Bitcoin newb here, read lots, still pretty green and haven't bought. I'm in in the UK. If I wanted to buy some coins through Bitstamp (recommended? it seems a really easy interface and pretty easy to get verified etc) - am I right in thinking they are held there safely in their own encrypted wallet? I keep reading about people storing them themselves on their own harddrives etc but for ease (& because I'm completely incompetent computer wise compared to most the people I read about on Reddit) I'd rather have them in one place until I decide to move them to SWC or the like.

Second thing I'm unsure about is the quoted price on Bitstamp seems lower than Xe.com $720<$765 atm. Why are the quoted prices different all over the place?

Thirdly, I understand you have to pick your merchant/exchange carefully because of liquidity and you could be stuck with your coins and unable to sell them (MtGox etc) - is Bitstamp liquid enough to allow me to sell them pretty easily should I want to?

Thanks

Some insider news, their going to be adding a very high new tax bracket on bitcoins in the UK at ~60%.

Running business through Bitcoin is very possible. But Chinese are Chinese, nothing can stop them by blocking competitors out of their way. It was published recently in BitcoinDaily that China is really working hard to ban Bitcoins. The decision comes after bitcoins' rapid rise in value. But individuals were still free to trade in bitcoins but should be aware of the risks involved.

1 - Yes, bitstamp keeps the majority of coins in cold storage wallets. FWIW, with a few hours reading/experimentation storing your own coins is fairly easy so I wouldn't get psyched out if you think it's some super advanced ****. Depends on how you plan to use your coins though - if you cbf and don't feel like being able to move coins around is an advantage for you, I'd trust bitstamp enough with currency that I don't care much about.

2 - seems like a good answer: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/que...ween-exchanges

3 - I've never had any problems with liquidity (fast cashouts/transfers) but I've never done big $ amounts. From everything I've read they're very liquid. Also I *think* withdrawing bitcoins is always way quicker than $ so if one exchange is having fiat delays you should be able to just transfer your btc and withdraw from another exchange.

tyty very helpful. I think I'll go through Bitstamp seems the easiest & support are pretty helpful, I have 2 factor authenticated my account and am waiting for verification. I have downloaded Bitcoin-qt if I need to move them about and have encrypted, pretty simple (the only thing I dont understand is how to copy this wallet to a USB or whatever so its backed up?)

Is there a way on Bitstamp or the like to set a price where you can buy say if it falls to $650 it auto buys it and if it reaches $1.3k I can sell automatically like I can with stocks? Forgot the correct terminology for this lol

Oh the other thing, if I want to deposit into SWC to play poker with them (dont need to but seems a good way of 'earning' more coins) do I just withdraw from BS into my qt then deposit like I would Skrill etc? Withdrawals are the same?

Do not use Bitcoin-QT for wallet storage and backup. Use Electrum. It allows you to recover easier without having to keep on doing backups. Plus you don't have to download the entire blockchain.

Yes, there are limit orders on Bitstamp, but you need to keep reserves in your account.

You can send directly from BS to SWC if you want as well, no need to go to QT.

Thanks for your advice.

First publicly traded bitcoin company on the Nasdaq just announced. WPCS just acquired BTX Trader. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/wpcs-a...222500226.html

Institutional investors such as Hudson Bay Capital ($3 billion fund) and Iroquois Capital

Stock is up 75% after hours on the news

This reminds me of when Ktel jumped 75% or something silly after releasing a news article that had the keyword 'linux' in it... Ahh the good old dotcom days.

noob question, can you explain what the takeaways are from this graph?

By itself? I'm not sure a huge amount. I think it's a starting point for more. I think you have to look at the delta between this and other similar graphs at other time periods to get any good information. Seeing it shift left would mean a lot of old money is coming out.

The most interesting part for me was seeing the how long a lot of coins were unspent and how they did still come out of "hibernation". Quite a lot had been there for 2+ years, though! Some even longer.

The next visualization I'm working on will try to determine the age of how many haven't been spent for various periods of time.

Giving bitcoins another look?

Or not.

One thing that would be super super interesting to see is how many BTCs are actually being actively circulated within the economy within the last x minutes/days/months

And how many are the same ones being recirculated compared to unique. I'm guessing the unique percent is miniscule.

Looks cool Tom, you planning any other features on the site? I think data like that is pretty interesting.

I think there will be another bubble someday, so I plan to start accumulating when the price dips back below 30.

Nice troll bro

That is my plan which I consider probable. It might never happen, but I'm not trolling. I understand this is the bitcoin going to the moon thread and most of you do not support much talk based on realistic expectations, so I don't really expect positive responses either. I'm guessing you thought the run-up to $1200 was completely legitimate and sustainable? If so, that pretty much makes you a troll, but a troll that will be supported by many other trolls itt too.

My backup plan is that if I start seeing bitcoins used in actual commerce at increasingly significant levels I will start diversifying then, and start trying to sell my services for bitcoins then. That has yet to come close to happening and has been almost entirely speculation so far.

That is the one I would like to see. How many coins haven't been used for more than a year and how that changes over time.

The other one would be the amount of unique coins in circulation as mentioned above although there are still too many people just moving coins around between addresses in their own wallets.

how probable and by what time? i'm willing to bet against

There isn't a good way to do this, or I would already have. Also, I would be making bets on several different levels not just all or nothing at what the market currently perceives to be an extreme level. It could never dip below $100 again or it could go back down to single digits. No one really knows.

k

its been done a few times already in this thread. you simply name a price and a date that it must be hit by. if you want multiple bets at different levels we could do that too. escrowed as well.

up to you

I made several strong sell warnings when bitcoins were around $1,000+. Sorry to those of you who have just lost half their wealth, but if you still have significant wealth tied up in this "currency" the time to sell is now. Take your gains and buy something real.

The problem is I don't escrow with randoms on the internet. I prefer to place any of my significant bets in a well-regulated environment where the ease of transactions is really easy too. Another failure point of bitcoin.