Even if you want to buy...

[ManOfKnight]

Meh, just means people get more bitcoins for cheaper since it falls while they wait. The problem isn't waiting on buyers, it's sellers freaking the fuck out and continuing to sell, not realizing that if they just wait for 3 days they'll get a better price.

100% agree with this post.

[old_engineer]

Fastest way is to find someone near you to exchange cash for BTC
http://bitcoinlocator.com

No one within 500 miles of me.  Good solution, but only for a fraction of the population.

Bitcoinlocator is only a few weeks old, and hopefully more users will start using it soon.  I think the idea is really good, and easier to use than any of the other sites listed in the bitcoin local wiki.

[m0w3r]

I (and American) have wired money to Tradehill three times on the way to work and used it to buy BTC by just after lunch on the same day.  My bank charges me a fee, but it's flat so if one plays with several $k it's not that big a deal.

Most of the time the BTC I have bought have been back in my wallet by the evening, and into a more secure wallet by the time I've hit the rack.

I dunno if the same thing would work that way with MtGox though.

Probably not since MtGox is in Japan so it's an international wire.  Good to know about TH though, thanks.  Too bad the volume isn't what it is over at MtGox but I suppose it's an option at least.

TH is in Chile (as I understand it) but have a US bank account.  I would think that MtGox could as well.

As for volume, I considered less to have an advantage in that if someone with big liquidity screws up, it has the possibility to push things sharply out of band (and in fact that seems to have happened today and I was able to capitalize.)  I'm not playing with enough funds to push the markets a long way on an extended basis, so they have plenty of volume for my needs and there seem to be enough arbitrage plays that the price levels are more or less the same.

My biggest concern with any of the exchanges is that they don't screw up and become insolvent of get frozen (and lock my funds) for some other reason.  So far TH has been able to move whatever funds I want moved on a reasonable schedule (though I had to wait all night go get some BTC out of them once or twice...and am waiting on a transfer right now.)

Looks like the minimum bank wire into Tradehill is now $5k USD...

[edd]

How many btc do you want?  I will buy some for you and let you pay me w\ cash via usps priority.  Or paypal w\ 3 types of identification and a picture of you + id holding a fish.

Now that's not really fair.






He might not feel comfortable sending you a picture of his ID.

[tvbcof]

Looks like the minimum bank wire into Tradehill is now $5k USD...

Looks like.  Must be a new-ish policy.  I'm sure it takes some manpower to process wires, but I would not think it would be that much.  OTOH, if they expect to get only a fraction of that as commissions from buy-once-n-run folks like Moi, I guess it might make sense.

I guess I'm done transferring funds in that way I guess cuz I'm not ready to trust them with that kind of money yet (and doubt that I will want _that_ much more BTC for a while, if ever, anyway.)  Maybe if I get into money moving I'll re-evaluate, but for now I'll keep my day job.