2017 update? How about using ShapeShift and altcoins?

Though the OP is selling something, would you be able to explain this hedging strategy to me like to a 5-year old? I'm interested in bitcoin hedging strategies in general. Wrong thread?

Do you know of a trading site similar to Whaleclub using escrow, or only exchanges?

You consider a fixed $2.5 fee for an ATM withdrawal too much...

For simplicity's sake, let's consider the little % to be also 2.5% - in reality it's usually more, but in this way we can compare a $2.5 ATM withdrawal fee with a 2.5% shopping fee...And you don't consider a variable 2.5% (in our example) not to much! The devil is in the details, let's see!

It all boils down to how your variable 2.5% shopping charge compares to the fixed $2.5 ATM fee. It depends on how much you live on bitcoin: how much of your monthly living expenses do you charge on your bitcoin card. How much do you live in a cash society (the majority of your transactions will be ATM withdrawals), or how much the society you live in is a cashless one (the majority of your transactions will be for shopping).

You seem to can't help me in something I didn't even ask. It's OK!

They have been offline for a few days.

Important question: do all these (most of these) cards we are talking about hold your balance in bitcoin, or rather in fiat currency in a separate electronic wallet? Which card is which? I guess, the method when the card is directly connected to bitcoin should be better, but in reality? In the former case, are your bitcoins only exchanged to fiat currency at the money you cash out at an ATM or buy something in a shop/online? In the latter case, usually how long does it take for your bitcoin to be transferred and exchanged to the fiat electronic wallet?

It has been down for a few days. What has happened?

Any ideas for this?

They seem to do exactly what I want to avoid with a more or less anonymous card for small payments only: they have a fee structure that penalizes shopping, eg. they charge by the number of purchases. I've read through the thread, maybe there isn't a better solution yet, maybe I should check back later for future developments.

I wonder which card can you recommend for my situation. What I'm looking for is a low value, prepaid, virtual gift card, which should hold a balance of 100 euros. Or dollars, or pounds, or Australians, or Canadians, something in that range. It doesn't have to be reloadable. Of course, it shouldn't ask for my personal data in this value range. The pricing structure should favor smaller payments (as it's already a small value, prepaid virtual gift card), ideally it shouldn't charge by the transaction (shouldn't charge per POS purchase). It should be a smooth operational experience, and a solid product. Does it exist yet, and if so, which one is it?

Edited to add: It should be more than just a mobile app, it should work from the web/Tails.

Should work without SMS: NIST declares the age of SMS-based 2-factor authentication over

Thanks for the info, I didn't know this.

What I had in mind is to do some business in Amazon Gift Cards, me buying their cards for bitcoin, a high risk business for me. Paxful seemed to be the place for that, this forum isn't. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Is this a worthwhile idea at all?

@vvikkass quick question: do you have the subtitle files as well? Helpful for us non-English speakers.

Anyways, I don't want to ruin your business, thanks for the awesome service, indeed! I just came across a site with very easy downloads - including exercise files, and subtitles as well. check it out: http://www.tut-dl.com/

It is far from being comprehensive, so far I'm entertained by its selection, your service is still valuable for filling out the gaps.

If anyone managed to contact the owner of TUT-DL, would you mind to PM me? (Your homework: in which country are they located?)

@DirkZiff@europe.com quick question: do you have the subtitle files as well? Helpful for us non-English speakers.

Anyways, I don't want to ruin your business, thanks for the awesome service, indeed! I just came across a site with very easy downloads - including exercise files, and subtitles as well. check it out: http://www.tut-dl.com/

It is far from being comprehensive, so far I'm entertained by its selection, your service is still valuable for filling out the gaps.

If anyone managed to contact the owner of TUT-DL, would you mind to PM me? (Your homework: in which country are they located?)

I'm sorry to say but the argument that only people who have grievances rate a product is pretty weak. I mean, look at all those reviews on Amazon or TripAdvisor... or even sites like TrustPilot or BitTrust. They are in the full range, good and bad reviews, too. Yes, it's easier to leave reviews on Amazon, you sing up to shop, but on the other sites?

Come on, guys! I expected better discussion from the premiere bitcoin community!

I like the concept. I wonder if such a service exist where you can spend larger amounts by a credit card to a bitcoin address, irreversible. That would be cool, too, for other purposes.

Wow. Mr. moderator has moved my topic to Bitcoin Forum > Economy > Marketplace > Service Discussion > Exchanges, thanks for him! anyone has to add anything to this? I thought you have more to say.

There are all kinds of review sites out there (not mentioning Amazon and TripAdvisor, but let's take Trustpilot) where people leave all kinds of reviews, some of them are even stellar. So, I your logic doesn't fully add up to me, sorry, maybe it's just me. Sure, LocalBitcoins.com is the market leader, but I've read Paxful aimed to add improvements, remove frictions.

Is this topic about trading or exchanges, by the way?

I realized most of the discussion about LocalBitcoins.com and Paxful are in the Exchanges forum. I thought they are trading platforms. What to do now? Perhaps, we should move the topic over to the Exchanges branch?

Let's consider both LocalBitcoins.com and Paxful as marketplaces where you can trade bitcoin for a myriad of other payment methods. Let's consider both platforms from the buyers' and sellers' perspectives as well. Both their ratings on BitTrust disappoint, both are rated approximately at ~2.4/5:

http://bittrust.org/localbitcoinscom
http://bittrust.org/paxful

Is it BitTrust, the trading platform themselves, or the people who rate the services?

The funny thing is, when I checked them also on BitTrust a few months back, the ratings were like ~3/5 for LocalBitcoins.com and ~4/5 for Paxful. Now they are equal, equally worse. I understand that certain amount is risk or fraud is inherent to these platforms, caution is required, or we may call them a minefield as well, depending on your perspective.

I just remember reading posts back in the days how Paxful is trying to get this marketplace thing right, how it tries to be better than LocalBitcoins.com. They even wrote this sketchy(?) piece on Medium: https://medium.com/@paxful/i-m-3-108-closer-to-paying-off-my-college-debt-by-selling-bitcoin-bf3aadc60f08
But is there any truth to it? It's on Medium, so.

All in all which is the best social trading platform like these? Some recommend Mycelium Local Trader, but that's certainly a different, much more constrained environment.

Maybe I posted this in the wrong forum. Who knows?