As the price of Bitcoin trundles to new heights, more and more people are looking to cash in their Beenz and run like Hell before exchanges vanish or are “hacked,” and are finding it to be a rather daunting task. With the popular Magic: the Gathering Online eXchange taking almost two yearsto allow withdrawals, Bitcoiners are turning to smaller exchanges that are ill-prepared to handle the volume, small-potatoes ATMs, or shady parking lot deals made through LocalBitcoins.

We’re here today to detail the story of a man in Canada who happened to mine some Bitcoins back when CPU mining was possible, then forgot about them until the hype started to bubble the price unsustainably. This adventure is proving to be a little more difficult than expected. Here is his story so far, as outlined by SA Forums goon UberJumper:

I just learned my coworker has bitcoins from 2010. He apparently has spent most of the week trying to figure out how to convert them into USD. Mt Gox apparently wants an insane amount of personal information and even then he has to be added to a waiting list to even get any money out, and even then there is apparently some stupid low limit. But he sold some through Mt Gox, and estimates ~3 months before he can get any money out of it.

Trying to sell the coins in person, and basically saying he ether wants Cash, or a Cashiers check (since it can be handed over right then and there), has apparently been a hilarious clusterfuck.

Today he met some guy infront of his bank, and apparently as soon as he mentioned that he needs to get the cash checked to make sure it is not counterfeit, the guy freaked out and basically walked away. Stuff like this has been happening all week, and he apparently so far has only sold a single coin of several hundred.

Even more hilarious, there is apparently a place here that will buy your bitcoins from you. According to him on their site, they offer prices that are less than Mt Gox, so he tried to go in to sell them. Only to be told they will only offer 150$/coin.

Bitcoin is the currency of the future right guys?

The consensus here was “take the money and run.” Not so fast!

I would do that as well, however according to him they don’t give you the money on the spot they take the coins and then send you the funds through a wire transfer. Which means no ESCROW, given how scammy bitcoin is i think he choose the better idea.

Also apparently almost all of Gyft’s Gift Cards are not valid outside of the united states.

He’s already got funds in MTGOX, but it, of course, has problems.

Apparently he already has a 6 digit sum sitting on Mt Gox, and he is fine with giving them his personal information, which apparently can take a couple of weeks to get verified.

He is apparently scared of leaving a large amount of money on some of the other exchanges mostly because he is worried of “What if it disappears?”. He is fine with giving them his personal information, and he is willing to pay taxes/do paper work. He just wants his filthy real money.

I’ll let him know about bitstamp, he is Canadian though, the entire process so far from what i can tell has been a massive headache. I do know tonight he is apparently meeting someone who is willing to give him 500$/coin, so i have a feeling he will end up lying in a ditch somewhere.

This leads to their first experience with LocalBitcoins:

I just got back from accompanying my friend, to meet someone who wants to buy bitcoins. So we go to Starbucks, and wait for this guy who is apparently willing to pay 500$/coin, and wants 50 coins. The buyer shows up, wearing a decent suit, buys me and my friend coffee (with filthy fiat of course), and starts talking about how he buys local bitcoins and puts them on the major exchanges (I asked him if he considered himself a Captain of Industry, and got a weird look ).

Everything was going well, until the buyer tried to write my co-worker a check. Not a cashiers check, just a plain old check that will bounce if there isn’t enough money . Which according to him is apparently as “good as a cashiers check”. He didn’t want to use an ESCROW service, and his “feedback on localbitcoins.something is all we needed to see that he is legit”. Because you know an exchange valued at 25,000$ obviously you can just trust the guys feedback. We left pretty fast.

My coworker is going to try to use bitstamp and see if he can get his money out.

*EDIT* I just realized how completely and utterly stupid this is. Who the fuck does an exchange valued at 25,000$ in a Starbucks? Shouldn’t something like this be done with Lawyers, or Accountants present? Some sort of professional service to handle exchanges like this?

Obviously this wasn’t kosher, but they were willing to give it another try.

I am supposed to go with my friend soon to meet another Captain of Industry, to try and sell 25 butts at 300$/coin. He is apparently paying cash, and has agreed to meet us at a bank, and has agreed to have the cash verified as legit.

Bitcoin is supposed to be worth 800+ according to mt gox, yet getting someone to pay even half of that value in real life is apparently too difficult.

While we waited for an update, our beleaguered heroes were informed of the ease of cashing out via Coinbase:

Guys getting money out of bitcoin is super fucking easy, according to a goon who PM’ed me said i should use coinbase, and can just drive to the US and open an account. The steps involved from what i can tell are:

1. Drive to the US
2. Open a bank account with a bank there
3. Drive home
4. Sign up for Coinbase, give them all your personal information, and wait until your verified.
5. One of the verification steps is:

Complete A Purchase – Buy some bitcoin and wait at least 30 days

6. Ignore all these coinbase horror stories of that are on reddit right now.
6. Sell your coins
7. Since coinbase has no fees* they will take 1% of your money if you try to cash out.
8. Have the US Bank wire it to your other account (who knows what kind of fee it is!)

CURRENCY OF THE FUTURE

Success!

My friend managed to sell 5 of his butts at 400$/butt! So he bought everyone in our group lunch .

Also apparently when you fail coinbase’s identity verification it locks you out for 24 hours.

Someone wasn’t paying attention and suggested LocalBitcoins.

What my friend told me is that a large number of people on localbitcoins, wanted him to use something like paypal, or moneypak codes. Then kindly asking people who want to pay cash to meet at a bank, to verify the cash is not counterfeit, also apparently causes a lot of people to nope right the fuck out of there.

He can’t use gyft and cash out through giftcards because unfortunately the vast majority of the giftcards do not work in Canada.

He sold some on mt gox, and he is apparently in some cashout queue, with no real indication of how long until he can take his money out. Coinbase doesn’t let you use non american accounts to cash out. He is currently trying to get verified on VirtEx.

“Trust me.”

My friend and I went and contacted a buyer on localbitcoins, and met with him at lunch. The buyer was offering 600$/coin in cash according to the listing, and was willing to buy up to 25 coins.

My friend showed up, the buyer instead insisted on paying the entire amount in Amazon giftcards (50 bucks a card, and had a small plastic shopping bag just filled with gift cards).

I asked him how do we know the gift cards are activated? “Trust me”.

Nope.

The score so far?

He has cashed out (as in he has money in his possession and can use it) of 11 bitcoins so far i think (this is over 2 weeks). He sold 30 odd coins on Mt Gox, and is trying to cash out (he is in some sort of retarded queue and apparently there is a limit of how much money you can take out per withdrawal).

My friend is still trying to get Virtex to do anything. He filled in information and sent them all the information required, and is basically waiting for them to consider him verified. They also have a 3.0% fee on selling apparently.

Also apparently they charge you a 50$/month if you do not do anything with coins/cash on their system.

ARTICLE 13 – DORMANT ACCOUNTS
13.1 If you have not executed a trade with your VirtEx account for more than 1 year your account will be considered inactive. VirtEx will charge an inactivity fee of $50 per month up until such a time when the account balance reaches zero. BTC balances will be converted to CAD to pay for this fee, as required.

And finally:

Well this is an improvement:

Hello,

I am interested in purchasing Bitcoins and i am willing to pay $500.00 per BTC. Payment would be provided in the form of bullion gold bars of equivalent value.

Would this be a suitable exchange rate for you?

What the Christ indeed. For anyone left paying attention, cashing out in any appreciable way is a disaster, and you won’t get anything close to the “value” quoted on the various exchanges, which isn’t terribly surprising given that they seem to be subject to manipulation and in no way represent what people are actually receiving for their pogs. If UberJumper and his Bitcoin millionaire pal manage to get anything more out of the system, we’ll let you know.

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Winners will receive 1 swift kick in the ass from myself and a lifetime supply of Mellow Yellow.

The post Spot the Bitcoin Bubble appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

GIF credit @bakedinapie

MtGOX finally admitted that they were not being DDoSed, instead announcing that they are merely incompetent and unprepared for actual web and exchange traffic. They then pulled the brakes and halted all trading entirely to let the market “cool down” following the price crashing.

Meanwhile, trading continued at smaller exchanges, with the prices falling well below $100 as wary “investors” jump ship. Many of them have experienced their own issues from the flood of traffic, with Bitfloor crying wolf DDoS.

What drove this ridiculously huge bubble? If you ask the average bitcoin chump, he’ll tell you that the citizens of Cyprus are buying up huge amounts of bitcoins to hide from their government’s “theft” as the country tries desperately to save its flailing economy. Amazing bitcoin ATMs and fantastic new bitcoin services are springing up all over the country, as well as everywhere else in Europe. None of this is true, however. Cyprus is involved, but not in the way that everyone is trumpeting. Bitcoiners saw the crisis in Cyprus and attempted to pitch their flaky “currency” to Cypriots as a way to escape government controls, hype built up around this, media attention built up around the hype, and then this all began feeding back on itself until yesterday’s reality check.

Today, prominent posts in the bitcoin subreddit included links to suicide helplines, angry screeds about MtGOX, people calling each other out for giving bad financial advice, and the occasional smuglord showing off that he’s still hoarding his buttcoins. The atmosphere there is rather deflated. Bitcointalk just wants MtGOX’s blood.

Who’s left holding the bag this time? Everybody who was gambling on the price going up uP UP forever, all the true believers who’ve been led astray by the likes of Rickard Falkvinge, Max Keiser, and Alex Jones, foolish investors who read about this newfangled “bitcoin” thing in shitty financial rags, and the Winklevoss twins�(notable for such aptly named websites as “Hukkster” and “

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I think we’ll probably hit over $100 by the end of the week or mid next week. My opinion is that we’ll see a little over $100-$120 before the crash comes again, but I’m terrible at predicting these things.

So instead I’ll post these 4 simple signs that you’re investing in a bubble.

There are four signs that can help you recognize that an investment is probably in a bubble:

1. Skyrocketing Price

One of the major signs that an investment is headed into bubble territory is a skyrocketing price. The price might be shooting up quickly, seeing rapid appreciation. There doesn

The post When this bitcoin hits $88, you’re gonna see some serious shit. appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

]]> http://www.buttcoinfoundation.org/when-this-bitcoin-hits-88-youre-gonna-see-some-serious-shit/feed 4 http://www.buttcoinfoundation.org/good-news http://www.buttcoinfoundation.org/good-news#respond Thu, 07 Mar 2013 14:00:40 +0000 http://buttcoin.org/?p=962 The post Good news! appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

]]>

The post Good news! appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

]]> http://www.buttcoinfoundation.org/good-news/feed 0 http://www.buttcoinfoundation.org/grab-your-popcorn-bitcoin-approaches-50-in-the-middle-of-a-runaway-expanding-bubble-and-when-it-pops-its-going-to-get-ugly http://www.buttcoinfoundation.org/grab-your-popcorn-bitcoin-approaches-50-in-the-middle-of-a-runaway-expanding-bubble-and-when-it-pops-its-going-to-get-ugly#comments Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:43:36 +0000 http://buttcoin.org/?p=949 EDIT: It’s crashing now, watch it live here. If you haven’t heard, bitcoin�surpassed�it’s previous high of $32 and is very rapidly approaching $50. There really isn’t any reason for the rally over the past week or so besides Kim Dotcom saying he wants a bitcoin credit card for his illegal file sharing service and some […]

The post Grab your popcorn, bitcoin approaches $50 in the middle of a runaway expanding bubble and when it pops it’s going to get ugly. appeared first on Buttcoin Foundation.

]]> EDIT: It’s crashing now, watch it live here.

If you haven’t heard, bitcoin�surpassed�it’s previous high of $32 and is very rapidly approaching $50. There really isn’t any reason for the rally over the past week or so besides Kim Dotcom saying he wants a bitcoin credit card for his illegal file sharing service and some dude from the Pirate Bay saying he expects Bitcoins to reach $100,000.

 

Look at this crazy graph that’s totally normal and sane for a stable currency.

 

This is not normal. THIS IS NOT NORMAL YOU IDIOTS.

Here’s the recent�bubble�overlaid over the last�bubble.

 

We’re a few days away from a repeat of the last crash, and it’s gonna be just as bad this time.

 

Remember when you were a kid, playing with Lego? And you tried to build a giant Lego tower, but you didn’t build a base for it, just stacked Lego on top of Lego until it was all�wobbly�and fell over.

Let’s look at the�volatility�over the past hour as bitcoin reaches it’s unsustainable peak and tumbles down.

 

Wild spikes of a dollar or more, this is the currency of the future folks.

So grab your popcorn folks, it’s about to get REAL good!

 

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]]> http://www.buttcoinfoundation.org/grab-your-popcorn-bitcoin-approaches-50-in-the-middle-of-a-runaway-expanding-bubble-and-when-it-pops-its-going-to-get-ugly/feed 21 http://www.buttcoinfoundation.org/bitcoins-rise-from-3-to-7-in-the-last-month-are-we-looking-at-zombie-currency-in-the-next-week http://www.buttcoinfoundation.org/bitcoins-rise-from-3-to-7-in-the-last-month-are-we-looking-at-zombie-currency-in-the-next-week#respond Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:11:37 +0000 http://buttcoin.org/?p=567 Bitcoins seem to be slowly rising from their doledrums. In the last 30 days the price of bitcoins have rising, from nearly crashing below $3 before�slowly and steadily rising, just touching above $7 today. What’s going on, what’s driving this increase and what’s going on in the next week for bitcoins? I have 3 theories […]

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]]> Bitcoins seem to be slowly rising from their doledrums. In the last 30 days the price of bitcoins have rising, from nearly crashing below $3 before�slowly and steadily rising, just touching above $7 today. What’s going on, what’s driving this increase and what’s going on in the next week for bitcoins?

I have 3 theories myself:

1) People cashing out bitcoins after starting up school again. No time to devote to mining anymore, cash out and spend the cash on books and supplies. The price rise is normal buy-back from people still in the game.

2) Cashing out bitcoins for holiday spending. The end of the year cash crunch means that many people could be selling their bitcoins to buy Christmas presents. Price tanked around October though, which seems too early for that. Price increase was people buying back their coins.

3) Bitcoin is just being the�volatile�cunt it always is and who know why the fuck the price tanked.

Option 3 seems the most likely option. What’s interesting to watch out for is the upcoming episode of the hit CBS sandy-vagaina show

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]]> http://www.buttcoinfoundation.org/bitcoins-rise-from-3-to-7-in-the-last-month-are-we-looking-at-zombie-currency-in-the-next-week/feed 0 http://www.buttcoinfoundation.org/ars-technica-readers-expose-buttcoin-as-a-shill-for-the-fed http://www.buttcoinfoundation.org/ars-technica-readers-expose-buttcoin-as-a-shill-for-the-fed#comments Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:19:50 +0000 http://buttcoin.org/?p=522 Ars Technica had a great article on Bitcoin’s latest crash, and instead of reflecting on what this means to the community and the possible coming age of stability of the currency, they decided to tear down this website as being a shill for the Fed and accuse us of trolling Bitcoins and causing all the […]

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]]> Ars Technica had a great article on Bitcoin’s latest crash, and instead of reflecting on what this means to the community and the possible coming age of stability of the currency, they decided to tear down this website as being a shill for the Fed and accuse us of trolling Bitcoins and causing all the problems.

The jig is up guys, we better pack it in because we’re shills for the Fed, being paid in Mt. Dew and Bugels

Also, what’s up with that “penis” spoiler tag?

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]]> http://www.buttcoinfoundation.org/ars-technica-readers-expose-buttcoin-as-a-shill-for-the-fed/feed 6