MtGox launches Bitcoins.com, an information site for all things Bitcoin

http://www.bitcoins.com

by theboywho • 13 years ago

112 113 13 years ago

bitcoins.com

oleganza8• 13 years ago

They do not emphasize wallet security issues enough.

Before buying any serious amount of BTC user must ensure:

1. Software that he uses actually encrypts wallets (BitcoinQT by default does not!).

2. His wallet is backed up in 3 places.

3. Backups actually work and he tried them.

4. His computer is not infested with malware.

5. He has multiple wallets and money is spread across all of them.

So that if he one days makes a payment, enters a password and virus steals his coins, he will not lose everything.

Blockchain.info is a great service, but only when you enable 2-factor authentication (otherwise your encrypted wallet can be bruteforced offline) and make sure you get backups by email.

Finally, everyone should remember:

THERE IS NO "FORGET MY PASSWORD" BUTTON.

If you own your coins, be it in BitcoinQT, Electrum or Blockchain.info, you must own your password. You lose it - you are done. People are not used to it. They should be.

theboywho2• 13 years ago

tl;dr, you are responsible for your bitcoins.

pilker097• 13 years ago

Paper wallets using offline-created Bitcoin addresses are the safest means of storage. I etched my keys onto metal dogtags and have them stored in a fireproof box.

user246• 13 years ago

I etched my addresses onto metal dogtags

you mean you etched your keys, right? Nice idea.

exit• 13 years ago

i would recommend also using bip0038 to encrypt those private keys with a memory intensive hash.

alandarev• 13 years ago

Fully agreed. The website delivers Bitcoin as a average-consumer-frienldy. If bitcoin becomes mainstream, it will soon collapse under the weight of careless users.

I would rather see a site solving some of the critical concerns raised by average-user's ignorance.

iand2• 13 years ago

1. Software that he uses actually encrypts wallets (BitcoinQT by default does not!).

Are you sure about that? Can you point to a discussion where it says BitcoinQT doesn't encrypt by default. Googling found me nothing.

oleganza8• 13 years ago

You have to turn it on. If you create yet another wallet, it's easy to forget that.

sehrope2• 13 years ago

Blockchain.info is a great service, but only when you enable 2-factor authentication (otherwise your encrypted wallet can be bruteforced offline) and make sure you get backups by email.

2-factor auth does not and cannot protect against offline bruteforcing, quite the contrary, it's only relevant for online authentication with a service provider.

In your example it would be for authenticating with blockchain.info so they could perform an action on your behalf. Assuming they use your actual password as a master key to unlock a wallet they store on your behalf, the 2-factor piece is just extra security they are providing for actions performed through their site. 2-factor auth does nothing to prevent someone from trying to brute force the private key or pass phrase for your wallet.

I'm all for using 2-factor auth (I personally have it enabled on every site/service that supports it) but it's only for securing online access to an external service.

oleganza8• 13 years ago

In case of Blockchain.info, wallet decryption happens in browser. The server sends you an encrypted wallet if you know user ID and provide 2-FA code. Without the code, anyone who knows your user ID will get the encrypted wallet and bruteforce it offline. With 2-FA they'd have to hack into your email or phone to get the code or hack into your email or computer to get your encrypted backup.

jellicle2• 13 years ago

People applying to YCombinator should adopt your approach.

"Of course our startup is user-unfriendly! We hate users! People should just get used to it."

And your goal (after precautions!) of "not losing everything" - wondrous! Every day I wake up and I haven't lost everything is a good day.

This revolutionary approach will certainly succeed.

bobbles3• 13 years ago

His point is that you HAVE to be used to it. There is no 'person' that can recover your password for you in these cases.

dcc13• 13 years ago

Its just a shameless attempt to advertise mtgox, who by now pretty much pissed off everyone in the bitcoin community with their crap.

Remember it was mtgox who caused the last crash and have since continued to screw users while getting into all sorts of trouble in US for dodgy going ons

user246• 13 years ago

except it barely mentions mtgox. If it wasn't in the title of this submission, I wouldn't know it was by mtgox.

chrismorgan• 13 years ago

Ditto. It really does seem to be quite generic.

TomGullen2• 13 years ago

Don't know if I'd trust MtGox not to evolve it into an advertising platform in the future when it starts pulling in nice traffic.

clamprecht• 13 years ago

They link to two competitors: Bitstamp (a direct competitor), and Coinbase (a semi-competitor).

dcc13• 13 years ago

Yes they do but for exchanges list MTgox is first

for merchant services MTgox is also first despite being barely used when compared to bitpay or coinbase

Beldur• 13 years ago

From their press release:

,,We’ve recently released the launch version of bitcoins.com, an information site for all things Bitcoin. The site is not centered on MtGox specifically and we've tried to keep it as neutral as possible in order to promote Bitcoin."

infocollector• 13 years ago

Can we automatically downvote all Bitcoin news please? Seems like every owner of Bitcoin these days is either busy writing a blog or making a Bitcoin related webpage? - Ponzi

user246• 13 years ago

Can we automatically downvote all Bitcoin news please?

Good idea. An entirely decentralised, pseudonymous, secure way of exchanging money is not something hackers are interested in.

TomGullen2• 13 years ago

Why so bitter? For me it's the most fascinating area in technology at the moment.

iand2• 13 years ago

Items on the front page reflect the interests and preferences of the community. This is not broadcast media force feeding you.

ck2• 13 years ago

Now that is a clean, friendly design.

I wonder how long until we need a crypto-currency lobby for congress.

VMG• 13 years ago

There already are: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/26/bitcoin-lo...

chrismonsanto• 13 years ago

Now that is a clean, friendly design.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the header wasn't fixed. I can't wait until that fad dies out.

djf1• 13 years ago

What is wrong with a fixed header?

Isn't it more convenient than scrolling back to the top of the page to access important links?

The only possible issue I can think of is if screen space is limited.

lingben• 13 years ago

Under "protection":

"The nature of Bitcoin means that, compared to credit cards or other financial tools, your identity is safer from theft. Your level of privacy is up to you, and in the online world privacy and protection are an asset."

This is hilarious. Right now basically every week we have news of millions of dollars worth of bitcoins being stolen from sites. In contrast, with a credit card every client has full protection including fraud, charge-backs, returns, etc.

pilker097• 13 years ago

Right now basically every week we have news of millions of dollars worth of bitcoins being stolen from sites.

Rule 1: If you store your bitcoins with someone else, they'll most likely get stolen. People need to learn how to store their own bitcoins or they'll end up not having any.

stingraycharles• 13 years ago

Out of curiosity, what is the best way to store bitcoins? Have your wallet synchronized with a third-party backup provider?

wcummings• 13 years ago

Saying CC's have robust fraud protection is equally misleading, imo. They require you trust every merchant, website, waiter, etc to not abuse your information. Chargebacks just shift the cost of the merchant, most of the time, and as best I can tell PCI exists mostly to shift liability around.

bunderbunder2• 13 years ago

In the USA, credit cards don't do anything protect anybody from fraud.

However, they have extremely robust mechanisms in place for shuffling around the consequences of all the rampant fraud that results from their complete failure to offer even the barest minimum of fraud protection. So as a consumer I get to feel protected all the same.

alexro2• 13 years ago

How about having your funds sliced by sort of Cyprus scenario? How about getting ill for half a year and finding out that the inflation has eaten most of your savings away?

jonknee2• 13 years ago

I'll take my chances on a major currency (Euro/USD/GBP) over BTC in terms of volatility any day. You could find out that your BTC savings have become nearly worthless in six months. Or if you are unlucky enough to have a debt in BTC you could find out your debt has skyrocketed because of more BTC speculation (imagine you had a 1000BTC loan back when it was $10 a coin).

gaadd335• 13 years ago

What major currency has such hyperinflation that it would eat away savings in half a year?

bunderbunder2• 13 years ago

At the same time, seems like the credit industry was kind of asking for this kind of thing when they decided to muddy the waters by spin doctoring "credit card fraud" into "identity theft"

devcpp• 13 years ago

Like they said, "Your level of privacy is up to you". It seems like most people are competent enough to manage keeping their wallets safe...

Aardwolf2• 13 years ago

How to actually get bitcoins?

I mean, seriously, I tried, but all my attempts were futile.

Why can't I just use a credit card or similar and buy bitcoints?

Back when they were $100, I really wanted to buy a bitcoin, spent half a day on it, but didn't manage to. I gave up everytime I needed to do something strange involving permissions with my bank.

Is there an easier way to get them? I live in Europe by the way.

Thanks!

pilker097• 13 years ago

Why can't I just use a credit card or similar and buy bitcoints?

Chargebacks are the reason. If you buy a bitcoin with a credit card and I send you a bitcoin, you can get your money back from the credit card company and keep my bitcoin.

Aardwolf2• 13 years ago

Ok, so how to get a bitcoin (well 0.1 btc for me now that they are 10x as expensive as last time I looked) in a practical way without credit card?

salient2• 13 years ago

What about Paypal? It seems to me they could really advantage of this by becoming the defacto way people use to buy Bitcoins (or at least one of the most popular methods). It's too bad they are so shortsighted about it, and only see Bitcoin as a threat.

Yes, Bitcoin is a threat, for the whole financial system for that matter, but it's much more of a threat for those who don't adopt it than for those who do. At least if Paypal adopted it, they could remain relevant in the future, and people would still use them.

oleganza8• 13 years ago

Its hard because it's easy to own and secure Bitcoins, but impossible to own money in USD, bank accounts or paypal. It's all a huge network of promises based on debt. When you transfer bitcoin, you really transfer ownership forever. When you transfer digital dollar, you just rely on a bunch of intermediate agreements to hold true unless judge decides another way. Paypal payments are reversible, CC payments too. Even bank wires can be reversed sometimes because it's still based on an agreement between banks. Even laws regulating these agreements are also promises to punish or reward people based on other people's decision.

Bitcoin is the only money you can really own. Other currencies are fragile and ephemeral.

http://blog.oleganza.com/post/67362431718/you-can-own-bitcoi...

jonknee2• 13 years ago

Have you not heard of cash? It's probably the easiest way to get BTC as well.

gaadd335• 13 years ago

How do you reverse a cash transfer? Like I hand someone $100 in cash.

codfrantic• 13 years ago

Judging by your name,

http://www.bitonic.nl/

iDeal...

taigeair4• 13 years ago

I was the same. I tried to use BTC-e, Canadian one, and coinbase. None worked and took too long. So... I got a forex account and bought a position on BTC. It's the fastest way in.

Let me know if you want a referral.

Also it's more liquid than buying actual BTC and then selling them I think. Just be careful about using leverage.

I left finance in 2009. I never thought I'd get back into trading...

simonebrunozzi• 13 years ago

Interesting. Can you send me more info?

salient2• 13 years ago

I'm not an expert in forex, but as far as I know, high volatility commodities can quickly wipe out forex accounts, especially with such low amounts.

It does seem like a very interesting strategy though, that can probably make one even more money than investing directly in Bitcoin, but for that to work I think you need a sizable ($10,000?) amount, and only invest a few hundred dollars at most in that position. That way you can still make a lot of money if Bitcoin keeps increasing, but if it does happen to drop quite a lot, at least there's a much smaller chance of losing all the money.

mpg33• 13 years ago

localbitcoins.com is good....just look for a reputable seller

lukifer• 13 years ago

They also provide escrow. The seller can release funds on their phone, and you'll get an authenticated notification on your phone immediately.

theboywho2• 13 years ago

> How to actually get bitcoins?

There are lot of services that allow you to buy Bitcoin and people have already listed a few, but here's another option:

Start charging for Bitcoin. It's funny how few people think about this.

"How to get USD?" You do some work that another person is willing to give you USD for.

wellboy• 13 years ago

www.virwox.com and you can get up to $390/day through credit card or paypal instantly.

celticninja• 13 years ago

you cannot buy with creditcards, try localbitcoins.com but you would need to buy them using your bank account or cash in person.

davedx• 13 years ago

I live in the Netherlands. I use Bitstamp with a bank transfer to their bank, wait for the funds to clear, buy the BTC. Usually takes 1-2 days for the whole process.

bernatfp4• 13 years ago

I'm also from the EU and used to have BTC (now I'm into LTC), so here is how I do it:

Validate your account. You have to provide some sort of proof of identity and address. This is asked by governments and if they don't comply with them they can be closed without any previous notice, like it happened with the exchange bitcoin24. It can take up to 1 week.

Deposit cash. Companies like Visa/Mastercard/PayPal don't want to deal directly with BTC, that's why a bank transfer is more convenient. Being European you probably have cash in a SEPA bank, which is an advantadge because most exchanges accept SEPA deposits at a very low fee (much cheaper than a Wire Transfer) and they are usually very fast (1-2 working days).

mobweb• 13 years ago

The main thing that's kept me from making a deposit with one of these services is the fact that I have to hand over a complete proof of my identity. Seeing how many of these services seem to get hacked lately I'd be too worried about somebody stealing my documents and a hacker getting ahold of these personal documents that could easily be used to impersonate me...

But on the other hand I also understand that these services have to be very careful so they don't get abused themselves.

modeless• 13 years ago

The fact that it is hard to buy bitcoins is ironically the very problem bitcoin solves. Once you have some bitcoins, then no credit card company, bank, or government can prevent you from spending them on anything you want.

XorNot• 13 years ago

You know, unless you need to buy sovereign currency - the thing the vast majority of life's necesssities are denominated in.

pmorici• 13 years ago

No intelligent person will sell you Bitcoins with a credit card because the transaction could be charged back and they wouldn't be able to recover the coins.

If you want to buy bitcoins and you are in the US go to Coinbase.com you can crate an account link it to your bank account and buy some coins very quickly. If you use an exchange like Mtgox or similar it could take weeks to get all the identity verification stuff approved. If you decide you want to day trade later get an account on CampBX, bitstamp.net or similar and use that but to start out Coinbase is the way to go.

kingnight• 13 years ago

Why switch to CampBX or bitstamp.net? What not just continue to use coinbase?

Zidewinder• 13 years ago

Edit: Just noticed you live in Europe. They do have a SEPA option for European customers, but I imagine the process is somewhat different, and SEPA listings are relatively sparse. Sorry!

www.bitquick.co

Prerequisites: A bitcoin wallet to receive the coins, and some cash.

1: Click Buy, browse through the offers and pick one that has a reasonable price and uses a geographically convenient bank.

2: Submit your bitcoin address and your desired amount, write down the bank account info that appears, go to the bank, and deposit the specified amount of cash into the seller's account.

3: Take a picture of the deposit receipt and email it to BitQuick.

4: Bitcoins will be sent from escrow to the address you specified earlier. Done!

thomaslutz• 13 years ago

Has MtGox resolved their withdrawal issue yet?

bernatfp4• 13 years ago

I wonder how Mt. Gox dares to spend their time creating this (which is nice by the way) instead of solving their withdrawal issues and finishing their new trading engine integration, which is pissing off many of their customers.

The only reasonable explanation is that they have given up on decreasing their churn rate and instead they are focusing on acquiring newbies into their platform. Actually this is kind of sad...

lubos• 13 years ago

Do you honestly think that any programmer who works on Mt.Gox core product would have anything to do with this simple static information site?

bernatfp4• 13 years ago

No, but I guess this affects the public image of the company.

My understanding is that any serious company with issues of this magnitude would solely focus on sorting that out first and doing nothing else than that.

yapcguy• 13 years ago

A friend copied an e-mail that MtGox sent to them today:

<snip>

Dear MtGox Customers,

Thank you for your patience during an incredible year for Bitcoin and MtGox. We’ve not been able to communicate as we may have wanted, but we’ve been working tirelessly in the background and we’re looking forward to even more progress in the coming weeks, which we’ll be announcing soon.

We have four developments that we are proud to announce today:

    Introduction of the MtGox OTP Card
    Increased limit for SEPA withdrawals from Poland
    A modified trading interface
    Trade with no fees from Bitcoin Black Friday through Cyber Monday

...

Additional Points:

To increase the speed of Bitcoin transactions, we will now require all Bitcoin transfers to pay the standard 0.001 BTC network fee. The fee will be charged separately from your balance.

jellicle2• 13 years ago

So.... every Mt. Gox transfer now costs USD $1? And may cost USD $2 tomorrow?

canistr3• 13 years ago

The idea of using Bitcoin at this point in time to physically purchase goods and services is ridiculous given the speed of speculation. Hypothetically, why should I pay someone 0.5 BTC at $1000/BTC if in a couple of days I know it's going to rise to $1000+/BTC? Obviously the seller is betting on their value going up, but at this point, there's no reason to do anything except hold onto your BTC until the market actually stabilizes or even crashes.

giarc• 13 years ago

In 2010 a guy paid 10,000 BTC for 2 pizza's, probably roughly equivalent to $40.

10,000 BTC today = $10.5 million USD.

canistr3• 13 years ago

Which is precisely my point. What incentive is there for the buyer to spend their BTC if the future value will dwarf the present value of the good they are spending it on?

hcarvalhoalves• 13 years ago

10,000 BTC today = $10.5 million USD

Does that valuation mean anything? What about liquidity? If I had 10 k BTC today, could I trade that for $ 10.5 M on the spot?

http://buttcoin.org/easy

user246• 13 years ago

This question comes up frequently. The best thing to do if you want to buy something for $500, is buy $500 in bitcoin and then pay with bitcoin. This way your 'stash' isn't eroded and you contribute to the bitcoin economy.

canistr3• 13 years ago

Then what you're proposing eliminates the fundamental purpose of using Bitcoin over existing currency. Why pay transaction fees to an exchange if I can pay zero fees with cash or use a service like Dwolla in which the fee is significantly cheaper than an exchange fee?

Andrew_Quentin• 13 years ago

Well, why do you buy anything instead of putting all your money in bitcoin? If your money is bound to increase, then why spend any of it? I mean - why eat?

bachback• 13 years ago

Wonder how rich these guys are now. The exchange will not survive, because it is horribly architected.

Datsundere• 13 years ago

How about they process things faster. Maybe add direct deposit like coinbase from bank but make it faster with less fees. Bitcoin wiki is already very good.

wpietri• 13 years ago

But what was wrong with the name Mtgox? That seems perfectly consumer-friendly to me.

heliodor2• 13 years ago

Under "top 8" exchanges they list MtGox first. Does not inspire confidence in them in light of the news about BTC China being the biggest.

They claim the rankings come from Bitcoin Charts, yet on there BTC China has 60% more volume than MtGox.

GigabyteCoin• 13 years ago

Wow, they used a BFL Jalapeno as their example miner: http://www.bitcoins.com/assets/img/illustrations/digitally_c...

Interesting choice...

MtGox launches Bitcoins.com, an information site for all things Bitcoin

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