The difficulty is now too high for investments in mining to really be profitable unless you do it really big... which most people cannot afford to do..
Honestly I can make 100 or 200 per day selling BTC on localbitcoins.com, which I think is a lot more profitable and less risky than mining.
Do you buy from exchanges and sell locally?
Coinbase and sell locally/online.
I would actually make a lot more $ if I didn't have to wait 4 damn business days between purchases.
It is possible to wire $ to an exchange but you still have to wait 2-3 days for the wire to go through and it is possible the price could rise before then, causing a loss on the trade.
You're eventually going to get caught and prosecuted for money laundering and unlicensed money transmitting. I hope you're not in the US.
http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/bsa/title18b.htmlIn my opinion, this is just paranoia.
I don't even make 50k per year profit doing this. There are hundreds, if not thousands of people doing the exact same thing as I am, and a lot of them are professional full-time traders that don't have any problems.
And out of these thousands of people the only 2 cases we know about are the 2 in Florida.. who were both very high volume sellers, and who were also set-up by the cops where they apparently mentioned illegal activities (using stolen credit cards etc...) so obviously if you are a BTC seller you must not under any circumstances sell BTC to someone who mentions illegal activity.
Now, if we see a major crackdown on the "unlicensed money transmitters" then things might change, and it would have a big impact on this whole industry. I think the outcome of the cases mentioned above, will have implications for the future on this.
But as it stands, I don't think a small fry like myself has much to worry about as long as I pay my frickin' taxes like everybody else.