The Quest For Cash: Withdrawing Bitcoin Isn't As Easy As You'd Think

in #bitcoin7 years ago

Buying cryptocurrency with fiat money is incredibly easy. I went on a quest to find out if exchanging your crypto back to cash would be just as easy...

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Being Realistic

Some people like to call me a pessimist, but I prefer to consider myself a realist. In most situations, I think it’s important to consider and prepare for both the best and the worst outcome.

This is not different for my cryptocurrency investments. Up until now I’ve been quite lucky and have been able to turn a relatively small investment into a huge profit. (I use the word ‘lucky’ deliberately, because I have no technical background myself. I just keep my eyes an ears open and base my investments on other people’s analysis reports.)

A Bubble Or Not A Bubble, That’s The Question


Statements about Bitcoin being a bubble are all over the internet. I’m pretty sure the cryptomarket will keep growing, but I also have to take into consideration that the entire thing could collapse.
And if it does, I want to make sure I can get out as soon as possible.

That’s why I decided to do some research on how easy or difficult it would be to convert my profits into Euro again. Just in case ...

Like I said: I like to be prepared.


A Bumpy Road

My first idea was to turn to Coinbase. After all, that’s where it all started for me. But after reading litterally dozens of complaints about withdrawing on Coinbase, I started looking for other opportunities.

Most of my portfolio I filled with fiat money, so I’m not very familiar with exchanges. I use them like three times a year or so.

I checked out a couple of those exchanges, but noticed pretty fast I would be selling my Bitcoin for a price that would be much lower than the market price. Also, since I rarely use them, I would first have to go through the account validation process, which would take an awful lot of time. For example: Bitfinex makes clear that it could take up to 20 days to process the verification. Because of the volatility of cryptocurrencies, a lot can happen in 20 days...

So I visited a couple of other exchanges and submitted the requested verification documents here and there - just in case. There was not a single one where I would receive an amount of Euro that was close to the actual price of Bitcoin.


After reading loads of reviews and Reddit articles I came to the conclusion that none of all those sites could be trusted completely.



Buying cryptocurrencies is easy as 1-2-3, but for selling them, options appear to be very limited.



The Test

I actually ended back on Coinbase. Since my bank account has been connected to their services for more than a year, I decided to give it a try, in spite of all the negative reviews. I had moved all my cryptos to my hardware wallets before the first Bitcoin hard forks, but to my big surprise I still had a little over €60 worth of Bitcoin in my account.

I used that amount to perform the test, and I requested a withdrawal to my bank account. Coinbase told me the funds would be completely transferred on Thursday, so all I can do is wait and see if they deliver.



Conclusion

To be honest, i am a bit shocked about how easy it is to get in, but how difficult (not to mention expensive) it appears to be to get out.

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It shouldn’t be like that, and I think it’s important to share this information with people who are considering investing in crypto.


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It's sad that that's just the way it goes with withdrawing Bitcoin. Now that people are worried about it being a bubble, maybe as they see an increase on its value, they would be most likely to withdraw it before it could be true. This situation could make the withdrawal process much harder.

But I hope it's different with Steem.

That's one of the things that scares me a bit. When the price starts dropping, loads of people are going to want to get out. During these last few week, we've seen exchange suspend withdrawals without having a good excuse. We simply can't be sure that we will be able to get our profits paid out when we want them to be paid out.

That's also the problem with media - it creates a problem that was never there. Now that all are focused on the whole 'Bitcoin is a bubble' thing, it's natural for people to get worried about their money and if they see this issue persisting, they would want to get out while they aren't losing anything yet.

I believe Bitcoin is not a bubble, but people and media make it to be.

probably supported by big corporations and banks that are scared to lose their position. I don't believe in the 'Bubble'-theory either, but I can't rule out that at one point all big players in society that have lots to lose when crypto become mainstream will try to kill it, and they might succeed (maybe they have just a small chance, but a chance is a chance, no matter how big or small)

Exactly! But you know what...I see a great future for cryptocurrency. Time will come we have more power over our money.

I just hope that time will come while we're still alive to tell about it ;-)

As for all speculation it's about not being the latest fool :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory

Maybe we're all the greater fool, paying money for intangible coins... ;-)

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