Is there a fairer way to buy bitcoins?

[quimgil]

I totally apologize for posting my first question as a potential off-topic, but this is a true story that happened this morning.

Today is my birthday's son. He's now 13. This morning he caught me by total surprise by asking me to convert the euros he has got as a gift to bitcoins. He had never mentioned this or any other cryptocurrency,, and as far as I remember the topic hadn't even come up in our conversation. So I guess this tells about the increasing popularity of bitcoin, also among the youngest... consumers.

Now, I was actually thinking of explaining to my kids the whole thing about virtual currencies, what money has been throughout history... I like to run this experiment with him but I want to improve it, offering to convert 50% of the euros to bitcoins, and 50% to faircoins, so he can see the evolution of value in € over time, but also what differences of purpose both currencies have etc. I see it as a good excuse to introduce my kids to social currencies and the social economy.

OK, and now the question: how do you recommend me to buy faircoins, and is there a "fairer" way to buy bitcoins? While I have read and listened quite a bit about cryptocurrencies, I only purchased once (it was a social currency from the Cooperativa Integral Catalana, and I lost my wallet like many newbies I guess).

[quimgil]

(I posted in English because this is the language of the #off-topic category, but if you prefere to answer en español o en català, that works for me.)

[guyj]

It depends what you mean by "fairer". Generally on an exchange you are buying them from an individual, although you may not know who it is. You can also use something like localbitcoins.com to buy them in person from someone. Probably the 'fairest' way is to buy them from someone you know and trust, but of course that is not always possible.

Bitcoin itself is very problematic at the moment, given the enormous energy use, the very high transaction fees and the slowness of the network. But I understand that it would be nice to give your son what he wants. Maybe you can persuade him that FairCoin is better though..!

[nousername]

I agree with @guyj, bitcoin per se doesnt have social values (besides the innovation of bypassing 3rd party gvt/banks arbitrary fees)

The use of electricity of Bitcoin is insanse

Bitcoin Could Consume as Much Electricity as Denmark by 2020

and it's quite influenced by the neoliberal markets and big miners(mainly in China bcs cheaper price of electricity from rivers and quicker access to mining hardware) owns lot of money and power in the network.

Faircoin is differently an ecological crytpcocurrency because there is no mining and the network is based on Proof of Cooperation (PoC) and decisions are taken in assembly.
There are 2 ways of getting faircoins,

1. participating in the social economy:
   • Sell your services or fair products through market.fair.coop
   • Do a crowdfunding campaign with option to get faircoins in coopfunding.net
   • Work or participate in a place that accepts faircoins: use.fair-coin.org

2. Or buy faircoins directly from the Fair.Coop movement at: getfaircoin.net , here you can buy them directly through an IBAN transference(with limits to avoid speculators) or directly through a local node Point of Exchange(POE) where you can meet directly the community and trade and buy them with cash(euros) and get your faircoins, normally with 0% fees.

[rice]

There is some other points, about Bitcoin future.
I'll try to explain my point of view:
At this moment, Bitcoin doesn't seems to have any value itself, only have speculative value, but not real useful value.
I mean, at this moment, Bitcoin is showing that is not very good scalling for a 'massive' use.

At this moment, it may take several hours to get the transaction veryfied.

Also, the transaction fees are getting higher, and with that high fees, it's not useful for small payments on the real life shopping food & needs. In some cases (few euros products), you pay more for the fees than for the product itself.

If we though Bitcoin as a cryptocurrency to use in our daily life, it's not useful with the waiting times and the high fees exposed in the previous paragraphs. For this reason, I think that has only speculative value.

So, as a speculative value, maybe at some point, the speculative bubble explodes, and with that Bitcoins, people is not able to buy real stuff, as it was only a speculative value. And then, lots of people may want to sell their Bitcoins, and this will decrease the Bitcoin value.

[geni]

I agree with IvanEsperanto and guy.
I'd like to know what your kid thinks about both currencies after some time. I'm sure that when he will know the idea, the people and the activity behind Fair Coin, he will see the real value of this currency.
it takes some time to understand the whole system, but it is worth

[nousername]

@quimgil what did the Magic Kings and Santa Claus brought to your child finally? Bitcoins, Faircoins or charcoal?
Happy new year!