Live data from Hacker News

It's practically impossible for regular people to buy Bitcoin

levels.io

61–70 of 140 posts

Re: It's practically impossible for regular people to buy Bitcoin

#61

Try CoinJar in Australia, very good company for buying and selling Bitcoin. Remember do not use their wallet service for holding large amounts of Bitcoin, even the owner of the business recommends keeping most of your coin in a cold wallet.

Yup, I've been experimenting with CoinJar too. While I haven't actually clicked "Buy" just yet (today's Bitcoin prices seem tulip-bulb ridiculous to me), I've been impressed with everything from the website, support, deposit process, bank account verification, usability. The money showed in my CoinJar within 24 hours after depositing at the bank, ready to click buy.

They're requiring identification for sell orders from December 1 though, which could complicate things.

Re: It's practically impossible for regular people to buy Bitcoin

#62
post #43
post #31

Even these comments here are full of obstacles. Its like techies are so into btc they cant comprehend an article stating a real problem witb bitcoin. Its supposed to be easy but it isnt, all these btc exchanges/markers/sites are worse than normal banking/trade sites. No I havent handed my photo to my bank and I wont do so for all the shady btc sites mentioned here. I dont hand my ID or "get verified" to amazon when b…

I was with you until the final sentence, which makes you sound emotionally involved rather than putting forward a logical argument. That aside, let me retort; > Its supposed to be easy but it isnt I agree, and I'll be hugely surprised if some enterprising individual doesn't solve the friction soon. > No I havent handed my photo to my bank and I wont do so for all the shady btc sites mentioned here. I dont hand my ID…

So is the easy way to do it an escrow service that can protect you from getting jacked using the same method?

Re: It's practically impossible for regular people to buy Bitcoin

#63
post #41

I would like to point everyone's attention to the fact that the difficulty of buying bitcoins has to do with the current banking system and regulations, not with Bitcoin itself. If you could buy bitcoins by swiping your card, its price would currently be more like $100k, not $1k. Accepting Bitcoin and trading in Bitcoin are the easiest things in the world.

Accepting Bitcoin isn't quite that easy, if your customers are expecting instant real-time online fulfillment. Bitcoin 'merchant accounts' are showing up to make things easier than they were years ago, but there's still some code integration required on a website's backend to make it all happen.

Re: It's practically impossible for regular people to buy Bitcoin

#64
post #19

Here are options the author, and people in general, fail to consider: 1. Sell a good/service on craigslist and require payment in bitcoins. You will find a buyer in a big city. If necessary, even buy an item typically in high demand by bitcoin owners (eg. computer gear) specifically for the purpose of reselling it! 2. Or buy coins directly from people, see https://localbitcoins.com

This is kinda true but at lease on your first point still not for regular people. My brother wants to buy some and If I told him, "yeah just go get a pile of asics and sell them on craigslist" I'm sure that would be just as difficult for him. Then he needs to keep a wallet, regular backups and a marginal level of network security.

By computer gear I mean a mouse, monitor, hard drive, etc. Not ASICs.

Re: It's practically impossible for regular people to buy Bitcoin

#66
For those in Vancouver, we (Coinwaves) just opened a physical Bitcoin exchange in Gastown to address this problem. It seems online exchanges are still dealing with how to balance fraud-protection and customer convenience. We thought that, for now, an in-person approach made a lot of sense.

We're focusing not only about helping people purchase Bitcoins easily, but also educating them on the technology and methods of safely storing and using Bitcoin. We're also keen to impart the notion that Bitcoin is more than a mere speculative instrument, but a potentially world-changing technology.

Any Bitcoin enthusiasts in town, whether or not you're looking to buy, give us a shout!

Link: http://www.coinwaves.com/

Re: It's practically impossible for regular people to buy Bitcoin

#68

?! In the US, Coinbase is easy In the UK, Bittylicious is easy I'm sorry it's so hard in Germany, but your title should be "It's hard to buy Bitcoins in Germany"

It's not true that it's hard. For Europeans, buying from Bitstamp.net is not harder than your typical online store experience. However, there seems to be some kind of problem with verifications currently, which is a separate problem. (I guess they are rate-limiting for some reason)

Re: It's practically impossible for regular people to buy Bitcoin

#70
Hello. I'm happy to sell bitcoins to anyone who is within the UK. If you're near Brighton we can trade face-to-face for cash. Otherwise just email we and we can do a bank transfer. My email is Shanee753@gmail.com . I have a large number of reviews which I can provide. Personally I normally buy my own from an IRC channel on Freenode called bitcoin-otc-uk. Feel free to ask me any questions. It's not too tricky to trade but can be a bit difficult to get into.
Post reply on HN