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May 03, 2011, 03:26:17 PM |
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It might be useful to discuss ways that we could improve the availability of getting Bitcoins to new people. I think that's a pretty high priority.
I've seen the following methods, and have feedback about them:
1) Coinpal - shut down. Great for getting started.
2) OTC trading - I haven't used this, heard good things, but a bit daunting for a new user. I'm curious how the transfers are done here? Are a lot on PayPal? If so, it seems like playing with fire.
3) Cash/check by mail. If you can trust the guy, seems good, a bit slow, but tolerable.
4) In person trades. Somewhat sketchy, time consuming, hard to find people.
5) Directly send money to exchanges - works for large orders, not wroth it for small ones.
I think the high volume traders can use the exchanges, and that works great for them. However, bringing the little guy into the marketplace is what needs to be pursued.
In person trades are going to be the best way to avoid any trouble, scams, and frozen accounts. It seems superior to me in the speed, although trading by mail could supplement this.
Traders are going to have to charge decent fees to make it worth their while, but I don't think we have much of a choice. As far as I can tell, there is nothing illegal about this, although maybe for large volumes there are regulations to worry about? Need legal advice on this one. If you keep it small, it probably is not an issue.
There are other PayPal like services out there, but most people don't use them so it's hard to go too much in that direction.
Gift certificates on Ebay are also an interesting way to do things too. I'd like to see if that takes off.
Anyone got any other creative ideas? While that trade network website is good, it would be cool to get some feedback mechanism in there, possibly with web of trust in there as well. That would be pretty cool to have.
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