Bitcoins in 2014?

[Retired_Member38]

Is it really that hard to trade Bitcoins in the UK...?

Are you saying for a developer like me, there is a real gap in the market here to offer some kind of very easy to use platform...?

There could be, but regulations and compliance are going to be an absolute nightmare imo. I'd thought about looking into it - but its just too much effort I think and I can't afford to risk my bank accounts as I'm using them for property stuff with my dad.

The banks could easily simply say they don't want to do business with you once they realise you're trading like this - they won't want involved in a massive investigation if you get in trouble yourself. And it seems like you'd almost certainly have issues if you grew big enough. People trading Silk Road coins, money laundering, etc etc.

I was thinking if I done it I'd probably have the seller send me the bitcoins, then the buyer pays the seller direct. Then you release the bitcoin, minus a commission. So you've took your commission in bitcoin rather than cash and you can leave the banks out of it completely. I reckon if you were with a high street bank and were taking loads of random deposits for bitcoin sales... they'd close you down within a month. It would mean you piling up commissions in bitcoins but you could offload those via a seller account on your own site

Bitstamp are obviously international rather than UK only and they've been established a long time, so don't know how much you can read into their numbers. But their 24 hour volume is displayed on their homepage, and I'm going to guess their commission rate averages out at 0.4%. I think its charged on both sides so really its 0.8%.

14,599 coins in the last 24 hrs, 0.8% of that = 116 coins as commission. Current rate values last 24 hours commission as just over $73,000

 

[Edwin]

I was thinking if I done it I'd probably have the seller send me the bitcoins, then the buyer pays the seller direct. Then you release the bitcoin, minus a commission.

I know it's a "hypothetical" but how does a transaction like you outlined deal with the fact that the value of Bitcoin can rise/fall by 20% a day or more? Any delay at all in sending/receiving Bitcoin could leave either the buyer, the seller and/or the middleman service facing a huge loss compared to the value at the instant the transaction was agreed.

 

[Retired_Member38]

I know it's a "hypothetical" but how does a transaction like you outlined deal with the fact that the value of Bitcoin can rise/fall by 20% a day or more? Any delay at all in sending/receiving Bitcoin could leave either the buyer, the seller and/or the middleman service facing a huge loss compared to the value at the instant the transaction was agreed.

The transaction would need to be carried through in Bitcoins value rather than $ or £. It it drops or goes up during the transaction, tough.

You're still going to get your 0.5% of a bitcoin as commission - the only thing that changes is how much it was worth. And when you didn't physically provide anything or have any real costs in the transaction, I don't think it particularly matters if it changed -its all profit for the exchange.

 

[websaway]

The world is moving too fast for me.
As I understand it you trade goods or services with something that can go up or down 50% overnight and people far more savvy than oneself can trade the market and move prices up or down and, if an exchange loses your stash they just make up an excuse as to why you now have no money.:lol:

 

[websaway]

I believe its a generation problem, last week i sold a domain to a young entrepreneur and the buyer emailed me to say he was just cashing in his Bitcoins to pay for the domain.

Ten minutes later the money was in my pay-pal account.

Like it or loath it its here to stay with more off the same on the way.

As I understand it the more people that invest in the coins the more the value rises, therefore anyone holding coins will encourage others into the market. How do you know this guy was not spinning a yarn.

 

[websaway]

Never worry about missing the boat.
You can console yourself by the fact that it may have been the Titanic.

 

[grantw]

Cheers mate I had a look at them the other day, along with localbitcoins. I'm wondering if they're both going to be a pain in the arse like bitstamp?

Localbitcoins don't require any ID (or didn't when I signed up), some sellers require you to have a verified mobile number so that's about as much as you'll need to do. As a new user you may also be limited to the amount of btc people will sell you.

Apart from that it's a totally simple process, you'll usually have your coins within 15 minutes of sending a bank transfer.

Grant

 

[Retired_Member38]

Cheers, I ordered from localbitcoins about an hour ago so just dealing with it now - far easier to deal with seller id requirements than bitstamps.

I'm in, 10 bitcoins :lol:

 

[timter51]

Congrats Monkey! I'm up to 8, trying to get to 20 odd before the end of the spring and leave it at that. If anyone is interested / believes in Technical Analysis, most experienced TAs are predicting the next big boom to be mid-summer, based on trend lines, graphs, exponential curves etc. etc. way over my head Unless of course it all collapses and dies before we get there.

 

[Retired_Member38]

Congrats Monkey! I'm up to 8, trying to get to 20 odd before the end of the spring and leave it at that. If anyone is interested / believes in Technical Analysis, most experienced TAs are predicting the next big boom to be mid-summer, based on trend lines, graphs, exponential curves etc. etc. way over my head Unless of course it all collapses and dies before we get there.

I've got them in my actual wallet now - I transferred them out of localbitcoins and all a pretty pleasant experience to deal with really. A slight premium over bitstamp but all done very quickly... I'll ask bitstamp to delete my account and destroy the id docs.

I did have to provide the localbitcoins seller with id docs - and it had to go through localbitcoins system so they have it too. But it was just a photo of the bank card and I blanked out everything but the sort code and account number, which he obviously seen on the transfer anyway. So you're giving away absolutely nothing of value to anyone. If bitstamp get any tighter they'll be wanting a sperm sample in the post next :lol:

I'll almost certainly keep buying more coins - I check http://uk.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin daily to keep an eye on the bigger news stories coming out so worth bookmarking that for anyone who's got any interest in it. Nice and easy way to find the more important stuff voted up by other people, saves you going looking!

 

[websaway]

How do you think US regulation will affect the coin ?

Somewhere from now to regulation the value may well collapse.

 

[Retired_Member38]

I don't see regulation being a major issue. It wouldn't even necessarily cause a collapse - more rules and stopping mtgox nonsense only helps long term.

 

[websaway]

I don't see regulation being a major issue. It wouldn't even necessarily cause a collapse - more rules and stopping mtgox nonsense only helps long term.

I would have thought that if it was brought into some kind of mainstream regulation then it would not be attractive to some investors and subsequently they would start to sell and cause it to collapse. It only works as a way of making huge returns because it is not regulated.

 

[Retired_Member38]

You could have regulation on companies like mtgox operating inside USA - that wouldn't prevent people doing whatever they wanted in private transactions, like buying stuff anonymously on websites or whatever.

 

[Jamie101]

Still shocked that nobody has had the balls to make a UK exchange since there seems to be a good bit of demand for it.

Funny that some of you were mentioning it earlier but regulations seem to be putting people off.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Retired_Member38]

Still shocked that nobody has had the balls to make a UK exchange since there seems to be a good bit of demand for it.

Funny that some of you were mentioning it earlier but regulations seem to be putting people off.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

Localbitcoins seem to be doing a great job of dealing with the market here in UK from my sole transaction with them. So it might be hard to break into the niche and push them out?

If you did build one you're going to have major issues with regulations, hacking attempts, and scams. It definitely won't be for the faint hearted

I can't really think of a great USP to steal any market share from the established player, can you?

 

[websaway]

You could have regulation on companies like mtgox operating inside USA - that wouldn't prevent people doing whatever they wanted in private transactions, like buying stuff anonymously on websites or whatever.

But it would be a licence to wash money and avoid taxes.
Couldn't be allowed, all the money in the world would flow into it and the capitalist system would collapse ( theoretically of course )

 

[grantw]

Still shocked that nobody has had the balls to make a UK exchange since there seems to be a good bit of demand for it.

Intersango.com were UK based I believe but the banks kept shutting their UK bank accounts down.

If you can open an exchange that is easy to get money into from the UK you'd be onto a winner, no one likes paying £20+ more per coin on localbitcoins but there aren't a lot of other options without jumping through a load of hoops and ID checks.

Grant

 

[Jamie101]

Intersango.com were UK based I believe but the banks kept shutting their UK bank accounts down.

If you can open an exchange that is easy to get money into from the UK you'd be onto a winner, no one likes paying £20+ more per coin on localbitcoins but there aren't a lot of other options without jumping through a load of hoops and ID checks.

Grant

I'm pretty sure I know of a bank that deals with UK customers now I think of it that recently said they have no problem dealing with customers that have bitcoin businesses.

Monkey - Well localbitcoins isn't really a traditional bitcoin exchange so the USP would probably be having a buy/sell book that's constantly changing much more regularly than on localbitcoins.

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[Retired_Member38]

I'm pretty sure I know of a bank that deals with UK customers now I think of it that recently said they have no problem dealing with customers that have bitcoin businesses.

Monkey - Well localbitcoins isn't really a traditional bitcoin exchange so the USP would probably be having a buy/sell book that's constantly changing much more regularly than on localbitcoins.

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You could just clone Bitstamps business model but make it UK targeted / easy to get money into by local bank transfer. But the problem as mentioned is now you're holding the money and the coins - major compliance and banking issues. I tried my hardest to give them my money and they couldn't even take it... I ended up giving in and using localbitcoins. I would be shocked if you could get a bank to open you an account for this.