google trends says there is no fuss at all

[thezerg]

[reposting this because it is very relevant]

tl;dr -- it takes about a month or two to bootstrap to the point where you can and are willing to make a real investment


I also think that a lot of you old timers mis-estimate the time and effort it takes for a noobie to bootstrap.  It goes something like this:

1. Read about it, overcome the negative stigma that comes with SR, gambling, etc.
2. Make a small investment using bitinstant
3. Learn a ton about the banking system, chargebacks, how FED creates $.
4. Ask all the noobie questions "why can't someone just [print more bitcoins, steal your wallet, turn off the network, make it illegal]".  What's it backed by anyway? :-)
5. Read enough about it to stress about all the scammers hacked wallets and failed exchanges, etc.
6. Start the KYC process with an exchange that has about 5000 totally obscure and difficult to use ways to deposit money.
7. Tortuously move small chunks of fiat into the exchange
8. start buying
9. freak out about failed exchanges, possibility of USB stick failure, etc
10. start looking at paper/brain wallets
11. Get your head around the idea of actually holding your own money somewhere
12. Create isolated new install VM to make a paper wallet.  You can't outsource this to some client-side web script (if you really want a secure wallet)!
13. TEST the paper wallet concept (requires an entire blockchain sync from scratch).
14. KYC finally comes through!
15. DAMMIT price has doubled :-)

This was my path anyway...

For HNWIs its got to happen with both them AND their advisor (who's gonna do all the work).

So people who might have gotten interested in bitcoin during the Euro financial uncertainty may just now be starting to move from a few hundred BTC trial investment to an actual acquisition strategy.

Lol, that does suck.

My method:
Read about bitcoin on /.
Visit the forum
Read the whitepaper
Buy
Buy
Buy
Buy
Buy
Run out of fiat
Start earning coins
Sell
Sell

How did you avoid the dwolla 30 day "getting to know you before you can transfer to these sites" issue, and the $500 daily limit before KYC verification comes through?

[1713452969]

1713452969

[1713452969]

1713452969

[RodeoX]

Mo peers - Mo money

 why does it have to be more complicated than that?

[Hexadecibel]

How did you avoid the dwolla 30 day "getting to know you before you can transfer to these sites" issue, and the $500 daily limit before KYC verification comes through?

I recently sent $5k to Mt.gox via bank wire. Took 3 days.

Although, it only makes sense for sending those sort of amounts, as it costs something like 60$ total in fees.

[ElectricMucus]

Mo peers - Mo money

 why does it have to be more complicated than that?

Because the data suggests otherwise.

[thezerg]

How did you avoid the dwolla 30 day "getting to know you before you can transfer to these sites" issue, and the $500 daily limit before KYC verification comes through?

I recently sent $5k to Mt.gox via bank wire. Took 3 days.

Although, it only makes sense for sending those sort of amounts, as it costs something like 60$ total in fees.

Yes it basically works once you've figured it out.  But read that Mt. Gox wire info from the perspective of joe average who's probably done 0 bank transfers in his life but maybe 1 or two for house/car.  And note that its couched in a page with about 10 other options all of which seem totally oddball.

Very few people would read about bitcoin today, read that tomorrow and then sign up to do an international bank wire costing an unknown amount (what's that intermediate bank clause?) to a country they have no hope to recover funds from if it is lost...

This is what I mean by it takes a few months to actually gain understanding in the mechanics of investing in bitcoin, beyond bitinstant of course...

[SkRRJyTC]

How did you avoid the dwolla 30 day "getting to know you before you can transfer to these sites" issue, and the $500 daily limit before KYC verification comes through?

I recently sent $5k to Mt.gox via bank wire. Took 3 days.

Although, it only makes sense for sending those sort of amounts, as it costs something like 60$ total in fees.

Yes it basically works once you've figured it out.  But read that Mt. Gox wire info from the perspective of joe average who's probably done 0 bank transfers in his life but maybe 1 or two for house/car.  And note that its couched in a page with about 10 other options all of which seem totally oddball.

Very few people would read about bitcoin today, read that tomorrow and then sign up to do an international bank wire costing an unknown amount (what's that intermediate bank clause?) to a country they have no hope to recover funds from if it is lost...

This is what I mean by it takes a few months to actually gain understanding in the mechanics of investing in bitcoin, beyond bitinstant of course...

Bitfloor cash deposits are really easy for the average Joe to understand also.

[FreeMoney]

How did you avoid the dwolla 30 day "getting to know you before you can transfer to these sites" issue, and the $500 daily limit before KYC verification comes through?

I've been around long enough I know lots of people to trade with so I haven't used the formal exchanges in over a year. We'll, one time recently I did it via proxy (human, not VPN, don't do that) just to be sure to hold a certain amount of fiat on a spur of the moment worry.

[thezerg]

How did you avoid the dwolla 30 day "getting to know you before you can transfer to these sites" issue, and the $500 daily limit before KYC verification comes through?

I recently sent $5k to Mt.gox via bank wire. Took 3 days.

Although, it only makes sense for sending those sort of amounts, as it costs something like 60$ total in fees.

Yes it basically works once you've figured it out.  But read that Mt. Gox wire info from the perspective of joe average who's probably done 0 bank transfers in his life but maybe 1 or two for house/car.  And note that its couched in a page with about 10 other options all of which seem totally oddball.

Very few people would read about bitcoin today, read that tomorrow and then sign up to do an international bank wire costing an unknown amount (what's that intermediate bank clause?) to a country they have no hope to recover funds from if it is lost...

This is what I mean by it takes a few months to actually gain understanding in the mechanics of investing in bitcoin, beyond bitinstant of course...

Bitfloor cash deposits are really easy for the average Joe to understand also.

Yeah but closest branch is like 3 hrs away from me!

[SkRRJyTC]

How did you avoid the dwolla 30 day "getting to know you before you can transfer to these sites" issue, and the $500 daily limit before KYC verification comes through?

I recently sent $5k to Mt.gox via bank wire. Took 3 days.

Although, it only makes sense for sending those sort of amounts, as it costs something like 60$ total in fees.

Yes it basically works once you've figured it out.  But read that Mt. Gox wire info from the perspective of joe average who's probably done 0 bank transfers in his life but maybe 1 or two for house/car.  And note that its couched in a page with about 10 other options all of which seem totally oddball.

Very few people would read about bitcoin today, read that tomorrow and then sign up to do an international bank wire costing an unknown amount (what's that intermediate bank clause?) to a country they have no hope to recover funds from if it is lost...

This is what I mean by it takes a few months to actually gain understanding in the mechanics of investing in bitcoin, beyond bitinstant of course...

Bitfloor cash deposits are really easy for the average Joe to understand also.

Yeah but closest branch is like 3 hrs away from me!

chase and wells fargo?

[Frankie]

but, again, why no news ?

it is like bitcoin is put on ignore,
people are certainly talking and taking notice

is mainstream media in secret agreement not to "advertize" ?

What about "it has been here before, and it ain't record breaking time yet"?

this time is for real
and breaking 10 usd barrier, nearing 10 mil mined coins, bl-rw halving soon,
should be at least some noise...
those Illuminati are really nasty bunch

You are joking, right? You invoke Illuminati to explain sparse coverage of a fringe currency that has a smaller market cap than almost every indexed company in America, and appears to be going through the same thing it did last year?

There's been some good coverage; it seems about proportional to me.

How did you avoid the dwolla 30 day "getting to know you before you can transfer to these sites" issue, and the $500 daily limit before KYC verification comes through?

We have a thread full of people like myself happy to trade MtGoxUSD codes for Dwollars. I've got $700 Mt.GoxUSD for Dwollars right now, BTW.

[SuperP]

If you look at the google search trends for "bitcoin", you'll see that general interest in bitcoin is only about 20% of what it was at the peak of last year.
(http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=bitcoin&date=2%2F2011%2020m&cmpt=q)

However, if you look at the search trends for the collection of phrases:

"buy bitcoin" + "buy bitcoins" + "usd to bitcoin" + "usd to bitcoins" + "paypal to bitcoin" + "get bitcoins"

(http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=%22buy%20bitcoin%22%20%2B%20%22buy%20bitcoins%22%20%2B%20%22usd%20to%20bitcoin%22%20%2B%20%22usd%20to%20bitcoins%22%20%2B%20%22paypal%20to%20bitcoin%22%20%2B%20%22get%20bitcoins%22%20&date=2%2F2011%2020m&cmpt=q)

You'll see a very different story. 
Interest from people actually wanting to get their hands on bitcoin has been steadily rising since January 2012 and a bit faster recently. 
Worldwide, this kind of interest is actually closer to 75% of the interest during the 2011 bubble. 
75% is the partial week google data for this week (and it's only Tuesday).

In some countries, this kind of interest is the highest it has ever been. 
In Australia for example, the demand for bitcoin is almost double the amount it was during the 2011 spike.
(http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=%22buy%20bitcoin%22%20%2B%20%22buy%20bitcoins%22%20%2B%20%22aud%20to%20bitcoin%22%20%2B%20%22aud%20to%20bitcoins%22%20%2B%20%22paypal%20to%20bitcoin%22%20%2B%20%22get%20bitcoins%22%20&geo=AU&date=2%2F2011%2020m&cmpt=q)

[Spekulatius]

Interesting find. Unfortunately, with those search terms, you will only filter out anglophonic countries (USA, UK, CAD, AUS,..) as the search results clearly show. If you however narrow it down to only "bitcoin + bitcoins" you find a much more expressive result IMO, taking into account non-English speaking countries like Finland, Sweden, Russia, Germany, etc., many of which have a much higher search interest into those search terms then even the most keen anglophonic countries do.

TLDR: It may not be as thrilling as your last chart, but IMO the first shows a more realistic picture of slowly growing search interest in Bitcoin on a global scale.