Virwox Review | Read Why You Should Stay Away From Virwox
Around a year ago I posted a tutorial on how to buy Bitcoin with Paypal. That method was great for buying Bitcoin with Paypal back then. Since the massive increase in the Bitcoin rate this year, I no longer recommend that method. In this post I will explain why you should stay away from Virwox.
Virwox is an independent exchange for trading virtual currencies. Currencies traded are Linden Dollars (the virtual currency used in Second Life), Avination‘s C$, and the Open Metaverse Currency (OMC). In April 2011, VirWoX started accepting Bitcoin and enabled to trade bitcoins for Linden Dollars (both ways), which are in turn convertible to EUR, USD, GBP, CHF, and the other virtual currencies traded on VirWoX.
Since it accepts trading between PayPal USD/EUR with SLL it has become quite popular among the Bitcoin community. Virwox allows you to trade SLL (Linden Dollars) with BTC so the idea is to first trade USD/EUR with SLL and use those SLL to trade Bitcoin. Sounds like a good bargain? Well, not anymore. Read my Virwox review to find out why.
Virwox Review
So I found out about them a year ago on how you can buy Bitcoin with PayPal. That method was good until recently. After a year I tried them again and here I am.
I deposited $20 from my Skrill account. Virwox deducted $1.19 as a fee and I ended up with $18.81. Virwox has a policy of trading USD in the multiples of $1 so I was forced to trade $18 for SLL. I received 4,295.26 SLL in my account. Another Virwox policy is that you can trade Bitcoin in the multiples of 0.001 BTC. At the time of exchange I could only buy 0.001 BTC for 3,998.19 SLL which left me with 297.07 SLL. Finally I had 0.001 Bitcoin worth ($ 13.76) but wait that’s only in my Virwox account so it was useless until it had been withdrawn. Newsflash: Virwox charges 0.0005 BTC as a handling fee for each Bitcoin withdraw. Heartbroken by this, I withdrew the bitcoin to my Bitgo account.
I haven’t received anything in Bitgo wallet yet. It has been more than 12 hours so I will give it another 24 hours and will update my post.
Update: Received 0.0005 BTC in my Bitgo wallet after 24 hours. Transaction on the blockchain can be seen here.
Here’s the flow of transactions:
- Deposit $20 with my skrill account (Fee USD 0.49 + 3.5%)
- Balance: $18.81 upon receiving in Virwox (20 – 0.49 – 0.035*20 = 18.81)
- Sell $18 for SLL: 4295.26
- Sell 3998.19 SLL for BTC: 0.001
- Withdraw 0.0001 BTC (Fee 0.0005 BTC ~ $6.88 at the time)
- Balance: 0.0005 BTC in my Bitgo Wallet
Summary:
Starting Balance:
USD: 20
BTC: 0
SLL: 0
Net worth: 20 USD
Ending Balance:
USD: 0.81 (stuck in Virwox)
BTC: 0.0005 (in Bitgo wallet)
SLL: 297.07 (stuck in Virwox
Net worth: 0.81 + 6.88 + 0.04 = 7.73 USD
Loss: 20 – 7.73 = 12.27 USD
Conclusion:
So I lost 12.27 USD within an hour not to mention that 0.81 USD and 297.07 SLL are still stuck at Virwox and they are useless to me unless I deposit more money. Since Virwox allows you to send SLL to other accounts so if someone needs them I would be happy to give away. Just comment below with your details or send me an email. 🙂
If you really want to buy Bitcoin I would suggest to find local sellers through Facebook groups or Mycelium mobile application. It offers local marketplace where you can find local bitcoin buyers and sellers. You can contact them within the app and trade bitcoin easily.
