Really interesting stuff. Can any of you guys recommend a good company to buy a few coins from and a safe way to store them? I just wanna get my feet wet, maybe try out a btc poker room.

Coinbase.com

just saw this new site on the forums with good reviews

http://www.bitcoin-brokers.org/

allows you to buy coins directly using bank cash deposits (similar to how bitfloor used to work)

WTS 4.9 BTC for $400USD on paypal...

Please contact me on Skype, my username is Dintxoxo. I can send first if you have references etc.

Will buy right now. I logged on to Skype and it says you are offline

Please don't trade in this thread. We have been told several times that it will be closed if it happens again.

I've noticed UK bitcoin exchanges charge up to 10-15% markup on bitcoins. Consdering starting my own UK exchange, good/bad idea? Spoke to my bank, they seem OK(ish) with it. If I charge ~2% markup should get a fair amount of business?

Gotta worry more about the law of running an exchange and being a money changer (no idea what is required in UK, cannot think it is lax). How would you get paid by people? In person? Wires? I doubt there is that much business to be made in it, anyone doing it significantly will just use the more centralized ways, and anyone doing it for small amounts won't be worth the effort.

HMRC (UK Tax collectors) don't require you to register with money laundering regulations yet:
http://www.coindesk.com/hmrc-uk-bitc...g-regulations/

(But they warn that as soon as they change their stance it's your responsibility to register)

Currently MtGox requires photo ID etc etc, I'd need to research it some more but because of the above link I beleive I could just accept bank transfers without needing any 'account verification'. A much faster and more annonymous buying process. This would make bitcoin a lot more accessible and appealing especially when you consider that a big pull for bitcoin is the annonyminity. (I would of course talk to a lawyer first though). Could look at other payment methods in the future but this would be the MVP.

So I think the barrier for entry is fairly low for a new startup. Pretty sure I could write an exchange within 1-2 weeks, and my current business can invest in it for starting capital. My current startup also has a technically minded audience as well who may be interested in buying Bitcoin.

MtGox has a fairly large daily volume, I think there's space for more people in the market, especially if you think as I do that the market is going to grow fast. The problem with a lot of current exchanges is trust as well, I think I can have a good shot at becoming a trusted exchange based on my current reputation running my other startup. If you're in the UK and want Bitcoin, you either have to buy it at a premium (5%+), or buy it through semi dodgy matching services which I've used before and they feel pretty dodgy/risky, or send MtGox all your photo ID etc.

Tom, you should read the article, its not that long (just a terrible title as usual). what was your epic prediction that came true?

and for anyone interested in the details, in the end nothing actually happened. it was an accounting error where a large withdrawal (made manually) was not subtracted from the players account. the player continued to bet and subsequently "lost" 1300 btc to the site that was not his. the loss was paid out to investors as the software dictates. the owner supplied the "fake" btc out of his own pocket without delay. once the details were sorted out and he determined what happened, he simply rolled back the "fake betting" and things continued business as usual (~600k btc (~50 million USD) wagered in first month to date). so no one lost anything and if the player had "won", dooglus would not have paid out the "fake" winnings.

Basically that the site was incompetently coded with a huge sum of money at stake, and then mismanaged when dooglus thought he had to pay out winnings on fake money, then pissed off people when he retracted.

Basically, you are playing with fire when dealing with this kind of nonsense. There is zero reason to trust the person running the site is competent at all.

Yes, it worked out in the end because dooglus did get it together and was willing to pay for the loss (even though he shouldn't have even done that).

well, i'm glad you do realize that it worked out. that wasn't evident from your first post gloating about the epic prediction.

dooglus really did show his true colors by immediately covering the fake debt, no questions asked first, then went to go figure out what happened and made the correct decision once he did. (all of the big investors - the few who make up > 95% of the site - were obviously ok with the decision, as there really isn't anything interesting to discuss, perhaps a primary reason why the site hasn't been affected by this incident).

also, im just going to assume you aren't implying that fiat bank errors do not happen. And/or that if they ever do (for whatever reason), that the banks do not roll back the error once they work it out. seems standard.

anyway, i'll agree about the investment being risky. its backing a gambling site after all, and being in btc-land there are layers upon layers of risk here. but manage it well and with great risk can come great profit.

Talk to the Intersango guys Donald Norman, Patrick Strateman, and Amir Taaki about running an exchange in the UK. I can get you their contact info if you are really interested. It was the second largest exchange until their bank account was shut down. Here were the main problems:

1) Friendly fraud. UK banks all use two factor auth, so it is almost impossible for accounts to get hacked, yet the banks will still side with customers who say they got hacked sometimes.

2) Low balance and high overhead. The account balance of the exchange was never very high because most people wiring money on just want to buy and withdraw bitcoins, and most people selling bitcoins want to immediately wire it off. The banks are so archaic that someone manually has to process all transfers, so it is a large overhead to have lots of small transfers going in and out. The banks will not put up with servicing an account with a small balance that requires a large overhead, and they will shut the account down. IIRC, Transferwise had to park a really high amount like 500k in an account to make it worthwhile for the banks to service it.

The biggest risk is not that it's gambling, the biggest risk is the whole operation is not set up to actually protect itself and there is no testing or even verification that it will work. Yet people will throw stupid money at it to try to get rich quick.

no one is trying to get rich quick off a 1% house edge, imo. just something +ev to do with a few bitcoins. (as i said, the business model has attracted 600k of wagers at 1% house edge in its first month = 6000 btc ev). its clear you disagree with this point and re: your last line, i will have to just accept the insult without retort.

SEC warns of Bitcoin scams:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...96M0SI20130723

Apparently, a business called Bitcoin Savings & Trust was actually a Ponzi scheme.

+EV lol @ giving some clown money with a 1% edge who cannot even protect against a 1300 BTC cashout.

Odds of being hacked
Odds of him just running off with the money
Odds of him writing the code wrong and paying out in favor of the players

All for 1% edge with 5% fee on winnings. Definitely +EV.

I am shocked a place that promised 7% weekly returns was a Ponzi Scheme! Hopefully the dumbasses who paid into this lost all their money AND this guy gets locked up.

An investor would have made much more than 7%/week had they simply bought BTC and sold in April.

There's a cafe in my city which is now accepting Bitcoins, I'm really looking forward to making my first purchase. By a remarkable coincidence it's also where I held a Bitcoin meetup.

He was promising 7% in BTC returns I think.

Well, I wasnt around at that time but I went through whole thread of that thing. And if you do the math 50% of first investors made really good money since it lasted nearly 7-8months. There is a really good chance he was doing something illegal for really big profits (drungs/guns?) at the start. But at the end he made it pure ponzi as a lot of people noticed that the money wasnt really moving other than to his cold wallet and to the users.

Then again someone wrote in here that coinlenders are shady because they offer something like 25% interest rate. In real world this is unrealistic but in bitcoin world, only rates like 15%+ are worth really investing with the risks all there funds and startups they and bitcoin itself have.

If you are an early investor and you are getting those returns, why are you pulling money out if you think this is legit? You are going to dump even more in. That's how it survived that long.

LOL @ thinking he was doing anything other than a ponzi.

Your last statement is even more ridiculous, if only rates 15% are worth investing in because of the risk, you have to account for this when paying out people who deposit coins. You either are careless with their money and lose it a lot, or you promise too much.

You dont really need to be careless, do you watch BTC securities from time to time now ? Its pretty similar to poker boom and moneymaker(Moneymaker being asicminer), you can easily make profit from clueless people on BTCTC or BITFUNDER etc, since they are pumping coins into anything "that moves". I had no idea about trading or anything and I was able to make really good profit this way. Someone who would have some experience and large capital could make killing of it. So its not unreasonable to take big loan and promise to return 20%+ APR.

I don't pay much attention to them as there really is no reason to. It's all a bunch of clueless dolts throwing money at stuff where 90% of it is scams, the rest is overpriced junk that people hoarding BTC are board with and don't even care if they lose it.

You have no clue about trading, and think you actually skillfully traded. This is exactly the part I'm talking about. Getting lucky != good. The major product of Bitcoin, besides drugs, is exploiting rubes. A bunch of people who got money with really no sense in earning it (think NFL players who always end up bankrupt after making "brilliant" investments), it's a great market to drain capital from the clueless who have it.

The best way to profit is to create a security, get a bunch of morons to invest in it, then close up shop.

And 20% is much different than 3300%. The carelessness I am talking about is the one who is taking investors money, promising a huge return, then giving it out to high risk businesses.