Easiest and most cost effective way of buying bitcoin in UK pounds sterling?

[pizza_lord]

The threads / info that I have seen seems to be out of date and refers to mt.gox and transferwise (who stopped dealing with bitcoin merchants ages ago).

Right now what is the easiest, quickest way to do UK Sterling -> BTC -> UK Sterling buying and selling (preferably without going through a 3rd currency like euro or USD)?

[backtrackit]

Can recommend Localbitcoins.com

[pizza_lord]

Can recommend Localbitcoins.com

Never seems to be near spot rate as quoted by bitcoinaverage.com

[LMGTFY]

Can recommend Localbitcoins.com

+1.

I used Localbitcoins for the first time recently - couple of purchases (online, rather than in person), both went very smoothly (hooray for <2 hour bank transfers in the UK!). Localbitcoins handles escrow. I did my deals by picking from the "Buy bitcoins..." list; next time I'd maybe create a "Sell bitcoins..." advert, if I had the patience to wait for a seller (the prices tend to be slightly better that way, but obviously you then need to wait for a willing counterparty).

[backtrackit]

Can recommend Localbitcoins.com

Never seems to be near spot rate as quoted by bitcoinaverage.com

But it does do everything you asked for, I sold 0.0258 earlier and had money in my account withing 10 minutes.

[LMGTFY]

Never seems to be near spot rate as quoted by bitcoinaverage.com

localbtcUSD, at least, seems to spike well above and below USD exchanges. You get a better deal, I assume, by being a party rather than a counterparty, i.e. by advertising your bid (instead of clicking on a "Buy bitcoins..." offer, you create a "Sell bitcoins [to me]" advertisement).

Edit: (I assume localbitcoinGBP spikes as well, but I don't tend to follow GBP and there aren't that many GBP options at my usual haunt (http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/currency/GBP.html!)

[bananas]

localbtc never worked for me, it seems it works if you are looking for no more than 1 btc

their site and system is also very confuse

[grifferz]

Right now what is the easiest, quickest way to do UK Sterling -> BTC -> UK Sterling buying and selling (preferably without going through a 3rd currency like euro or USD)?

If you want easy, I agree with others that it's going to need to be localbitcoins.com.

If you want cheap then it's going to have to be by sending a significant sum (to minimise loss to SEPA transfer fees) in EUR to an exchange and buying there. You're paying more at localbitcoins.com because the sellers there mostly did that bit for you.

One day we hope that UK banks won't have such a hatred for bitcoin and then we might get a local exchange in GBP and run by someone competent.

[ozzymax]

The threads / info that I have seen seems to be out of date and refers to mt.gox and transferwise (who stopped dealing with bitcoin merchants ages ago).

Right now what is the easiest, quickest way to do UK Sterling -> BTC -> UK Sterling buying and selling (preferably without going through a 3rd currency like euro or USD)?

https://bittylicious.com/ Uk Based

[pizza_lord]

Can recommend Localbitcoins.com

Just tried them. Fast and easy. Took no more than 5 mins but, as has been commented, they don't sell at spot price.

It's more like spot price + 3%

If you want to sell, sell price seems about 4 or 5 percent below spot.

Basically you would have to see a 10 percent upswing in the price of BTC to bearly break even on a trade here.