KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?
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Ok so awhile ago I mentioned that I was bored at work and the DailyWTF forums were down (natch) and so I signed up for an account at a crypto-currency exchange.
Wow. Not even sure where to start with this one...
So I read this article on "The DAO" which is like an automated corporation.
(Basically, individuals buy credits in it, and the entire corporate structure and investment strategy is determined by computer-enforced "rules" which are secured by a BitCoin-esque blockchain. For example, a company could ask for $30,000 funding with a "rule" that says they'll deposit $600 back into the DAO every month. The DAO "engine" compares their offer with all the other offers, and decides that theirs is most deserving of the $30,000. The company makes widgets and sells them and as long as they follow the "rules" they can get further investment.)
So I thought: well this might be fun as a lark. I could plop in hundred bucks or so and see what happens. And look, they know crypto-currencies are hard and confusing so they offered a handy wizard for me!
So far so good...
So I managed to successfully create an Etherium wallet, so that's great. I got it all saved and backed-up. Now we hit the first hitch:
Do you see the flaw in their logic? It's a new wallet. There's no money in it. Sigh.
Well, their wizard doesn't have any information on how to actually put money in a wallet because of course it doesn't, so after like 15 minutes of research, I find there's a crypto-currency bank named "Kraken". So, ok.
I go to Kraken and create an account, but ... you can't actually do anything until you verify the account. Verification level one says you can trade all crypto-currencies, well, ok, I want to buy some Etherium and that's a trade, so I go through the process to get verification level one.
Which takes all day. (And they say it could take up to 48 hours.)
Awesome. So today, all verified, I come back to the problem. Let's buy our Etherium so I can then transfer it into The DAO!
So I go to the site, and do "buy Etherium" and get... insufficient funds. Oh. I can't just PAY for it, of course. Instead I have to deposit money in Kraken, then use my deposit to trade crypto-currencies. So I try to deposit and... oh wait, you can't deposit normal money (or as the crazy conspiracy theorists and Kraken call it, "fiat"), unless you're verification level two. WELL WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST SAY SO IN THE FIRST PLACE!
Fortunately, verification level 2 only took about an hour.
So I log back on to Kraken and let's finally deposit some "fiat" so I can buy etherium so I can invest in The DAO! I go to deposit and... uh...
I, uh, can't just use my VISA cards? I have to pick from one of these three methods, 0% of which I've heard of in my entire life? Ok, fine. Let's try the first one I guess?
But but but you said level two was enough! Now I need level three? Fuck it, there's two more options:
PayCash doesn't let you pay from the US at all? But you knew my address! Why did you show me this option! Entering my address was verification level two! JESUS!
Ok, fine, let's apply for verification level three:
YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING WITH ME.
Well... at least I successfully made an "Etherium Wallet", so there's that?
I don't even know how to proceed from this point. I guess find another site where I can buy Bitcoins without giving up enough personal information for the site to empty all my bank accounts, then transfer the Bitcoins to Kraken then trade the Bitcoins for Etherium? I guess?
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BTW, here's a sample of an actual font this actual website uses on their log in page at it's actual un-zoomed size:
I'm not making up how horribly unreadable that font is. Someone chose this font.
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@blakeyrat said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
and so I signed up for an account at a crypto-currency exchange.
We really need to work on improving that uptime before you start scouring your spam folder for the most generous Nigerian prince.
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@blakeyrat said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
Do you see the flaw in their logic? It's a new wallet. There's no money in it. Sigh.
You mean the logic flaw where they specifically tell you that you'll need to get money into the new wallet first, and how? The "here's your wallet code, go load money into it and come back to this page"?
In order to send Ether from your new wallet to the DAO, you must first transfer enough ETH to your new account.
Anyway, if you don't actually own any ETH (yet), why did you select the "use ETH that you already own" option in Step 1, instead of "use national currencies" which would allow you to use USD? Did you try the option to just use USD?
Did you watch the "Tutorial Video", and if so, did it not make any of this any more clear for you?
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@anotherusername said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
You mean the logic flaw where they specifically tell you that you'll need to get money into the new wallet first, and how?
Oh fuck off. If you're just going to call me an idiot, get the fuck out of my thread.
Yes I'm a stupid retarded moron idiot, how about we just take that as fact and move the fuck on?
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@blakeyrat I tried a site called Coinbase. Before I could buy Bitcoins they wanted a photo of BOTH SIDES of my driver's license. Fuck that noise.
Apparently it's impossible to buy Bitcoins without giving up enough personal information to allow the horribly untrustworthy site you're buying from impersonate you entirely.
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@blakeyrat said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
I, uh, can't just use my VISA cards
You think VISA would ever let people use their service to buy dirty, dirty cryptocurrency?
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Why don't you just buy a loto ticket, or invest in a time share scheme, like a normal person? At least they wouldn't make you run around for days like an idiot, before you can give them money.
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@blakeyrat I know, I know. The "I tried to give blakeyrat some advice and he bit my head off" thread is .
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Uh these aren't "instructions". It appears to be some banking information and an address with absolutely no hint what to do with it.
EDIT: ok my actual bank has no money transfer options that seem to match "paste in an address and some other shit", so... I might give up on this quest.
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@blakeyrat said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
Uh these aren't "instructions".
You're right, they're not instructions.
It appears to be some banking information and an address with absolutely no hint what to do with it.
I believe they want you to send a wire transfer.
ok my actual bank has no money transfer options that seem to match "paste in an address and some other shit", so... I might give up on this quest.
You actually have to go to the physical location and do it. Or use a wire transfer service like Western Union. Either way, you'll have to pay an extra fee... it's probably not worth it.
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@blakeyrat Here in Europe it is just an everyday thing to wire transfer some money using an account number (
iban
), anamount
and areference
(and the name of the recipient for cases where the bank does a manual check etc.). Doesn't it work like that where you live?
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@blakeyrat The third recommended bank is Gatecoin. Their homepage is currently this:
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@Grunnen said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
Here in Europe it is just an everyday thing to wire transfer some money using an account number (iban), an amount and a reference (and the name of the recipient for cases where the bank does a manual check etc.). Doesn't it work like that where you live?
I can count the number of times I've done it on zero hands. Moreover, my bank's website seems to have absolutely no support for doing that, which kind of settles the issue. (It has a big banking transfer page, but it requires you to jump through all kinds of hoops and frankly it's not worth it.)
I am not an idiot, BTW, I did figure out it was an address to be used by some kind of bank transfer destination. I was just pointing out that it says the box contained instructions, and there were no instructions, because that's the WTF.
It is amazing me, though, that all these years later, it's still virtually impossible to merely buy or sell Bitcoins. It's ludicrous, every day you see an article about how Bitcoin is the "future of currency" but it's impossible to actually acquire any.
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@blakeyrat I wonder if people mine them?
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@blakeyrat said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
It is amazing me, though, that all these years later, it's still virtually impossible to merely buy or sell Bitcoins. It's ludicrous, every day you see an article about how Bitcoin is the "future of currency" but it's impossible to actually acquire any.
In some part of Canada (Quebec & Ontario), there is Bitcoin ATM : http://instacoinatm.com/index-en.html
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@blakeyrat said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
I was just pointing out that it says the box contained instructions, and there were no instructions
And I agreed with you. You're right.
my bank's website seems to have absolutely no support for doing that, which kind of settles the issue. (It has a big banking transfer page, but it requires you to jump through all kinds of hoops and frankly it's not worth it.)
They probably don't want to make it any easier for idiots to send their life savings to Nigeria.
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@blakeyrat said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
@Grunnen said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
Here in Europe it is just an everyday thing to wire transfer some money using an account number (iban), an amount and a reference (and the name of the recipient for cases where the bank does a manual check etc.). Doesn't it work like that where you live?
I can count the number of times I've done it on zero hands. Moreover, my bank's website seems to have absolutely no support for doing that, which kind of settles the issue. (It has a big banking transfer page, but it requires you to jump through all kinds of hoops and frankly it's not worth it.)
I am not an idiot, BTW, I did figure out it was an address to be used by some kind of bank transfer destination. I was just pointing out that it says the box contained instructions, and there were no instructions, because that's the WTF.
Whoa. It must be a cultural misunderstanding then. For example, here in Europe on sites like eBay the standard way of transaction processing between private parties is also 'Please ship the article to address X' and 'Please wire the money to (iban) account number Y'. It's so obvious to us that I'd never imagine anyone would need step-by-step instructions. I've never known that wire transfers are so unusual in other parts of the world - and apparently neither the people who run that web site.
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@AyGeePlus said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
@blakeyrat I wonder if people mine them?
My understanding is that at this point it's basically impossible to earn Bitcoins via. mining. There's millions of mining GPUs in China that monopolize the process.
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@blakeyrat I know there are 'mining pools' where people chip in compute time and share in each new discovery proportionally. I guess if you wanted like 1/millionth of a bitcoin you could get some that way?
What did you want them for anyway?
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@Grunnen said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
Whoa. It must be a cultural misunderstanding then.
Again: the site knows I'm in the US. This is information available to the computer rendering that web page. They asked me which US State I lived in when I signed up.
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@AyGeePlus said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
What did you want them for anyway?
I don't! I want DAO tokens!
The only reason I was trying to buy Bitcoins is I know I could turn the Bitcoins into Etherium and then into DAO tokens, and I (stupidly) figured that since Bitcoins have been around longer they'd be easier to purchase.
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@blakeyrat Yeah, so? Allowing a user to indicate in which country he lives is something entirely different than knowing what kind of payment system is used or understood in every country worldwide and writing tailor-made instructions.
Likewise, here in Europe many people don't have a credit card. Should I open a topic full of rage when I discover an US web site where I can indicate that I live in Europe but which then doesn't provide wire transfer as a payment method?
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@Grunnen said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
Should I open a topic full of rage when I discover an US web site where I can indicate that I live in Europe but which then doesn't provide wire transfer as a payment method?
Yes. And make sure to ban blakey from commenting on it as he will find it impossible to resist being stupid there.
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@Grunnen said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
Allowing a user to indicate in which country he lives is something entirely different than knowing what kind of payment system is used or understood in every country worldwide and writing tailor-made instructions.
I guess I can't argue with that logic?
@Grunnen said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
Likewise, here in Europe many people don't have a credit card.
I never had a credit card until earlier this year, I guess I'm European.
@Grunnen said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
Should I open a topic full of rage when I discover an US web site where I can indicate that I live in Europe but which then doesn't provide wire transfer as a payment method?
What? Actually contribute content to the site?
Nah. A much better strategy is to wait until Blakeyrat spends a lot of time contributing to the site, then swooping in his thread to call him an idiot.
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@blakeyrat I've tried to help you performing the wire transfer so that you can get your bitcoins or whatever. If you take help for an insult of being an idiot, then that's your problem.
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Ok; I'm give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you were trying to help instead of being a snarky asshole: I didn't ask you or anybody for help. This is not the General Help category, this is Side Bar.
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@blakeyrat said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
I didn't ask you or anybody for help.
You should just tell him to stop mansplaining.
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@Grunnen said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
Whoa. It must be a cultural misunderstanding then. For example, here in Europe on sites like eBay the standard way of transaction processing between private parties is also 'Please ship the article to address X' and 'Please wire the money to (iban) account number Y'. It's so obvious to us that I'd never imagine anyone would need step-by-step instructions. I've never known that wire transfers are so unusual in other parts of the world - and apparently neither the people who run that web site.
In the US, I believe ACH transfers are almost exclusively used instead of wire transfers.
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@anotherusername said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
In the US, I believe ACH transfers are almost exclusively used instead of wire transfers.
Agreed. Apparently Wire transfers are (for some reason) a Bad Idea here in the USA, possibly due to being (apparently) easy to exploit by scammers.
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For someone that hates OSS, you clearly go deep in some of the worse shit it produced.
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@blakeyrat said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
I didn't ask you or anybody for help. This is not the General Help category, this is Side Bar.
please, create a topic at the right category so we can help you
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@fbmac said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
so we can help you
Have you ever considered the idea that, maybe @blakeyrat doesn't want to be helped?
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@Tsaukpaetra yes
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@Tsaukpaetra said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
Have you ever considered the idea that, maybe @blakeyrat doesn't want to be helped?
Have you ever considered the idea that, maybe, blakeyrat can't be helped?
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@Tsaukpaetra this is the help blakey with bitcoin thread. you're going off topic
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@blakeyrat said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
as the crazy conspiracy theorists and Kraken call it, "fiat")
Don't forget "economists". Because fiat money is exactly what all modern money is.
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@FrostCat That's not true. There's direct value to the metals in coinage, sometimes enough that people take things like pennies out of circulation because they're more valuable as copper than money.
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@blakeyrat said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
I guess I'm European.
Whoa. Watch it - them's fightin' words!
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@FrostCat said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
@blakeyrat said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
as the crazy conspiracy theorists and Kraken call it, "fiat")
Don't forget "economists". Because fiat money is exactly what all modern money is.
Wait a second. This is money now?!
Well, I guess it is better than a Ningi...
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@blek wow, someone actually managed to make the Multipla more ugly
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@Tsaukpaetra said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
Have you ever considered the idea that, maybe @blakeyrat doesn't want to be helped?
He wants to talk at us not with us.
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@dkf said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
That's not true. There's direct value to the metals in coinage
Let's check Wikipedia: "Fiat money is a currency established as money by government regulation or law. It differs from commodity money and representative money. Commodity money is created from a good, often a precious metal such as gold or silver, which has uses other than as a medium of exchange (such a good is called a commodity), while representative money simply represents a claim on such a good." In particular, fiat money is not backed by any hard resource like gold, just the reputation of the government that created it.
If small coins happen to have an intrinsic value due to the materials that make them up, that's a coincidence. Besides, when it does, the government tends to either eliminate that coin or make it out of cheaper materials.
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@FrostCat said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
Besides, when it does, the government tends to either eliminate that coin or make it out of cheaper materials.
That depends on how long the inverted price differential exists. For a few weeks? No big deal. For a few years? There goes your small change. (It happened with US 1¢ pieces a few years back.)
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@dkf said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
That depends on how long the inverted price differential exists.
Gee, it's almost like I used the word "tends to" to cover just such situations!
@dkf said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
It happened with US 1¢ pieces a few years back.
Yes--the penny was reformulated to use cheaper metals. IIRC it went from copper to zinc or an alloy with a copper wash. Unless you meant "disappearing" because that didn't happen. I have a pile of pennies on my desk right now, all acquired in the last few months.
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@Grunnen said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
@blakeyrat Here in Europe it is just an everyday thing to wire transfer some money using an account number (
iban
), anamount
and areference
(and the name of the recipient for cases where the bank does a manual check etc.). Doesn't it work like that where you live?If I understand correctly, US banks are so completely retarded that loads of people still find that cheques (beg pardon, checks) are the most reliable way to move money from one to another.
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@flabdablet having it go dorect probably smacks too much of Big Gubment interfering
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@dkf said in KRAKEN BITCOIN EXCHANGE whaaa?:
It happened with US 1¢ pieces a few years back.
Maybe you mean Canada, which withdraw the penny in 2012