Bitcoin buying experience in Warsaw
So to purchase a forum subscription, I bought some bitcoins locally without going through an online exchange like I'd done in the past. You can buy them online, it's fine, but let's just say I have my own reasons that aren't really relevant here. But I figure this has some relevance to the forum itself, and I'd write this up while I'm still waiting for my subscription to activate.
I knew local bitcoins were a thing, and there was supposed to be a bitcoin ATM at a Bobby Burger near the Zlote Tarasy mall. Forget it. You'll sooner get high blood pressure than bitcoins from it, and checking a certain Polish bitcoin forum, I see I'm not the only one.
Apparently there are a few more now around the city. If you google for "Warsaw bitcoin ATM" you can find a site that lists some like this "ATM radar" site. I have no affiliations, it just seems to be useful is all. It even seems to let you compare the fees, but I have no idea how up to date that really is.
If you go to Galeria Jupiter near metro station Rondo Daszynskiego, then you can find a bitcoin ATM near one of the entrances. In any case you shouldn't miss it, since it's the most garish ATM I've ever seen in my life. It was pretty straight forward. A forum subscription is 25 USD, so I inserted 100 PLN plus a bit extra just in case to account for fees. The last part wasn't necessary in the end, but my last bitcoin trading experience around the hype bubble saw jacked up transaction fees. I didn't want to have to come back to the ATM if I was short.
Then you can have the ATM either send the bitcoins to a wallet address or print out a receipt with a QR code. And that's it. Cold hard cash in, bitcoins out, not even any KYC. Either way you'll need a bitcoin wallet. There are many to choose from, and one choice on android is Bitcoin Wallet itself. Maybe the way it lets you set transaction fees are far from ideal, but it'll do here. I don't have an iPhone, but I'm sure there's something fine.
Mobile is convenient because you can have the ATM send you the coins directly to your own bitcoin address by scanning a QR code on your phone. Or you can buy the coins and have the ATM print out the receipt with a QR code, and then transfer them to your own address. There's the option to sweep a paper wallet under the three dots menu in the Bitcoin Wallet app.
So once you have the bitcoins, you need to send them to the ISG bitcoin address. The Bitcoin Wallet app even lets you specify an amount in USD, and seems to let you copy paste the address, which in general you might not want to do for large sums of money you care about. But let's not get too paranoid. For the fun of it, I just generated my own QR code on Google charts and scanned that, but in any case, maybe that's something the ISG site could consider adding to make it even easier.
Then you're supposed to contact the forum with your transaction ID, which is also just called a hash. So there might be some mild confusion there, but in the end it's a long string of numbers and letters. Once the payment is sent, the Bitcoin Wallet app gives you the option to browse it and takes you to the blockchain site.
This write-up is rather long, but don't let that fool you. It's not so bad to buy and transfer bitcoins here.