Topic: Best way to acquire bitcoins if your under 18? Harder than you think :/ (Read 20841 times)

I keep saying take out a 24 hour hour loan but no one listens to me

Buying bitcoins at 3 am using money outside of the bitcoin ecosystem is hard/impossible for almost everyone. Personally, my only choices at 3 am are an ING Direct P2P transfer, and Paypal (both of which you must be over 18). Few Americans would be awake, so ING is almost impossible, leaving just Paypal. If I didn't have one of the top 100 reputations here, even Paypal would be hard and/or costly.

Honestly, the best thing to do is to keep more money in the bitcoin ecosystem (not necessarily in bitcoin, itself, but maybe on an exchange) just in case. At any given time, I can instantly buy an additional few hundred dollars worth of bitcoins, just off of this reserve alone.

Personally I get my bitcoins by mining, it's way too hard for a teenager living outside the US to use/register in the US banking system, and even more hard because we have currency exchange control.

FYI if I need quick bitcoins I just do the math and ask for a loan I'm 100% sure I can pay. However I don't think anyone will lend to you unless you make a reputation online.

Thank you for your post. When I was a teenager and before a tween cash was commonly used for most purchases, debit cards did not exist, PayPal did not exist. The Internet was a not used means of commerce. Credit cards did exist, but they could be replaced for all transactions by either cash, cheques, postal money orders or travelers cheques. In those days young people were not put at a disadvantage in commerce as they are today. How is relevant to Bitcoin? It is the only from of digital money that can be effectively used by tweens and teenagers. This is one of the main reasons why I am very bullish on Bitcoin as tweens and teenagers are a massive online market. The solution to tweens and teenagers purchasing Bitcoin is really the same as what the baby boomers used when they were tweens and teenagers to purchase goods and services: CASH in person. The good news is it is starting to happen right now due to the entrepreneurship in this community.

http://youtu.be/aTYtarHtpxo

Wake up!

I guess I should have buying over the winter! Looks like it is going to just go UP UP UP UP

If the problem is, that you need bitcoins at a certain time, but the only thing you have to exchange for them is a debit/credit card, then you're just about out of luck. There's really no way around that, since it's too easy to get scammed when selling bitcoins for debit/credit (same for Paypal.) Everyone who tries it goes out of business due to all the fraud.

Your only realistic solution is to use some other method of funding; if your age prevents you from using anything else besides cash, then that's just how it is. I understand it's pretty ridiculous to be 17 and be so restricted, but unfortunately that's how society works.

What I'd do in your situation: try to find someone who regularly sold bitcoins (maybe a miner,) and establish a good business relationship with them where I routinely bought bitcoins with cash. Then maybe they won't mind doing the occasional 3am deal.

EDIT: As a bonus, once you have a good relationship with this person you can probably convince them to take your credit/debit card. Even individuals can do this now with smartphone apps such as Square.

Well since i still need to pay the rent, utilities, phone, etc with CASH I need to do a little dancing to figure out if now is a good time to by instead of tomorrow. I know this is all the LONG HAUL thing but I need to squeeze as much as i can out of the value.

DeathAndTaxes: Mind selling me some Circa 2010 bitcoins at 2010 cost? I am sure you still have a few laying around

You never know... with medical advances, we might all still be alive.

When the 21millionth bitcoin is mined, so after 100 years or something?

You are awesome. I am watching the market right now and It is hard to know if it is going to go up or down. The whole name of the game is to collect as many coins as possible before the 21millionth btc is mined. And then this shit should skyrocket!

I am an aweseome guy and wish to share the glory and wonder of Bitcoin with as many people as possible.  To accomplish this sometimes I even offer coins at 1% BELOW MtGox price.  

Also it might have something to do with the fact that we (Tangible Cryptography) buy coins at a discount via our FastCash4Bitcoins service. Selling directly even with no fees is significantly cheaper cheaper and more importantly faster than using the exchanges.

No fees? How do you make money off this or is the service free because you are just an awesome guy!?

What country are we talking about?

If you are in the US and have a Bank Of America nearby you can deposit to Tangible Cryptography and have coins (no fees, no markup) in about an hour.

Buy bitcoins direct @ MtGox last price with no fees

This is expensive, but you can buy with credit card, at least I could, a few months back. Not sure if it complains about foreign (non Malaysian) cards though.
https://dgtmkt.com/

Just get bitcointalk to log IP's and connect accounts logged on the same computer and expose the "good guys" for who they really are! haha

I guess people have their Good side and their Bad side. Just like people on this forum have their GOOD accounts and BAD accounts.

Their GOOD accounts they act good. Help others, etc..

Their BAD accounts they tend to pray on other users trying to scam them UNTIL they get tagged with a SCAMMER tag. And then they just create another account and do it all over again.

I bet there are more active accounts on this board than there is active people LOL!

Scamming in the bitcoin world is much more probable than getting smuggled, robbed etc in "real world". If you scam/phish anonymously, there is very little risk involved, With physical robbery, the criminal takes huge risks, if you start to think about it.

I am not saying take out a loan ever time you want bitcoins. I am just saying to take out a loan when you need it quick and you can pay it back when places like the bank are open

dont bother.

to put it short: no, there isnt a way that is

safe
easy
cheap
anonymous
instant

it can be two of the above, but not all four.

Haha, woah. Just trying to fix my problem. They might be the obvious methods but im looking for a fast easy method. Didnt know that put me in the possible scammers category. I mean, is that what the majority of people do on here? The way everyone talks about scamming here makes it sound like the odds of someone mugging me and taking my cash are a one one trillionths to a trillion compared to getting scammed for my bitcoins.

SEPA takes usually takes few days to clear, and I doubt that the OP even is from europe... In fact it seems sounds like that he is just some phisher/scammer, and therefore the obvious methods don't suit him 

(No offence, there just are lots of scammers/phishers in the bitcoin "community", and the problems they have seem to be similar to the OP...)

SEPA as in Single Euro Payments Area?

Open an account on bitstamp.net, then do a SEPA and buy yourself some coins.

I here ya man, problem with a loan is what about next time? I dont want to take a loan out from someone every time I want some bitcoins. Just a reliable method that I can repeat without any changing variables.

Oh and BTW. Try and put a payment address in your profile text or your signature. You never know! I have had people randomly give me btc just for the hell of it and I never know who it is from








<----------- see?

You are under 18 and you still have multiple ways. Reread what I have posted. I have given you great ideas.

I suffer from agoraphobia and I find some pretty ingenious ways of putting as much distance as possible between me and people and getting the job done.

Again... go for a LOAN. Just ask man. State your case. Say you need a Loan of say 2 bitcoins and you will pay them back within 24 hours with interest. Say 7 percent. And then pay back 2.17 bitcoin and you are good to go!

Be sure to tell the lenders what you need the bitcoin for. Now if it is to buy drugs on silk road, try and be a little more discrete about it. Remember. Google spiders this site!!!! Don't need YOUR name out there associated with drugs now do you? :-D

How does age have nothing to do with it? If I was 18 I would have multiple ways of funding online accounts to buy bitcoins with. That would in turn make it possible to go through any exchange site getting rid of my problem.

That's not easy or even possible for anyone, and age has nothing to do with it. I'm sorry if you're battling with agoraphobia or something, but you may have to leave the house in order to get bitcoins.

 

Sounds like you are in need of a LOAN!

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=65.0

no, there's no bitcoin ATMs yet.
I adivse to always keep a healthy balance of BTC :-D

Yeah, but let me throw out a scenario. Its 3 in the morning and I need some quick bitcoins. I cant go anywhere to get them except for the internet.

you can most probably also just hand cash to someone and they will transfer you BTC instantly.

I mean, I know I can get bitcoins by going out and depositing cash/money gram. Id just like to know if theres a way :/

Get outside. Get some sun A walk to your local mall or bank is not going to kill you.

cash!

there's a lot of people selling for cash.
where are you situated?

If you are interested in just buying bitcoin and not looking to withdraw anytime in the near future, you could use services such as http://www.bitinstant.com to deposit the money and then use exchanges like http://www.mtgox.com to buy the coins based on the credit that Bitinstant gives you from your deposit.

You could also use a service called http://www.bitfloor.com which is an exchange like MtGox but allows the user to deposit money at a local bank with no fees. All you do is walk in to the bank, fill out a deposit slip along with the bitfloor name, account number and amount you want to deposit. You give the slip and the money to the teller. No questions asked since you are giving money to the bank. Now if you wanted to take it out, that is another matter all together.

This should take care of your BUYING OF BITCOINS but not the SELLING. Start another subject if you want that answer

How exactly does that work? I went to the site and read the FAQ but im still a bit unsure as too how I actually make a transaction. I assume you have to meet the person face to face hence the reason they provide the distance of the seller/buyer? I hate to be picky but if thats the case then id rather find a different method to where I can just sit on my computer and buy bitcoins.

localbitcoins.com - solution to all of the worlds problems

(if there are no traders in your area, just set up an advertisement, maybe someone will contact you soon)

Title pretty much explains it. I'm 17 and id like to know the easiest way I could get some BTC from the comfort of my home sitting in front of my computer. I have a debit / credit card and would like to know if there are any possible ways I can get some bitcoins. Just about every way you get bitcoins requires you to go through a site like dwolla or paypal or something of the nature and you have to be 18 to register on any major online banking / money transfer site and since most of them make you link your bank accounts or verify your CC info you cant get past the age requirement. I tried buying linden dollars through second life and transferring them in game to VirWox but anyone who knows this method probably knows about the risk API that flags new accounts. I even had a 2 year old account and was only able to transfer roughly 8000 linden which is about 5 bitcoins before it flagged me and I was no longer able too. I know I could try and buy from individual people certain ways but id like a trusted secure method if possible. Any input would be nice. Ive been trying to figure something out for a couple months with no luck. Ive made a few trips to the bank for cash deposits but the nearest bank is somewhat 40 minutes away and would just like a sit at home way to get my bitcoins. Any input would be great! Thanks guys, have a good one.