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Comment by uptown | Hacker News Reader

For those that do own or trade Bitcoin, how did you acquire them? Mining? Buy them out-right using a linked bank account on Coinbase (or some other marketplace)? Received them in-trade from someone?

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A combination of the latter two.

I have bought and sold items from/to individuals using bitcoin, bought and sold bitcoin from exchanges, received them in donation for programs I have produced, and sent them in donation for programs/services others have produced/rendered.

In the early days, back when you could mine ~1 bitcoin per day on any old GPU, I mined some. I've since sold all the ones I mined. I've used several exchanges over the years, but most of the btc I have now I've bought with dollars from my bank account, primarily via Circle. I've paid btc for some goods and services but never sold a good or service for btc.

Unfortunately I never really made a full-throated commitment to btc so I'm not a bitcoin millionaire. :(

I have a regular scheduled buy on coinbase. I just use it as a second savings account that has waaaaay better returns than my actual savings account over the past year.

And do you trust them linking to your bank account to perform the withdrawal? I've never dealt with Coinbase before.

At least in Europe, fraudulent direct debit withdrawals are a lot more damaging to the company performing them than to the person whose money was taken -- the latter can undo the transaction and the former might lose the right to do any (legit or not) direct debits plus bad press.

Coinbase is as legit as it gets. You can even check your balance through usaa now, if you bank there.

Same here. Seen about 40% returns on it, and I'm mostly just building a second retirement account instead of worrying about day-trading, etc.

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