Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: goatamongus on January 23, 2012, 05:26 am
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I'm sort of a newb to all this so just a few questions. I got pgp encryption down finally and now I hope to make a purchase on SR. Figuring out how to buy bitcoins the right way is a huge pain in the ass. I want to make buying bitcoins as simple as possible for myself. I have seen here users saying they buy there bitcoinsall these different services and using bank deposits.
getBitcoin looks to be the easiest service. For my situation buying them online through my bank account is the best option for me, but I've read alot don't recommend this because the bitcoins will be tied to my name through my bank account, correct? Is there not a way to anonomize, or atleast make tracing very difficult, these coins through something like instawallet?
Please help this noob.
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Where are you located?
In US you can go to CVS or lots of similar spots to buy a moneypak, MP. Lots of vendors here will exchange bitcoins for your MP code, in whatever dollar amount you buy it in, up to $500.
Check vendors with good feedback and rates. I've used BTC Buddy super fast and communicative.
Good luck
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Get a money pak at walmart, put money on it, choose a btc vendor. There's trusted vendors for BTC here that don't require a minimum. Go through the forum and different BTC vendors page on SR and see who you would like to make an exchange with...It should be fairly obvious who to pick when considering exchange rates and feedback.
Also this is the safest way....As i already mentioned the easiest..
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Where are you located?
In US you can go to CVS or lots of similar spots to buy a moneypak, MP. Lots of vendors here will exchange bitcoins for your MP code, in whatever dollar amount you buy it in, up to $500.
Check vendors with good feedback and rates. I've used BTC Buddy super fast and communicative.
Good luck
BTC Buddy I agree.....
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Ah Ok. I am in the US, but never heard of moneypack. Thanks for the tip. So a moneypack is just a prepaid card that is purchased in cash and is in no way linked to a name? Sounds good.
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lol i dont want to scare you but i do want you to be informed... they can ask for id if you buy a large enough moneypak. and it can easily be tracked to you. a picture of your mug buying it... so to be "safe" send it to only the most highly recommended btc buyers... i dont wanna put the others out but i use btcbuddy.
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If you buy a moneypak it will cost you $5, in addition to whatever fee a BTC vendor is charging (I think I've seen up to 25%, maybe typically 10 to 20%). For example, say you want $100 worth of bitcoins. If you buy a moneypak with $100 on it, it will cost $105. But after you give the code to a BTC vendor, you're only going to end up with only $80 or $90 worth of bitcoins even if they're totally honest.
That's great for BTC vendors, because they're making $10 to $20 on every $100 of bitcoin they sell on SR, and they can run off with a bunch of money whenever they decide to go rogue. And yet you still have to wait for the product to arrive via the mail system. Also, from what I've read, moneypaks are limited to $500, except at Walmart where they can be loaded with $1000. (20% of $1000 is $200 you're throwing away).
You don't need to use a bank account with getbitcoin. I have not used it, but I think you print an invoice, you can deposit cash in a bank account at Bank of America or Chase, and get bitcoin within 24 hours. They charge a 5% fee for cash deposits, which is less than any BTC vendors I'm aware of. If you do send money from your bank account online so it gets to getbitcoin, all the bank will know is that you bought something from whatever-company-it-appears-as on your bank statement.
I think I've heard that bitinstant also charges 5% but only takes an hour or two. I haven't used it.
SR supposedly already uses a tumbler in transactions, but I guess you could also use instawallet. (Then again, instawallet could vanish one day like Mybitcoin did).
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Wow those fees can be killer. I guess I have a new question then.
What is the best way to convert my money into bitcoins without getting too hurt by fees? Would this be a bank deposit and then using a site like getbitcoin, only incurring the getbitcoin site's fees or is there a better way?
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What is the best way to convert my money into bitcoins without getting too hurt by fees?
It might take 3 business days for Dwolla to verify your bank account, transfer money from a bank account to Dwolla, use Dwolla to deposit money into an exchange (this will cost $0.25), and may take some hours, buy bitcoins on the exchange right before you want to buy your goods (MtGox charges something around 0.6%, so .006 x your order total), then withdraw to your bitcoin address on SR (or your private wallet or instawallets before SR), which might also take some time to show up.
It takes longer, bu at least you're not paying 5% or 10% or 20% extra for your bitcoin (and therefore whatever you're buying on SR).
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What about using your real name to register to these sites? I registered to mtgox a while back with my email and maybe name, but I don't remember but I lost interest in the bitcoin thing for awhile and then I get an email when mtgox was hacked and my email was flooded with spam for a while. Thankfully I had no bitcoins yet with them. Recently they asked to verify my account with a scan of my license but I never did.
So should I use fake names when registering these sites? Is that possible?
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If you really want anonymity go here https://bitcointalk.org/ read and learn then purchase your bits from one of the vendors on there. It may take a little longer to get started but it is the best place to really learn about BTC, it is the only place I buy bits and I have NEVER paid any fee over the current bit price. I have even bought below current bit price when paying with cash. Just do not mention you are buying to spend on SR.
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What about using your real name to register to these sites? I registered to mtgox a while back with my email and maybe name, but I don't remember but I lost interest in the bitcoin thing for awhile and then I get an email when mtgox was hacked and my email was flooded with spam for a while. Thankfully I had no bitcoins yet with them. Recently they asked to verify my account with a scan of my license but I never did.
So should I use fake names when registering these sites? Is that possible?
I've never been asked to provide a scan of my license. Maybe if you want to be able to work with thousands of dollars or more though. Or maybe they were asking people for that kind of thing to verify someone wanting to access their account again. But typically they wanted to know the account balance or some other information.
Also, a username and password should be different than your real name. When the MtGox database was leaked, I think about 61,000 usernames and emails were on there (although I don't think MtGox required an email to register in the first place). MtGox doesn't know my real name.
I suppose MtGox may have a lot of Dwolla account numbers. But just because you buy bitcoin doesn't mean you're going to do anything illegal with it (unless the United States Congress decides that all bitcoin is money laundering). I think you have to use your real name and bank account number with Dwolla. I suppose it's possible that one day MtGox may hand over a ton of Dwolla account numbers, or one day Dwolla may hand over a bunch of account numbers, but it doesn't really prove anything.
If you use something like getbitcoin or bitinstant (and both charge a 5% fee I think) and deposit cash at a bank, I don't think a name is even necessary.
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If you really want anonymity go here https://bitcointalk.org/ read and learn then purchase your bits from one of the vendors on there. It may take a little longer to get started but it is the best place to really learn about BTC, it is the only place I buy bits and I have NEVER paid any fee over the current bit price. I have even bought below current bit price when paying with cash. Just do not mention you are buying to spend on SR.
I guess I'd never really thought about BTC vendors on the bitcoin forums. And no fees? What do people take, moneypak?
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If you really want anonymity go here https://bitcointalk.org/ read and learn then purchase your bits from one of the vendors on there. It may take a little longer to get started but it is the best place to really learn about BTC, it is the only place I buy bits and I have NEVER paid any fee over the current bit price. I have even bought below current bit price when paying with cash. Just do not mention you are buying to spend on SR.
I guess I'd never really thought about BTC vendors on the bitcoin forums. And no fees? What do people take, moneypak?
Different vendors take different types but you can find one that will take about any type of payment except Credit cards and Paypal. I have always used Western Union or just plain cash, I have always got the best deals with cash.
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What is the best way to convert my money into bitcoins without getting too hurt by fees?
It might take 3 business days for Dwolla to verify your bank account, transfer money from a bank account to Dwolla, use Dwolla to deposit money into an exchange (this will cost $0.25), and may take some hours, buy bitcoins on the exchange right before you want to buy your goods (MtGox charges something around 0.6%, so .006 x your order total), then withdraw to your bitcoin address on SR (or your private wallet or instawallets before SR), which might also take some time to show up.
It takes longer, bu at least you're not paying 5% or 10% or 20% extra for your bitcoin (and therefore whatever you're buying on SR).
I like the ease of this, but is it secure enough for buying on SR if dwolla has my info?
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What is the best way to convert my money into bitcoins without getting too hurt by fees?
It might take 3 business days for Dwolla to verify your bank account, transfer money from a bank account to Dwolla, use Dwolla to deposit money into an exchange (this will cost $0.25), and may take some hours, buy bitcoins on the exchange right before you want to buy your goods (MtGox charges something around 0.6%, so .006 x your order total), then withdraw to your bitcoin address on SR (or your private wallet or instawallets before SR), which might also take some time to show up.
It takes longer, bu at least you're not paying 5% or 10% or 20% extra for your bitcoin (and therefore whatever you're buying on SR).
I like the ease of this, but is it secure enough for buying on SR if dwolla has my info?
+1. Anyone know? or use dwolla regularly? i've been wondering this as well.
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What is the best way to convert my money into bitcoins without getting too hurt by fees?
It might take 3 business days for Dwolla to verify your bank account, transfer money from a bank account to Dwolla, use Dwolla to deposit money into an exchange (this will cost $0.25), and may take some hours, buy bitcoins on the exchange right before you want to buy your goods (MtGox charges something around 0.6%, so .006 x your order total), then withdraw to your bitcoin address on SR (or your private wallet or instawallets before SR), which might also take some time to show up.
It takes longer, bu at least you're not paying 5% or 10% or 20% extra for your bitcoin (and therefore whatever you're buying on SR).
This is what I use and it takes about 3-5 days to get money out of my account to dwolla but then its a quick process can move it to MtGox and buy coins and move it to SR and place my order in less than an hour normally. And bitcoins are kind of hard to trace from what I have read so once your money is in that format you should be safe and not have much of a trail.
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What is the best way to convert my money into bitcoins without getting too hurt by fees?
It might take 3 business days for Dwolla to verify your bank account, transfer money from a bank account to Dwolla, use Dwolla to deposit money into an exchange (this will cost $0.25), and may take some hours, buy bitcoins on the exchange right before you want to buy your goods (MtGox charges something around 0.6%, so .006 x your order total), then withdraw to your bitcoin address on SR (or your private wallet or instawallets before SR), which might also take some time to show up.
It takes longer, bu at least you're not paying 5% or 10% or 20% extra for your bitcoin (and therefore whatever you're buying on SR).
This is what I use and it takes about 3-5 days to get money out of my account to dwolla but then its a quick process can move it to MtGox and buy coins and move it to SR and place my order in less than an hour normally. And bitcoins are kind of hard to trace from what I have read so once your money is in that format you should be safe and not have much of a trail.
I'm using Dwolla also. However, I'm buying my Bitcoins from Tradehill. MtGox has publicly announced that they will assist LE whenever asked. They will also lock your account if you attempt to access it through TOR. I would imagine that if push came to shove that Tradhill would do the same but...........
When the coins are sent to SR they tumble them (move them through dummy accounts) prior to depositing them into your account.
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yea that is what I had read too. There is nothing illegal about having bitcoins so there is no need for tor there really. I actually buy and sell them on MtGox to make a little extra money. I buy them low and when they go up a few bucks sell them off then move the profits to SR on my next buy.
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I saw one vendor charging $7.50/btc while they are trading on the market at $5.50... Keep your eyes open for crap like that.
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Yup....thats the going rate currently and BTC is currently like $5.80. You could do Dwolla>Mt-Gox>Bitcoin Fog( http://fogcore5n3ov3tui.onion/)>SR
BF is 1-3% but adds a good bit of anonymity apparently.
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thats why i know when im making a hundred dollar order to 115 lol it not that much really... you have to think, it is a dangerous game holding on to bitcoins... lol i thought id be nice and finalize on a large order... well come to find out my vendor probably lost all of their profit like $200to the valentines day bs... so if i was to store btc to share with you... there would most definitely be a fee... cause it seems like any time i got btc... i refresh the page and my money is vanishing... BTCBUDDY