What is the best exchange

[JohnQPublic]

...for various virtual coin?

Do you sign up with your real name? I guess if you want to put US$ up you would need to.

How is Cryptsy?

[drafter]

I'm using vircurex.com at the moment. I think they allow us$ transfer of some sort, but I've only transferred bitcoin there via coinbase. Site only required an email address.

[JohnQPublic]

I'm using vircurex.com at the moment. I think they allow us$ transfer of some sort, but I've only transferred bitcoin there via coinbase. Site only required an email address.

With coinbase, can you keep a local copy of your wallet in case coinbase gets taken down?

[Shami-Amourae]

My favorite is BTC-e. My goal long term is to accumulate Bitcoins, but I think its smart to trade between alt-cryptos.

BTC-e is Russian so wont be shut down by the US government. Just buy Bitcoins on Coinbase.com and send them there. Only issue with it is it has high fees, and it's hard to get cash into it, so it's best to just buy Bitcoins somewhere else and transfer them there.

Also Bitcoins are about 5-10% cheaper or so on BTC-e so when you convert from your alt-cryptos to BTC-e you'll get more Bitcoins.

Another good feature is the "trollbox" (the chatroom). It's absolutely hilarious to watch. Don't follow the advice people give though. It's nicknamed trollbox for a reason. Oh yeah, the user fontas (https://twitter.com/fontase) is a God there (he pumps/dumps) and when you hear "Chickun Arise" it refers to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ9dtZ8lYww

Basically LTC sounds like KFC I guess so people refer to it as a chicken and so....fuck it. It's the Internet. It doesn't have to make sense.
:p

[Shami-Amourae]

With coinbase, can you keep a local copy of your wallet in case coinbase gets taken down?

I wouldn't store anything on Coinbase. Just use it as a middleman between your bank account and your Bitcoins. Get any funds out of it ASAP. Store some of your cryptos on the exchange you trade on you are willing to lose if something happens and safely store some on a wallet.

[JohnQPublic]

Shami-Amourae- any thoughts on Cryptsy? Cryptsy has one of the largest range of coins available.

[Shami-Amourae]

Shami-Amourae- any thoughts on Cryptsy? Cryptsy has one of the largest range of coins available.

Never used it. I'm happy with BTC-e.

BTC-e officially will kill Terracoin in a few hours from now. You may want to remove it from your description of the Virtual Currencies section.

[Shami-Amourae]

JohnQPublic -

I heavily recommend you bookmark this website and use it frequently:
http://coinmarketcap.com/

It will give you an idea of the trends of all the cryptos and may help you have a better understanding of where markets are moving.

[drafter]

I have a wallet separate from coinbase and the exchanges to hold stuff if it's not being traded.

[Ares]

I use cryptsy to dump some of the alt-coins I mine. BTC is getting very difficult to mine anymore. Even with 60Gh, It will take me almost a month to get a single coin now. I came across a python script called cryptoswitcher (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=172121.0) that will automatically switch between the most profitable crypto coins and sell what I currently have at the current going rate.

It's proven to be a pretty good tool just in the 3 days I've had it running. But it is in no way easy to configure, setup, or get running unless you're familiar with python to begin with and the dependencies it needs to run.

I like BTC-e, just because it requires no identifying information other than an email address to create an account and trade. I have a trading robot monitoring an account and doing the day trading for me.

Do not trust coinbase.. Based in the U.S. just use it to get money in and out of the Bitcoin system. But don't leave any Bitcoins in that exchange. Keep any bitcoins you have in a wallet that you control.

[JohnQPublic]

I just processed 2 trades on Cryptsy. Got LTC in, Alt currencies out. No problem. Seems to work pretty well, and they have a good selection of altcurrencies (no feather coin suprisingly).