Where I buy Crypto-currencies

So, very quickly, I wanted to share my experiences with opening accounts in the United States to buy crypto-currencies.

Coinbase - this was by far the easiest to get set up, and get buying. It took a couple of days to get verified, but not bad, and it was easy to add my bank account information and start buying. I'm still using these folks today, even though they have announced that they will not honor a forking of bitcoin. They do allow me to spend only what I want (e.g. whatever is left at the end of the month: $10, $20, $50, etc.) and it works only for bitcoin and ether. You can then take your bitcoin to another exchange and buy other crypto-currencies.

Bitstamp - I'm still waiting for these folks to finish verifying me, and hence, I've not been able to add any banking information, nor make any purchases. I could exchange between crypto-currencies without being verified, but that would be about it. It's been a few weeks now, I'm really disappointed. Today I saw a message saying there's a lot of people signing up, and so they're lagging in their verification. Bitstamp also allow you to purchase bitcoin using a credit card -- however, it seems the smallest amount you can buy is $100. And it seems you can only buy in increments: 100, 250, 500, 1000, 2500, 5000. I don't see an option to enter a smaller amount. Until my account gets verified I won't be able to try a bank deposit (minimum deposit is $50 USD).

Gemini - I'm still waiting on verification, and it's been a couple of weeks of back and forth. These were the only people who would allow me to create an account for my Solo 401(k), so I'm willing to wait longer on this one. I had to provide them a lot of paperwork, but no different from a regular bank.

Kraken - they were the last account I tried to open, and it took a couple of days to get Level 1 verified, which allows me to exchange crypto-currencies, just the others. Kraken was a little slower than Coinbase, which allowed me to trade currencies right away, but they have been fairly responsive so far. We'll see. Update: it took Kraken 4 days to get me to the point where I could transfer money from my bank to them. Not sure how long the transfer will take, but I'll post it here. So far, Kraken and Coinbase have been the fastest exchanges to work with. I like that Kraken offers a lot more crypto-currencies than Coinbase.

Another update on Kraken: the bank transfer took a couple of days, not too bad. Also, the value in USD listed inside Kraken is different than the one listed, say, on this site: http://www.cryptocurrencychart.com/ which is where I monitor prices. So, I put in an order a bit lower than the going price on Kraken, and it was accepted. It was only $6 under, whereas the charting website listed the price of bitcoin some $55 lower. Once my next bank transfer clears, I'll try it on the value from the charting website. On a not-so-positive note, I have contacted their support 2 or 3 days ago, and have yet to receive a reply :(

Wirex - they are another option, but they don't support US customers, so I had to drop that one. They seem pretty cool and are recommended by @dollarvigilante and offer a bitcoin debit card. Too bad it's not available in the US.

I haven't tried other exchanges. I wanted to buy bitcoin and ethereum (and now steem), with some interest in DASH and monero as well.

Although I know you can trade crypto-currencies for profit, I'm only interested in buying and holding - why leave money in the bank when it earns so little for me, and so much for the banks.

So. I hope this is useful to you, and I'll update this as my journey moves on :)