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Comment by oxide | Hacker News Reader

well, damn. I went through all the hoops signing up with Circle already, I heard Coinbase was worse. Does this make Coinbase the only game in town for buying bitcoin with a debit card?

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According to https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/volume/24-hour/ the two biggest markets are Poloniex and Kraken. I can recommend Kraken - looks very well thought out and professional.

Worth noting is Poloniex is purely for trading between different cryptocurrencies.

Personally I'd add that they appear quite technically competent albeit somewhat controversial.

There are others, though not all apply to US buyers: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/How_To_Buy_Bitcoins_With_Your_Cre... (it lists some that accept debit card)

Using cash via localbitcoins is easy in any reasonably populated area. You pay maybe 3-5% premiums over market price to buy from a professional high-availability seller. You can buy at or below market price if you're not in a rush.

I was going to do this but there is only one local seller and he had a huge markup.

You can trade using online banking on localbitcoins, you don't actually need to be local. In fact I've done over 70 trades on localbitcoins, and never met in person for any one of them.

oh wow, I didn't realize that at all. I might do this, I appreciate the advice.

How on earth do you verify security for that?

What do you mean? The BTC goes into escrow with Localbitcoins, then the buyer sends the money to the seller's bank account, and then the seller releases the BTC from escrow.

Because business deals in parking lots are famous for working out well.

Bitstamp announced instant buying with credit card some time ago, don't know the terms though.

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