Buying Bitcoin in the UK

10/01/2014 10:19:00 am Unknown 1 Comments

So you've decided to buy Bitcoin, and you have no idea how to get your hands on the stuff?



I was thinking about this today and decided to write a quick blog post to explain to people (beginners in particular) what they should expect from the journey into Bitcoin.

This is only for people in the UK, if you are based outside of the UK then I suggest you google 'BUY BITCOIN in xxx' obviously replace xxx with your country :) Also this has been written for OCT 2014, things change, and they change quickly so I will try to blog about this once every few months.

Buying Anonymously......

1)LocalBitcoins.com

2) BitBargain

Forfeiting your privacy...

1) Coinfloor

2)Bitstamp

3)Netagio

4)Bittylicious

Best of the REST...

Buying from Crypto SI

Coinfloor review by Crypto SI

8/29/2014 10:18:00 pm Unknown 0 Comments

So we've been using coinfloor for the past week and so far so good!



While we were hesitant with bit121, Coinfloor has got a slightly more polished look, and it seems that they have learned from bit121's mistakes and also have joined the market at a more stable time.

Opening our account was easy, and we immediately added 2 factor authentication, which is now a must have for any site we use. After opening, we needed to upload our I.D documents.......this is always a bit of a sore point when dealing in Bitcoin, but for the time being the masters must be placated, so we uploaded the relevant passport and utility bill and within 48hrs our account had been verified. We recieved an email saying that we were accepted to the party and off we went.

One of the bad points about coinfloor is that you need to fund your account with over £500 to use the domestic faster payments service, this was no problem for us, but for smaller buyers it may be an issue. To avoid this you can use the SEPA option but this does take longer, we haven't tried the SEPA method so cannot comment on the length of time it takes to load. We used the domestic capital account details and our deposit was showing by the close of the next day. We were pleased with this and immediately got stuck into the trading.

Each trade comes with a small fee something like half a percent possibly less, either way the fees are negligible and Coinfloor do not charge for deposits or BTC withdrawls.

Withdrawing was a piece of cake too, all you have to do is add your BTC wallet address and withdraw, and although your bitcoins are held in cold storage the withdrawl process only takes a few hours during office hours, we were very impressed with this also.

Overall Coinfloor are doing a great job, with a simple easy to use site that works perfectly, trades are instant if you want them to be, withdrawl is fast and deposits are secure. of course they have not been around for long enough to really be called reliable, but they are off to a great start and we would like to recommend them to anyone looking for a UK based BTC exchange.

So all in all Coinfloor gets a massive THUMBS UP from us!

oh on another note, Coinfloor use the new Bitcoin abbreviation XBT which is set by the international standards organisation ISO, From now on we may start using it too as all sensible argument points to it becoming the new standard, so  adios BTC, and welcome XBT.

Our first conflict on LocalBitcoins successfully resolved

7/08/2014 03:30:00 pm Unknown 0 Comments

Hi guys, It's been a while since my last blog, well over a month, an loads has happened in the crypto-currency space. I've been looking into SWARM, and it's well worth investigating when you've finished reading about me and LBC of course.  I will actually blog about it next week infact, because it shouldn't go unreported,it's kinda a big deal :)

So, on with my tale of woe and joy. For this story In will not use the name of the seller on LBC because I don't want to ruin his business, despite the fact that me and this person had a dispute over a sale which lasted the best part of a week, It's important to note that I had conducted loads of trades with this person in the past.



What is LocalBitcoins.com? Basically it's a marketplace for Bitcoin only, think of it as an ebay where all you sell is Bitcoin(Btc) and you have various ways to buy or sell the scarce currency. I sell via Bank deposit and cash in my CryptoS.I HQ and I usually buy via the bank transfer option. I realise that some people want anonymity and this is not possible with bank transfer for obvious reasons. I don't want such anonymity. Different strokes.

On a wednesday evening I sent money to buy Bitcoin, I transferred online using my bank account and faster payments (UK ONLY), so the seller would of got the money within moments (2hrs maximum), Usually at this point the seller would release the bitcoins from 'ESCROW', and I would have them in my btc account on lbc. However on this occasion the seller did not reply. The following morning I chased the seller asking when he would release the Bitcoin and he replied that he had not recieved the payment. I messaged him a few mor time during the day asking him to re-check his account to be sure he hadn't overlooked the payment. I also verified the sort code and account number just in case I had sent it to the wrong place or he had given me incorrect details. Finally that night he replied to say he hadn't recieved the money.

At this point, the money had definately left my account so I was wondering where it had gone, however I was not worried at all about losing it because I have quite a lot of faith in LBC and more importantly in the people who use it and swear by it. The next day the seller opened a dispute, I had tried to open one incorrectly through the support page on the website. I attached screenshots from my online banking and he done the same. It's important to note that screenshots from your account contain a decent amount of information which could be used for identity theft, for this reason it's always good to use a seperate account for all your btc activity.......However I don't bother doing this :)

After looking through his screenshots I saw the payment showing clearly my payment being recieved into his account, by this point 3 days had passed since my initial payment, pretty standard for cheques I guess. We both had the chance to give dialogue and reasons that we felt we should win the dispute. and so the situation remained for a further 2 days, when LBC weighed in saying that the seller had 24hrs to respond else the dispute will be resolved in my favour. There was no reply from the seller and I was credited with the bitcoin the next day, 6 days after the opening of the dispute.

Now there are 2 ways to look at this, 1 way is that it shouldn't take 6 days to recieve Bitcoin, The other is that if this was a dispute using fiat currency and going through the courts it would likely take 6 months and cost a lot of money, this dispute process is free, and out of the hundreds of trades i've done on LBC this is the first one ever to go to dispute so I'm very pleased.

I thought I would blog so people have an idea of the dispute process and how it's actually worked out for me. Personally I've got plenty of faith in LBC, of course I don't leave loads of Btc on there as that's not advisable with any website regardless of how good they are!

Thanks for reading.

Sometimes you just want to shake a guys hand

5/22/2014 09:38:00 am Unknown 0 Comments

So this morning like most mornings I fired up the raspberry pi, and jumped into youtube through xbmc.
I often do this before getting out of bed, while my mind is still happy and not yet bogged down with the strains of daily life.

Paul_R_moore was a guest on the keiser report episode 601, I will link to it a little bit later on, and he was simply great. I can't remember the last time I saw max lost for words, It's definately not happened often.



So todays blog post is really just a big THANKYOU to Paul for all of his work exposing big fraud.

It has however spurrned me to push a little harder on the cold storage portion of Crypto.SI and make services more readily available.

Also Paul has a book forthcoming called 'Crash Bank Wallop', I will make sure I get a copy.

Here's a link to the video. Enjoy


follow paul on twitter: https://twitter.com/Paul_R_Moore

A few gems for April

4/15/2014 07:50:00 pm Unknown 0 Comments

It's been a rough time for cryptos over the past few weeks, IRS and PBOC (peoples bank of China) have been leading the way with the bad news.

However, It's all kinda irrelevant if you ask me and all it does is slow down the speculation. As we all know the main thing is adoption and the network effect that widespread usage will have. Anyway enough beating of the drums. This update is just bringing to your attention the 2 great new websites which I've found with short half reviews on both.

MintPal

FollowtheCoin

HullCoin, Striking fear into the heart of poverty!

4/02/2014 01:04:00 pm Unknown 0 Comments

Ok, It's been a while since my last blog, Quite a lot has changed....... My grammar is still terrible and Bitcoin is still awesome. I am blaming my absence on my new addiction to Raspberry Pi. It's just a great piece of kit, and along with meshnet will change the world, mark my words! :)

Anyway the topic of today's blog is HullCoin, The new crypto-currency which may well be backed by a local authority. At this point reports suggest that Hullcoin is still just an idea in it's infancy, and bearing this in mind all we can do is speculate to the effects it may or may not have on the local economy.

Hull is well known to people in the U.K for being cold, wet and poor mostly and it's this poverty that has allegedly inspired HullCoin. So the basic premiss is this: people set about undertaking voluntary tasks and are paid with HullCoin which they can then use to exchange for hot meals. This is just the starting model as I understand it, obviously in time more places will accept HullCoin and people will be able to pay rent, taxes and buy fuel with it.

The most exciting thing about this concept is that it empowers Hull to create value with it's homeless and unemployed, and the possibilities are huge, the first thing that springs to mind is what if they start building solar panels or processing Biofuel, then use this energy to raise the standard of living for the local people, and even sell the energy to neighbouring towns. They could get people to work building semi-permanent fixtures like hexayurts, and because the money used is not the watered down pound which is suffering from Q.E by Mr Carney, people would possibly get value for their work.

Of course this is all very far fetched and relies heavily on the dream that central government will not shut the project down once they realise that a local currency is a lot like local independence.

On a social level, I initially thought that paying for voluntary work would hinder drug abuse, as drug dealers don't usually accept crypto currency for illicit drugs. I then thought about Silk road and realised that criminals will adapt and when they do, HullCoin may well be the only type of money a drug dealer can accept that has already laundered itself, a quick trip to LocalBitcoins.com and you have your pounds sterling. So it's not a positive but it's no less of a hinderance than cash is. If Hull university then start offering some online courses paid for with HullCoin then things will really get interesting.

All in all it's a very very good idea as far as I can see, I had toyed with the idea of BedfordCoin long before reading about Hullcoin, and think that it may only be a matter of time till all regions have their own coins.

What can I see in the future? A local area adopts 2 things simultaneously, 1: a cryptocurrenty and 2: a rule on every individual only owning 1 property in that area, or maybe 2 or 3. It will be easy to enforce with the nature of blockchains and will stop the current capital based bullying of the lower classes. China have already implemented these capital restrictions in some areas.

On another note, I was looking through an old post, and I predicted BTC to go down to around $400 before the next upturn, I cannot remember the exact reasons why I made the predictions, but we are nearing $400 so lets see if I was right or not.

Thanks for reading, and keep your eyes peeled because the Cryptosi website will be up and running soon.

Mt.Gox Closed to all BTC withdrawls

2/07/2014 02:15:00 pm Unknown 0 Comments

OH DEAR, OH DEAR, OH DEAR!

Mt.gox, which is still being called a 'Major' exchange by some sources, has now stopped Bitcoin withdrawls.

Two things immediately spring to mind:
1. Are Mt.gox trying to play the good old fractional reserve dance made famous by the banks in the late 90's and early-mid and late 00's? This basically involves buying of Bitcoin with funds that they don't really own or some other simliar form of financial jiggery pokery. It's been well known for some time that something fishy is going on at Mt.gox, along with all their public fines they have had to restrict withdrawls for fiat for a while now, and had implemented long delays, but stopping Bitcoin withdrawls completely is something far more scary.
2. The second thing to spring to mind is: WHO was still using that platform? Surely only stuntmen, fighter pilots and base jumpers. I can't think of any other people who can live with this level of risk day in and day out



SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Not a lot really, prepare for a short sharp fall in price and then the inevitable correction, possibly down to $580 at the lowest, but it's difficult to predict as the true volume of mt.gox is not information I'm privy to. Of course any official reports could be false as that's how FR works.
Does it mean Bitcoin is any closer to failing? NOPE, mt.gox will be replaced, there are plenty of budding entrepreneurs planning to set up exchanges as you read this. also you can now buy Bitcoin for cash using zipzap at over 28,000 UK shops, and Scan computers also accept the currency so bit by bit the need to convert bitcoin back to fiat is becoming both easier and unneeded.

What should you do.
If you held bitcoin on Mt.gox, just write it off. There is a good chance you will get it back but, also a good chance it's gone. If you had more than 0.1 on there then SHAME on you! please remember only store in online wallets what you are prepared to lose at a moments notice. If you're not a stakeholder in mt.gox then sit back and watch this rollercoaster that those poor souls have gotten themselves wrapped up in.

So what are the alternatives?
We use Bitstamp, and btc-e. we are planning on testing out bit121 but haven't gotten around to it.

Please remember that Mt.gox was never intended to be as big as it has gotten, it was originally designed to trade collectible cards or something random like that, then Bitcoin came on the scene and things got very real for Mt.gox very quickly. The sooner this company gets out of the Bitcoin space the better really as they are probably not designed to intergrate with the growning AML(anti money laundering) pressure. They need to close down, take check and start again. They have been great for years but this last year or so things have gone from bad to worse.

In other news, I found a great video yesterday from Real London featuring Vinay Gupta, it's very interesting and well worth a watch, check it out here:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rys_saLiDA
it's about an hour long so get some snacks and turn your brain on.

A reply from Bit121

1/04/2014 12:44:00 am Unknown 0 Comments

So, a few weeks back we highlighted our concerns with the new UK bitcoin exchange bit121. To our surprise we received a prompt reply from the bit121 CEO. Of course as it was a private email, we won't publish the contents of the email, however we will say this. We were very pleased with what we read, and it was good to hear from the horses mouth exactly what the difficulties are with running an exchange in the UK and the reasons why their KYC measures are so rigorous. 

Bit121, still resides hidden behind only an email address, but at least we now know that this email address is linked to the CEO and he has taken the time out of what must be an incredibly busy schedule to address our concerns, and we shall now take the plunge and give bit121 a go.



We will of course let you all know how we find the platform and also how quick the deposit and withdrawal methods are. A working bitcoin exchange in the UK will definitely be a big deal and with no competiton at the moment, we just hope that Jim Iddiols and his team are ready for the rush of traders.

Will this year be the year that hedge funds dip into Bitcoin and raise the market cap? If so will they add much needed liquidity to the Bitcoin economy?