Is it hard to buy & sell bitcoins?

[Zakcy]

Hi everyone!

What I want to do is buy a few bit coins when the price is lower, and sell them when the price goes up.
Like, I was just going to invest $20 into the market and play around a little bit.

Can I do that all by myself somewhere? What I was hoping for is like:

Welcome!
Today's bitcoin price:
$4.512132151 per bitcoin
How many would you like to buy?


Then maybe on another site:

Welcome! We buy bit coins?
Today, we're buying each bitcoin for:
$4.358416518
How many would you like to sell?


Am I crazy for thinking that this exists? Is this supposed to be as complicated as the real stock market, where I need brokers, etc.?

All I have is my Paypal account. Am I set?

[nmat]

Paypal is a big no. Head over to the exchanges and check their deposit methods:

MtGox
TradeHill
CampBX
ExchangeB

You will also need bitcoincharts to check prices.

[edd]

Read a few threads here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=7.0

PayPal allows chargebacks so no one will trade you a non-reversible bitcoin for reversible PayPal money unless you have earned their trust.

[Revalin]

+1 to use any of the exchanges that nmat listed.  They do exactly what you want.  It's really not complicated.

If you're not comfortable with that, you can trade locally with cash:  http://www.tradebitcoin.com/

[Richard Rahl]

Read a few threads here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=7.0

PayPal allows chargebacks so no one will trade you a non-reversible bitcoin for reversible PayPal money unless you have earned their trust.

It's not so easy for Google Checkout to be reversed, so why no love there? I saw a BTC Seller using Google Checkouts earlier, but the price was rather high and they didn't carry very many.

[not_mm]

It works... when the exchanges aren't down..

[nmat]

It's not so easy for Google Checkout to be reversed, so why no love there? I saw a BTC Seller using Google Checkouts earlier, but the price was rather high and they didn't carry very many.

Yes, if you have a credit card and you are in a rush, you can go here: http://btcnow.net

The price is $6 at the moment.

[Boss Mosely]

I was just about in the same boat as you when I started, but rather I mined my first few BTCs rather then investing into them.

As of right now, I'm using tradehill.com to acquire most of my BTCs.  I'll look at the market volatility in the morning, make a sell order around the top and a buy order around the bottom of the curve.  I'm 100% sure that I could be doing it a better and more sophisticated way, BUT I have been getting good results and have been consistantly increasing my assests while I'm off at work.

If you decide to try out tradehill.com, go ahead and you my referral code to shave off 10% of their commission (0.6%) --> https://www.tradehill.com/?r=TH-R117004

[Asymptote]

If you want to "play around" with trading, I'd recommend Bitcoinica.com.  BUT the system uses 5:1 leverage, and so you better be very careful because it can wipe out all your deposited money if the Bitcoin price swings in the direction opposite to your bets.

Of course, if Bitcoin swings in the direction you think it will, then you make 5x the profit Just be careful!

To purchase your first Bitcoins, if you're in the US you should use ExchangeBitcoins.com - they have a bank cash/check deposit feature which is fast and convenient.