Topic: Where is a good place to buy some bitcoins quickly? (Read 2531 times)

Convert to lindens on virwox with debit card and convert to bit coin.

Paypal has a history of freezing any accounts involved in a bitcoin-related transaction.

Which isn't too surprising when you think about it.  Bitcoin is an existential threat to their business model.  If people can just pay each other online, there is absolutely no need for intermediaries like Paypal.

For the same reason, a large number of banks are extremely hostile to Bitcoin.

Yeah, so I'm a newb.  It was more a matter of being able to get them quickly.  All the exchanges take forever and require a ton of identity stuff.  My in-laws had their Identity stolen so I hate giving all that out. I'm signed up with LocalBitcoins now, but the only guy nearby wanted over $1200 ea. when bitcoin was at about $720.  Even LocalBitcoins would only escrow .08 bitcoins since I'm new.  I now understand the risk the seller is taking more than I did at the time, I knew I wouldn't rip him/her off, but as you say, there is no way he could know that.  I did get offers from several people that would accept paypal by the way, so it isn't impossible to get someone to do it.  Ultimately I didn't take them up on it.  At this pint it no longer matters, I was able to get the miner I wanted buy wiring the cash to the manufacturer, somehow I missed that option when I looked the first time.  I thought they would only accept bitcoin.

I really hate that there  are so many crooks out there that make an honest exchange so difficult, but what can you do?  I assumed that PayPal would protect the seller from an unjust chargeback if they could prove that they sent what was asked for.  I know that now to be untrue.  In fact, Paypal could freeze both people's accounts over transactions in PayPal since it's against their terms of service.  (they don't allow currency exchange of any kind from what I understand).  I also didn't know that when I posted my request. 

So I would now not recommend anyone do a transaction with anyone for bitcoin with PayPal.  My wife has an Etsy store: http://www.etsy.com/shop/AndreasArtJewelry?ref=search_shop_redirect  So I can't afford to have her PayPal account frozen.  We've been trying to figure out a way to accept bitcoin for her stuff, but I don't know how we'd do it within Etsy.  We'll probably have to make her own site for that.  but if you see something you like.  We can do it in bitcoin for you.   


Korxax,




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So you're unwilling to send money to a seller via an irreversible payment method such as cash deposit on Localbitcoins but you expect sellers to take paypal? Really?

LocalBitcoins I would say is the fastest if your in the U.S. I bought today from dscotese and I had my bitcoin within minutes. He had great communication and I even received a 1% discount for offering a choice of two his banks to deposit to. Hopefully this help you in some way.

So many people I see on the forums throwing money at pre orders that never deliver on time .

Check the history of the manufacturers delivery record .
Up to now most manufacturers only seem to deliver once difficulty reaches a point were breakeven is impossible .
Highly suspect they use your money to mine then dispatch them ,I may be wrong but without any proof to the opposite it seems suspiciously likely .

i use http://btc-e.com recommended.

http://coinbase.com and  https://localbitcoins.com

Really?  Did you look at the calculator I linked?  With a difficulty of 3,380,923,195 at $2200 for the miner it shows a break even at 32 days.  At current difficulty the break even was 14 days I think.  Will difficulty be much higher than that by March?  I thought tripling it in 2 months was more than I needed to do.  The calculator supposedly has an algorithm in it to estimate difficulty increasing, I have no idea how accurate it is though.  I see a lot of 60ghps miners on ebay going for $4k+  That I can understand won't be profitable.  But this thing is 10 times that fast, uses only 350 watts and is half the price.  Even if I crank difficulty up to 6,680,923,195 it should pay for itself in 66 days.  Is the calculator that bad?  Other calculators I've looked at showed about the same thing.  When all of the new generation miners come online it could really jack up the difficulty though.  There are some coming out at 3 Thps about the same time and 2Thps too.  But their quantities will be limited for several months at least.

Calculator address:
http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/

Very interested in what people have to say, do you really think that even with the new generation of miners they won't be profitable?

Thanks,

Korxax


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I am not sure which one you are looking at, but a lot will depend on when you get it.  If you could get your 600 GHps tomorrow, then you might be okay at around $2200.  If you get it mid-February, you probably wouldn't break-even.  Many of the miners are way overpriced for the amount difficulty is increasing right now.

Coinbase is probably your best bet right now - you can at least get it started buy buying 3.25 (or more) and then if you find a better way, do that for the other machine.  If you don't, then you'll be on the way to getting some bitcoin.

Good luck!

My power rates are among the lowest in the country.  .089 per Kwh.  I used .09 to figure the return.  But even if I change it to .2 it only adds 1 day to my break even point.  Please tell me what I'm doing wrong.  I know you can't really make much money with the current generation of miners, but the next gen is much faster and more power efficient.  The biggest problem that I see is the delay in delivery.  I don't know what the difficulty will be by the time I get it which is why I tripled the current rate to figure my return.  Maybe I should have increased it more.


Korxax



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Coinbase is slow for your first transaction, but the process is very easy.

Cashintocoins.com has been reliable but would require you to go to a wells Fargo or bank of America branch.

If you can find anyone on localbitcoins.com that lets you pay with PayPal, that would be good, but it will be tough to find. There are also a fair amount of scammers on localbitcoins.

As a newcomer, Coinbase is very easy and you probably won't get scammed.

The one I'm looking at is 600Ghps, and I haven't seen any of the next generation miners sold for cash.  They all list cash prices, but only accept bitcoin for payment since they are pre-orders.  I know there is a risk that it won't be profitable, but my power rates are low, and at 600 Ghps I should be able to make at least my money back.

I figured the payback at a little over a month at triple current difficulty.  Maybe I'm underestimating difficulty.  The machine wouldn't be delivered until the end of February or early March.  I used the calculator here:  www.bitcoinx.com/profit/  with the default settings for current exchange rate and profitability decline.  I changed the first 2 "1"s to "3"s in the difficulty line, then filled in the price of the miner, my power rates and the wattage of the miner.   I know my uptime won't be 100% and there will be things that slow me down occasionally, but it looks like it should make the money back to me and then anything else they make would be a bonus.  

What am I doing wrong to estimate my return?

I'm very happy to hear your thoughts, you guys obviously have more experience than me.

Thanks for your help

Korxax


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I would not be buying mining equipment at this time, unless you have some kind of deal with your local electric utility that allows you to get power at *FAR* less than the usual rate.

Such deals exist; if you commit to off-peak use only, for example, you can usually get something like a 60% discount in some places.  People irrigate fields at night using electric pumps thanks to that deal fairly near here. 

Even if you can do that, you'll probably make money far slower than you now think you will, and you'll watch as the amount of money you make drops off to near nothing faster than you expect.  I'd expect the number of bitcoins generated by mining equipment to drop by half about every two months.  So figure out what you'll make this month, double it, and that's likely to be your gross revenues from mining.  Your net profits will be much less depending on what deal you can make with your power company and whether you can get double use out of the power (like for example paying less to run your heater because you heat your house with mining equipment). 

Mining is no longer profitable.

I cannot see many people willing to part with bitcoin when you only registered a couple days ago so have no history .

take your time visit the mining section.
What is the rush for mining equipment ?
What manufacturer will not accept cash ??
If you do get the coin you will still probably have months before you see a return ,do some small transactions for coin and build up a rep then it will be easier .

Did you actually make the calculation if this machine, considering the current growth in hashing power of the network, is ever gonna mine back its own price in BTC? Not even considering electricity costs. If within the near future, this thing is not expected to mine the amount of BTC it costs *now*, you're probably better off just buying the bitcoins and keeping those for the time being.

FYI the current Bitcoin network hashing power increases by approximately 2.5% per day.

Hate to tell you this, but nobody in their right mind is gonna sell you bitcoins (irreversible) and accept a reversible payment such as paypal or google checkout or credit cards.

I set up on localbitcoins hoping I could find something there.  But they say since I'm new they can only escrow 0.8 bitcoins.  This is maddening!  I seriously am worried about how the masses are ever going to get into bitcoin with it this difficult to buy some when you need it.  Good grief my credit score is like 770 last time I looked at it.  Right after the housing mess when credit was supposedly tight I was able to get a $400k loan to buy a house in 22 days.  There should be some way to easily buy bitcoin without waiting for a week or more and an anal exam.  I only need a minimum of $2400 or so 3.25 bitcoins, I'd like to double that so I can buy 2 miners instead of 1.

Anyone else have any ideas?  Man I wish I was rich.  I start something up that would allow faster access with a credit check.


Korxax



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Hmmm looking at localbitcons I do see a few people offering online payment... but doing a bank transfer or an unknown pyment system, to some unknown person who may or may not send me the coins makes me nervous.  I got burned on one of those once, the guy wanted me to pay with some fly by night transfer company and I refused only to convince him to use google checkout.  I paied, he never delivered.  Lucky for me I paid google with my American Express card and got reimbursed, but if I had used the service he originally wanted me to use I would have been screwed.  Anyone have any experience with any of these bank transfer guys on localbitcoins?  A specific name of one that came through would make me less nervous.  If I were to lose this money there'd be no chance I can get a decent bitcoin miner.  I'm just starting to climb out of the hole from me with the headaches and my wife was out of a job for 5 months.

Korxax



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I live in a pretty small town, and I have some medical problems that make it so I'm unwilling to drive.  I get Cluster headaches, sort of like having a day long migraine packed into 30-120 minutes and repeat several times a day, or go to clusterheadaches.com if you are curious).  At their worst I get as many as 10 a day, they have slowed down considerably, I'm not even getting one every day anymore, but it's still always a risk if I go out that I may get hit with one.  If anyone sees me with one they end up calling an ambulance thinking I'm having a stroke or something because the whole right side of my face droops and I'm balling uncontrollably while pounding my head on anything solid.  The hospital can't do a damn thing about them so I'd really rather not have to deal with that on top of the head pain, or pay the ambulance bill and the emergency room bill when I didn't even want them called, and that's assuming I don't get committed to the psych ward.  Getting hit with one while out driving would also be bad.  Besides, my wife is at work with the car.  She's working in Seattle a 10 hour day, and it's a 2 hour drive to Seattle so by the time she gets home she wants to go to bed almost immediately and everything is closed.  I guess I should have mentioned I need to be able to buy them online only, and I'd like to have them today or tomorrow at the latest to get a sale price on the miner.

My understanding with coinbase is that it can take a week to get the coins.

Korxax

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