass phrase which is the seed for their wallet. From that seed all their private/public keys can be generated. In this way the private keys are stored nowhere in the network, nor on your local machine. The needed private keys are generated from the seed each time you need them.

[bigmint]

Great post!  I wish I had seen this post sooner - I am still waiting on a refund for btcfpga.com orders.  Let my mistake be a lesson to you all.  Even if someone seems legit and community approved - do your due diligence and have a backup plan 

bigmint

[dpanter]

You mussst trussssst the ssssnakemen. 

[bipolarbear187]

I don't trust myself.  That's why I do all of my sensitive computing with my eyes closed.

[BitSteam]

The level of security required is pretty crazy. I always thought of myself as having a pretty secure rig, but now with having a wallet.dat on my hardrive, i feel like i'm getting paranoid. I'll probably have lots of paper wallets and transfer over a specific threshold from hotwallets to paper ones.