As you should!



(cue the low, evil sounding laugh)

Here's the thing: BitInstant and Mt. Gox are not just unprofessional. They're amateurish, bush league. I'll throw Dwolla in there as well. THe real problem with Dwolla is that they don't want to be known for bitcoin. They think they can sort of be a bitcoin without the bitcoin.

With Mt. Gox, you can't have these kinds of reputational issues, ever. Plus all of the ID requirements, what a joke. Virwox destroys Mt. Gox in terms of convenience.

Bitinstant is pretty much a joke, in my opinion. No one wants to have to physically deposit cash at CVS. 4% fee on top. And Dwolla purposefully makes it difficult for bitcoiners.

Coinbase is on a totally other level in terms of professionalism. I think an internationally capable coinbase would send the price of bitcoin soaring.

I would second the suggestion to use Virwox. Their fees are steep but if you're outside of US and can't use coinbase, it's probably your easiest/ quickest option.

I don't mind waiting another 3 hours.


I need to get another post in anyway so I'll talk about bitcoin for a bit to prove i'm not just here to coin people.


If you're a casual person in the US, you should be using Coinbase. Your funds are way more secure with them (potential 2 factor authentication, over 80% of funds stored offsite) than having them stole from your computer.

A real prolem with bitcoin is how totally unsecure holding coins on your hard drive is. Your computer could crash and the coins are easily stolen. Bad combination. Not to mention how absurdly slow it is downloading the blockchain. Forget it.

Blockchain.info is good if you want to play satoshi dice. But for some reason I just don't trust it. I've heard some bad rumors about people manipulating it. The software itself works great and is convenient but I don't trust their security. For a newb with under 50 BTC, blockchain.info is fine.

Bitinstant/ Mt. Gox seem unprofessional, it's really bad for bitcoin. Same goes for dwolla. I wouldn't trust my money with any of them.

Lucky for me, my first transaction buying Bitcoin online, I totally trusted a random person with a $200 moneypak. They came through and I've been a happy bitcoiner ever since .


I've been scammed by 2 people for about 12 bitcoin. The transactions were so small I didn't suspect fraud. Other than that, my interactions have been overwhelmingly positive. People who use bitcoin want bitcoin to work (for the most part). Have faith, but be careful.

I'm very experienced with bitcoin and want to enter the contest.

Personally, I think it's really unfair/ off putting forcing new people to post on this forum. If you're trying to grow bitcoin, having a super restrictive forum is sending a terrible message.