There has to be a better way (getting USD to BTC) - page 3.

lettucebee

sr. member

Activity: 462

Merit: 250

I went back and forth with Mt Gox for 6 WEEKS before I got verified. Near the end I was literally begging them to quit giving me form answers and tell me specifically why my documents were being denied. I told them I needed the money for a down payment on a property I had under contract. I gave them very strong advice about their crappy customer service and I would advise anyone to do business elsewhere because it will be good for bitcoin. Mt Gox should not be rewarded for resting on their laurels.

Quote from: cypherdoc on January 25, 2013, 06:04:24 PM

Quote from: SgtSpike on January 25, 2013, 05:41:38 PM

Quote from: cypherdoc on January 25, 2013, 05:37:51 PM

i still can't understand why ppl don't emphasize intl wiring more. for me, its a flat fee of $40 and this is the only way i've ever done it.

if you wire $50K to gox, that's only a fee of 0.08%.

Probably because most people don't have $50k - they're talking about amounts more in the range of tens or hundreds of dollars.

Wires make a lot of sense if you're moving a large amount of money, but for most people, the fees would make a huge chunk of the money.

ok. let's use your numbers. a $2000 wire at $40 = 2%. add in whatever gox charges to make a trade (0.63% last i looked) and that still only 2.63% which is less than Bitinstant.

what's the problem?

CurbsideProphet

hero member

Activity: 672

Merit: 500

Quote from: cypherdoc on January 25, 2013, 05:37:51 PM

i still can't understand why ppl don't emphasize intl wiring more. for me, its a flat fee of $40 and this is the only way i've ever done it.

if you wire $50K to gox, that's only a fee of 0.08%.

The reason I've never used it is MtGox says Int'l wires take 2-5 business days to reach them, which is just plain stupid. Back in the day, Dwolla was fine to use so I never really explored anything else. Looks like things have changed and maybe wire is the best method but I still can't believe a wire would take as much as 5 business days. That's like sending a package overnight delivery and UPS coming back saying, "okay it should arrive sometime in the next week."

Edit: Oh 2-5 business days to reach them PLUS up to another 24 hours to clear. Absurd.

cypherdoc

legendary

Activity: 1764

Merit: 1002

Quote from: SgtSpike on January 25, 2013, 07:00:47 PM

Quote from: cypherdoc on January 25, 2013, 06:53:16 PM

oh yeah, the other way to look at how much ppl on an individual basis are pouring into Bitcoin is to look at the # of asic pre-orders. it's extraordinary the # of units ppl are ordering and the money involved in purchasing those units. way, way beyond hundreds of USD's. more like tens of thousands of USD's.

I don't see how this is relevant to the number of people submitting large deposits to MtGox. It says nothing about the number of small BTC purchases relative to the number of large BTC purchases.

yes, it might not be relevant to gox itself. i'm just trying to demonstrate how much money individuals are putting into the Bitcoin system. we'll never know exactly b/c these kind of estimations are going to be distributed across a large range of numbers and largely unobtainable.

SgtSpike

legendary

Activity: 1400

Merit: 1005

Quote from: cypherdoc on January 25, 2013, 06:53:16 PM

oh yeah, the other way to look at how much ppl on an individual basis are pouring into Bitcoin is to look at the # of asic pre-orders. it's extraordinary the # of units ppl are ordering and the money involved in purchasing those units. way, way beyond hundreds of USD's. more like tens of thousands of USD's.

I don't see how this is relevant to the number of people submitting large deposits to MtGox. It says nothing about the number of small BTC purchases relative to the number of large BTC purchases.

cypherdoc

legendary

Activity: 1764

Merit: 1002

oh yeah, the other way to look at how much ppl on an individual basis are pouring into Bitcoin is to look at the # of asic pre-orders. it's extraordinary the # of units ppl are ordering and the money involved in purchasing those units. way, way beyond hundreds of USD's. more like tens of thousands of USD's.

constitution

newbie

Activity: 28

Merit: 0

Quote from: RodeoX on January 25, 2013, 01:55:06 PM

Have you tried ?

I advise caution when using BitInstant there have been varying reports of selective scamming.

cypherdoc

legendary

Activity: 1764

Merit: 1002

Quote from: SgtSpike on January 25, 2013, 06:33:39 PM

Quote from: cypherdoc on January 25, 2013, 06:29:30 PM

Quote from: SgtSpike on January 25, 2013, 06:24:46 PM

Quote from: cypherdoc on January 25, 2013, 06:21:49 PM

Quote from: SgtSpike on January 25, 2013, 06:15:32 PM

Quote from: cypherdoc on January 25, 2013, 06:04:24 PM

Quote from: SgtSpike on January 25, 2013, 05:41:38 PM

Quote from: cypherdoc on January 25, 2013, 05:37:51 PM

i still can't understand why ppl don't emphasize intl wiring more. for me, its a flat fee of $40 and this is the only way i've ever done it.

if you wire $50K to gox, that's only a fee of 0.08%.

Probably because most people don't have $50k - they're talking about amounts more in the range of tens or hundreds of dollars.

Wires make a lot of sense if you're moving a large amount of money, but for most people, the fees would make a huge chunk of the money.

ok. let's use your numbers. a $2000 wire at $40 = 2%. add in whatever gox charges to make a trade (0.63% last i looked) and that still only 2.63% which is less than Bitinstant.

what's the problem?

I said tens or hundreds of dollars, not thousands.

$100 at $40 fee = 40%. + 0.63% for MtGox = 40.63%.

I don't personally know anyone who has enough money that they would be willing to invest more than a few hundred dollars into Bitcoins. I do know several people who are interested, but wouldn't want to put more than $100 or so in. $2,000 would be a very significant sum of money for just about everyone I know to invest in a volatile thing like Bitcoin.

I have a feeling MOST people buy Bitcoins in amounts of a few hundred or less. This is why WT isn't touted as a viable method very often. Yes, it is very viable for $2,000 or more. Not as much for $1,000 or less.

A poll would be interesting in this regard. I think I'll start one.

i understand what you're saying but i think there are alot of ppl who are investing in the thousands of dollars range. you can see the large single orders going off constantly on Clark Moody or mtgoxlive that number in the thousands of Bitcoins. Cheesy

I'd bet most of those are daytraders gaining/losing money back and forth. I don't see any evidence that says those are all new investors popping in - I bet very few are.

we see 5000 BTC buys or sells on gox all the time that clearly represent a single order controlled by one person. whether or not it's a first time order is irrelevant; the point is that this single person controls that amount of Bitcoins or USD's and they had to get that money to gox one way or another.

I understand. My point is, you could see 500 orders at 5,000 BTC, each one of which was definitely controlled by one person, and they could be trades conducted between only 10 different people, not 500 people.

I'm not trying to argue that people don't make large deposits, just that it isn't all that common compared to much smaller deposits/purchases of BTC.

that's probably true.

another way to look at this is the Richest List: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/z-92423:

assuming each address is controlled by one person (i think that's fair) there are at least 410 ppl with at least 2707 BTC's. at today's market price that's equivalent to $46912 or more. i wonder how many addresses below the 410 have at least $200 in them? probably alot.