Silk Road forums
Discussion => Newbie discussion => Topic started by: scrappost on February 15, 2013, 07:00 pm
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Im somewhat a noob but not all in all...I have known about SR now for over a year and have looked at many different things on there. I am to the point where I want to get something off of there. I have an account now with MtGox but dont exactly understand the money part yet. Can anyone help or guide me in the right direction. Im planning on using either credit card or debit card. Any fast information is appreciated. Ultra is coming up and about an hour from me.....Id like to have fun :)
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I would not recommend Mtgox. Much easier and simpler is to use cash deposit through bitinstant. Do you know the basics of Bitcoin and wallets? Is there anything specific you are having an issue with in regards to money or are you looking for a general guide?
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Hey, welcome to the Road. I've been here for a few months now and can confidently say that this place is awesome. I don't know a lot about Mt.Gox so I'm going to give you my approach to getting BTC to my SR account and some, personal advice on how to go about buying stuff here.
I use blockchain.info where you can create free accounts that give you up to (I believe) 5 bitcoin addresses as your wallets. Blockchain.info allows you to download, have it emailed to you, or in other ways get a backup of your wallet (very important if you're going to keep cash sitting in the account). You can log into your account and there will be an option for a Cash Deposit or to deposit in other ways. When you click cash deposit it will bring up a form that you need to fill out with amount of money, name, birthday, etc. You can also opt to make the transaction anonymous for a 1.5% fee. After you move through those forms it will take you to a second site-cashpayment.com-which is the website for ZipZap, a company that works with MoneyGram to take cash payments at a variety of locations and forward it on to bitinstant (who that form was for) who then gets the money to blockchain.info. BTW bitinstant charges a 3.99% fee which is a little steep, but I haven't found any better options. You will download a PDF form that contains your payment information, once it has downloaded MAKE SURE to hit the button "Return to Merchant," which will take you back to bitinstant website where it will show you a bunch of information. You REALLY want to save this information, especially the Quote ID, as if there is an issue on bitinstant's end of this deal you need that code to get assistance with your transaction! DO NOT FORGET THIS STEP. Another option for doing this is to log into your blockchain account, take down your wallet address number, go to bitinstant.com and select "Cash Deposit-[location of your choice]" from the first drop down menu, then select from the second drop down menu "Bitcoin Address." Fill out the form, complete the captcha, and then the process is very similar to what I described above. Once again DO NOT forget to take down the Quote ID, I like to copy and past all of that information into a file that I keep until the BTC are in my account.
Once you've printed out or taken down the information for the ZipZap payment (receive code 9611, the account number-a nine digit number that changes every time, and the amount owed-which will be 3.95 more than your deposit which is ZipZap's fee) go to the nearest or most convenient location listed to make the exchange. I personally like Walmart, as it is one of the few options in my area and is quite easy. What you do is go and grab a blue MoneyGram Express Bill Pay form, fill out the information and go to Customer Service, who will make the transaction, ask for your money, and give you a receipt of the payment. Save this receipt until you have the money in your account in case something goes wrong.
By the way, I use fake information on all the forms, as most places will never ask for ID, if they do ask say you left it at home and walk out, then find another place that does not ask for ID. I've found that Walmart is great for this, as the people at Customer Service there could give a shit about what you're doing.
Give it a few minutes, but then you should be able to log into blockchain.info and see your freshly added BTC. If you look under the tab that says "My Transactions" it will show the deposit and in one column it will say "Unconfirmed Transaction" or it will say how many confirmations the transaction has. Blockchain will allow you to send BTC on to another account with the transaction still listed as unconfirmed; however, when you send money to your SR account, SR will only show the BTC in your account after there are 6 confirmations of the transaction.
Now, how to send the money to your SR account. Log into your SR account and click the account link. Midway down there will be a bitcoin address listed, which is where you want to send your coins. I tend to click the link for "get a new address" for every new transaction; however, you do not want to click that link when you are still waiting for funds to arrive from a previous transaction. The address is owned by SR and when you transfer the funds into the account, they are added to your account in the SR database, but the coins are removed from that actual wallet and put into the SR mixer, which launders the coins. I take note of this address so I can monitor my deposits into that account via blockchain.info and see how many confirmations there are for the transaction. When it reaches 6 you should have the coins in SR wallet, from there you can make a purchase.
Just a few last things. The reason I gave this guide as a cash deposit is that I think it is a much more secure and safe way to go about it. If you happen to get caught having drugs sent to your house, you can feign ignorance; however, if they are able to get a warrant and show that you bought bitcoins with your CC or debit card, then you have a little more explaining to do. I use Tor to contact blockchain, bitinstant, and all of that stuff ALL THE TIME. I use Tor Mail as my email addresses, since it is completely anonymous. Basically, I try to have as little connection between myself, bitcoins, and the Tor network, which I believe would allow me to more easily convince a LEO that I don't know why drugs arrived at my house and that I have no connection with any of this system.
Well, that's my two cents. I'll add more if I can think of anything and try and answer your questions.
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bitinstant is definitely the way to go, especially to get started. Straightforward and relatively easy. I also use instawallet to shuffle coins. I would certainly stay away from Mt. Gox. They want too much information, same thing with Dwolla, etc. I also agree that you would want to stay away from CC/DC. Always start with cash if possible. There's a reason dealers on the streets don't take a check!
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Get a VPN service , supposedly tor network is compromised im not even sure if that's confirmed/official. Use bitinstant option: bitcoin to email. Other options include bitcoin to bitcoin address , which is an address associated with a wallet(acct) such as: Silk Road, instawallet, bitcoin-qt(localization on your pc of bitcions). Bitcoin to email will let you fill out a form and when u complete that payment from the form, you can go check your email for the link to send the bitcoins to your SR wallet address (bitcoin address)
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Oh, one thing I forgot to add about why I like blockchain.info: You can send money using their anonymous service, which is a 1.5% fee, but what they do is send the money from your account through a number of other accounts to the destination wallet. This means that your wallet with them is not associated with the money received by your SR wallet. I don't really know how much that truly adds to ones safety, but it does give you a little more anonymity through this whole process.