I was going to ask the same question!  I've got to get up early tomorrow for work, so I'm super excited this is taking off, but crazy nervous too!  

Alright guys, whats your best guess/advice for a noob trying to figure out when to buy in?  Only have $200 in BitStamp...so I'd like to make it worthwhile.  Suggestions?

I guess my question clearly illustrates my emotional need to "buy in" clouding any good judgement.  

Right, that being said, I may as well get to bed...have an early day tomorrow working the 9-5!  Cheers mates and good luck!

Can't speak for Gox, but Stamp is working fine for me.

So Stamp looks like its hung up at 398-399...time to sell my 1.5BTC and call it a day?

In general I'm fairly bullish...I know BTC has a long way to go and will be worth truckloads...but when Stamp gets hung up like this I feel like if I don't do something i'm going to "lose out" on the gains I've made so far. 

But then to keep it in perspective it's only 1.5BTC...but its my precious, hard earned BTC...so i'm torn.

Yeah I've been using a similar approach to what you've stated...except that my amount was for .5BTC...ultimately I don't have the discipline or unemotional approach to this. Thank goodness I'm only doing this as a little something on the side...I don't think I have the titanium balls to go in full tilt like some of you guys.  Sadly, I'm still putting a few $ in my 401k, IRA, buying a few random stocks, a savings account, essentially spreading it around and BTC is sort of my next item for my portfolio.

I did the trial of butter bot for a week, but it was during the run up, so the bot didn't actually do anything because i did the initial buy...however, I've since purchased it and mainly am using it to watch things when i have to step away from the computer for extended periods of time.

So while i can say that it does it's thing, I've not used it enough to say its made me $ or saved my bacon when things came falling down.

I hope I don't get beat up over this, but I asked the same question on the LTC forums (https://forum.litecoin.net/index.php/topic,6662.msg51607.html#msg51607)

Essentially I was interested in finding a lawyer who understood crypto currencies, so they could help out...that way my family doesn't have to rely on poorly written instructions, or forgetting all the little steps, etc.

I think the simplest approach would be that you start the "BitcoinBeyond.com" service.  The service has lawyers who are familiar with estate law and cryptos.  Then the crypto nerd - such as myself - would leave a letter with private keys to my significant other whom I'd want to leave the cytpos to.  The letter would only contain say 1/2 of the private key with the remaining halves in a will.  That way no irate ex-spouse could get his/her hands on them without my will being read.  The estate lawyer at "BitcoinBeyond.com" would then assist the various recipients of the will's benefits to "cash out" the coins or do whatever other action they'd like.

Alright its time I jump in and ask my obligatory "worried guy" question:

Bought 1BTC @ $717USD.  Do I hold or sell?

I have no strategy, no system, and most definately not a day trader...

FYI, I've "bought in" at a couple of diff price points so my weighted average cost per BTC is about $475...so that combined with my "greedy" nature is telling me to hold even though I'm staring at the blood-red candle sticks on this graph.

Help!  Talk this wanna-be Bull away from the Bear ledge!

I've got several bots but sadly I'm not "smart" enough to quite get them configured right. I bought the HaasOnline bot and the Butter Bot.  The various configs I've tried the past couple of times on each have ended up costing me -- so clearly I'm not getting the right variables configured in these to capitalize on the swings.  

I've got 7BTC left...after my bot misfortunes...of which 5BTC is "frozen" in my freezer into an block of ice.  The remaining 2BTC is what I planned to try and work with if it makes sense to try again wth the bots or just to manually trade for myself...

I would have laminated it but I dont' have a lamination machine.  I just got the paper double bagged in two ziplocks.  That is then folded and put into a small tupperware container...which is water tight...and then frozen.  My bank was asking too much for even their smallest safety deposit box.  I'm actually thinking of thawing it out and sending a copy to my family as a backup...  ONe thing I hadn't thought of is if my apartment building burns down or somethign...or if we have another Hurricane Sandy, I might lose the private keys...so I guess i know what i'm doing this weekend.

@Vycid
@neutrinox

Yeah I think you both make a good point. My neanderthal approach to securing my private keys is a telling indicator of my lack of "Bitcoin Sophistication".  

I've been meaning to defrost it anyways, so I might as well setup a proper 2-factor auth set of keys...and send encrypted USB drives to various family members for safe keeping.

Funny, how lazy we get sometimes, but when you stop to put things into context (5BTC * ~$600 = $3,000) makes you remember how hard you struggled to get that $ in the first place and to lose it over something as stupid as Ziplock bags and Gladware containers....shame on me.  

I do have to agree, watching the charts on the exchanges up/down does make for more exciting entertainment than any crap show on "Reality" TV these days.

Cheers mates to your kind advise and setting this noob straight a bit!

I actually need it to go up to 722 again briefly so I can sell to "break even"...and THEN we can have it fall down to like $20/BTC!  

Any chance of this turning southward tonight?  I want to go to sleep but not sure if I should.  Seems like when I go to bed the opposite happens from what I want it to do.

After scanning this thread on Reddit (www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1r2fts/i_wrote_this_primer_on_how_to_deal_with_your_us/) I'm now less worried about the price of BTC tonight and more concerned about my shitty record keeping when it comes to BTC.

I personally don't want to have to go back through all the different wallets and transactions to try and make heads/tails of what is a gain, what is not, what is realized or not, etc.

Anyone know a good tax guy in NJ/NY area who actually understands this?

Actually I was quite serious...last thing I want to do is find myself on the wrong side of a huge ass tax bill for which I'm not able to pay...or worse have to do battle with the IRS.

Guilty as charged!  I guess though the gods must have been looking out for me because I didn't fill in the fields correctly so it didn't register the "sell".  

Guess I'll count my blessings and hold like Leonidas!

I have no clue!  I also thought we'd see $300-400 for at least a month if not more.

Its good for both...it gives BTC a little cooling off period.  We've rushed through some amazing gains in BTC-land...and taking the focus off, even for just a bit, is good...it lets the price settle in and folks get comfortable with the idea of $1000/BTC.

BTC has no real challengers other than perhaps LTC....for the sake of full disclosure I hold a few 100 LTC...but even I think that the current price is just pure BS driven by speculation. I think LTCs real value is much lower, not being bearish but rather more realistic about it.  LTC doesn't have a major payment processor like Coinbase to make Fiat <--> LTC easy, it has only 1 major exchange BTCE but it's sketchy at best from the rumors I've heard,  LTC doesn't have a bunch of merchants lined up ready to take LTC payments for goods/services....so while I think LTC has some long term potential, I think it still has a way to go before this $35-$40/LTC price is genuinely accurate.

I recall seeing on Reddit or somewhere that some guy mentioned it and and the "pumpers" used it as an opportunity to pump-n-dump it.

I think the 6 levels of crypto algorithm in it sounds interesting, but I'm not sure where it's going in the mid-to-long term.

Curious...does Bitstamp have any kind of stop-loss feature?

In German, I believe that means "The Bitcoin" 

Crap! 6 years of German language classes in high school and college...and I still can't get die, der, das straight!  No wonder my teacher took early retirement.