I'm new to this myself, but hopefully my perspective will be helpful. I think I'll address your questions in reverse.
3. Would you reccomend coinbase as a website to use
4. Do you have any other tips for using coinbase/ using bitcoins
I recently used Coinbase to get started. After looking into various options, I concluded that Coinbase was the simplest and easiest option. You can link your bank account the same way you can with PayPal, and then buy BTC without having to deal with international wire transfers or sending documents to confirm your identity. I didn't want to wait two days for the slower account verification method, and I believed them to be fairly reputable, so I trusted them briefly with my online banking login. The bank account was confirmed immediately, at which point I changed my online banking password. You'll have to decide your own level of trust and how much of a hurry you're in to buy.
Once the account is verified, it's simple to buy and sell BTC. However, they have a daily trading limit which means that in times of high volume, you
may not be able to trade immediately. In this situation, they offer to schedule the trade for a later date (in my case it was something like 2-3 days later)
at whatever the market rate will be at the time the trade is processed. This is important to understand when placing a trade like this; when I tried to buy, BTC was in the 500s, but by the time the delayed trade was processed, it was in the 700s. With the extreme volatility of BTC prices, you have to be careful. The advantage of such an option is that you can save your place in line. You can cancel at any time up to the point that the trade processes, so if you do a delayed trade like this you should watch the price up until the date that the trade is scheduled for and decide whether or not you want to go through with it.
Coinbase is not an exchange. What it does is give you a relatively easy way to get USD from a normal bank account into the BTC system. So if you do want to participate in trading at an exchange, it's much easier to buy BTC through Coinbase and send BTC to the exchange rather than trying to get USD into the exchange. Likewise, if you want to 'cash out', it should be much easier to send BTC from the exchange back to Coinbase rather than trying to get USD out of the exchange.
1. Is it too late to buy bitcoin
2. Is it worth even buying 0.5 bitcoin
I don't think anyone can really answer these questions for you, because no one can know for sure what will happen in the future. I would recommend that you think about your goals, do some research, and make a plan. The question you should think about is, do you want to be a
trader or an
investor? An investor would buy BTC and hold them, because they believe their future value will be higher than their current price. Investors are making an 'educated gamble' based on any number of reasons they find compelling, for example the design of the algorithm, the runaway inflation of the modern fiat economy, the acceptance of BTC by Chinese retailer Baidu, the implicit consent of the US Senate based on the Nov 18th hearing, advice they read on the internet...
If you want to buy BTC as an investor, it is sort of implicit that you expect the price to rise in the long-term. However, your questions suggest that you don't have this expectation. In that case, I can't recommend investing in BTC until you've done more reading and research and developed a strong opinion one way or the other. There's no shortage of opinions on either side, and many are very uninformed or enveloped in conflicts of interest. In order to spot hit pieces and pundits that have only a specious understanding of the subject, educate yourself on the technical structure of Bitcoin. I would highly recommend this interview as one of the best resources I've found on the subject:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP9-lAYngi4Another option is to be a trader. A trader doesn't attempt to predict the future price, but develops, tests and adheres to a trading strategy in order to profit from market moves. Trading requires more work, more research, more involvement in the market, and may ultimately be less profitable than 'buy-and-hold'. However, traders can react to crashes and walk away with a nice profit if the market collapses, whereas an investor would be wiped out. For more on trading, see Goomboo's thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=60501.0Personally, I bought in as an investor but am now transitioning into trading (hopefully before the next downturn hits
). The above thread is very inspiring, but study it carefully if you want to try trading. Focus on the mindset, not the method.
Whatever you plan to do, educate yourself first and don't risk any more money than you know you can afford.
