I'm a noob trying to setup bitcoin to use in poker. ive done searches here and google, but finding conflicting info all over. I'm located in WA state (I think some exchanges wont service me). I cannot find a thread or current info anywhere, and ive already searched for 1 hour.

things I value: security, LOW FEES, regulatory compliance (ie my account wont be shut down/seized), ability to understand wtf I'm doing.

questions: do I need to set up an exchange AND wallet account? if so, which exchange/wallet should I use considering the above "things I value"? I don't really want to use a physical device. I intend to play on bovada/ignition, BOL, and possibly playersonly and juicy stakes, if that matters.

sorry for being a noob and thanks in advance for any help.

How much you trying to move around?

Also coinbase?

I think this is for me. I mean up to 10k if I end up goin higher limits. why does the amount matter? "also coinbase" I don't know what that means. I think coinbase is out due to high fees and their interest in being compliant with banking laws. I have seen some articles that say they don't want to do business with gambling sites. I don't want to take any chances with stuff like that. I wanna get a good exchange/wallet that makes sense for gambling/poker, and will for certain deal with my geographic location (WA usa). so for example, cex.io sounds like it restricts my state.

Yes, you need to make an exchange and a wallet.

Use Coinbase as your exchange. Fees can be avoided entirely if you bank transfer to/from them, and use buy/sell orders on their exchange (gdax) to convert between coins and USD.

Coinbase are safe & secure, part of their regulatory compliance is they don't like dealing with poker sites and other shady enterprises. Which is why you need also a wallet. It goes like this:

1. Send USD from bank to Coinbase.
2. Buy Bitcoins with your USD on Coinbase (GDAX if you want to save the fee)
3. Send Bitcoins to your own personal wallet/address from Coinbase.
4. Send Bitcoins from personal wallet to wherever you want without Coinbase knowing/ caring (poker site)

The process is reversed when having won money at poker and want to get cash from your bank.

For wallet an easy online one is blockchain.info, but there are all sorts of options here including programs you run on your PC, hardware wallets, etc.


Or at least, that's my understanding of the procedure. Others may correct me if I'm wrong please!

You have a bizarre sense of reality.

Don't buy bitcoin. It's not for you.

ah, ok yes I didn't connect the bank>exchange>wallet>site pathway, thanks.

how does one avoid fees on coinbase? for me, this is an integral part of everyday life.

if that's for me, mind explaining why?

Basically, consider Coinbase and GDAX as the same entity.

Coinbase is the friendly consumer-facing site where you can link your bank account, or use a credit card and buy/sell bitcoins instantly with a few clicks. For this convenience they charge fees, something like 1.5% for cash/ACH or 4% for credit cards.

GDAX is their "serious exchange" side of things, looks more like a forex trading site with candlestick charts and market orders, stop buys etc all this complicated trading stuff. There are at any moment hundreds of traders on the site placing buy/sell orders, this is the activity that drives the price you see when people say "bitcoins are worth $X". Gdax charges 0.5% when you fill someone else's order, and 0% when you place an order that subsequently gets filled by someone else.

Once you're set up with coinbase+gdax accounts (same login / verification procedure), you can avoid all fees by ACH dollars from bank to coinbase, wait for it to clear, transfer over to gdax within the site then buy your coins using a buy order not the market rate. Then send the coins away to your wallet and onwards to poker or whatever.

Behind the scenes you can imagine Coinbase app is placing a buy order on the gdax exchange market on your behalf and pocketing a little extra for the service.

There will still be unavoidable bitcoin transaction fees (of like $2-$5 or whatever they are currently), for using the actual blockchain to move actual bitcoins. But no additional percentages skimmed by middlemen.

There is of course risk when placing a buy order to avoid the 0.5% fee, the price may forever continue moving upward and your order never gets filled, you end up having to pay more as the price rises! Such is trading. You can lower chance by ordering nearer the market rate, now you're getting deep in to trading and how to time buying dips for the best deal etc. etc.

I certainly wouldn't recommend all this palaver for your first transactions, it's supremely more complicated than just buying a $100 worth of instant buy on a credit card, sending to wallet, sending to site, and playing a few tournies within the hour

Processing money transactions related to internet poker is a federal crime as related to uigea. Exchanges that do proper AML + KYC treat this very seriously.


Please explain what regulatory compliance you are seeking. I'll stop here and reiterate that you ought not to buy any bitcoin because

1- you have no clue what youre doing
2- you have no idea what you're buying
3- your sense of what is "security" is fundamentally flawed
4- you are at high odds of getting your $ seized by an exchange because of #1,2,3

alright that makes perfect sense. having traded on the stock market, I imagine its similar. I have not traded forex or anything like that, but I have an ok understanding of this type of stuff. all of this gives me a great starting point. I wasn't getting as much info as in these past two replies in an hour of browsing different articles, so thanks.

any thoughts on kraken or any other competitors?

fyi, when I first started looking at bitcoin, the price of one was ~$12. it had just come up from like $1, and I gave up thinking "ive missed the boat". well, I guess I f'd that up.

move along, troll.

fyi, your knowledge concerning how bitcoin actually works at $4500 indicates that you were never even close to ever buying bitcoin at any point in your life.

You missed no boats.

let it go, troll.

my epenis is no where as big as Toothsayer's or Kazuya or Two****s


Once it gets to that level, I will gladly quit the forum. Some of the aforementioned have decided to quit themselves!

kazuyaaaaaaa



come back

Reason the limits you are planning on using was relevant is that coinbase, assuming you use them, only allow a withdrawal of 10k fiat per week without being verified, as in sending your id and whatnot to them.

Anything less and you can stay more private.

And yeah you gotta transfer to another wallet then to the site and reverse to get back onto coinbase but that's not to big of a hassle imo.


Further, "also coinbase" was due to any research at all would have brought up coinbase as a way to get into bitcoin, yet you seemed to imply after searching you hand't come across them.

no, I had come across coinbase, but I didn't think about the separate wallet thing..ya. also, it looked like coinbase had the highest fees.

10k/week isn't something I need to worry about. even if I played that high, which I wont, I could just live with the sort of limits they are talking about

It's still very weird how few people know about cryptocurrencies. I did projet in college ė months ago about alternative investment related to major cryptocurrencies (bitcoin and ethereum) and even lecturer didn't knew much about it.

Crypto market cap is now at $170B, compared to countries M1, it would rank 27 among nations:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat.../2214rank.html

Close to overtaking Toyota and Intel in market cap:
https://www.forbes.com/global2000/li...rtreverse:true

And people are still talking about crypto like it's a joke. The growth has been explosive 1000000x in 8 years. Just extrapolate two-four more years and it's game over for central banks around the world. And media has almost not reacted at all.

I'll take the under.

The space has grown a lot for sure, but market cap is still a pretty stupid measurement.

If you had 10k to invest, would you buy bitcoin or ethereum?

Most ppl in this thread will tell you bitcoin and most ppl in the eth thread will tell you eth. Why not both?

Am I only allowed to choose one or can I split it up?

If you're looking to hold for long term, btc. Short term, I'd go ethereum. I have no reasons to justify this strategy.