How to Buy Bitcoins

Below you will find the most popular ways to buy Bitcoin, but before you proceed, you should get yourself a Bitcoin wallet. You’ll need a wallet to receive, store and manage the cryptocurrencies you’ve purchased. There are wallets that work only for Bitcoin and those for multiple currencies, there are hot wallets connected to the internet and cold wallets that you keep under your bed, but picking the best wallet isn’t the point of this text.

Cryptocurrency exchange is a specialized website for trading Bitcoin and other digital assets. Such platforms typically allow you to deposit USD and EUR to your account.

Each user of a cryptocurrency exchange can offer others to buy or sell a certain amount of an asset for a set price. It is called “to make an order.” When users agree to trade an asset at a certain price, this price determines the exchange rate of the asset in question. The exchange rate fluctuates depending on various factors, so sometimes you may be able to buy cryptocurrencies cheaper, or vice versa.

There are multiple ways to deposit funds to your exchange account: Western platforms typically accept cards, while Russian and Ukrainian websites also work with payment systems like QIWI, Perfect Money, Payeer. Depending on the payment you will likely have to pay transaction fees.

After trading your funds for Bitcoin you can withdraw it to a wallet and use it at your discretion.

There are many online services converting various electronic money to traditional currencies. As Bitcoin gained popularity, these services began offering to buy or sell crypto as well.

Unlike cryptocurrency exchanges, where you can trade your assets at any moment after depositing funds, such services offer instant conversion at a specified rate.

Before using an online exchange service, you would want to compare the offered rates between different websites, but it is also important to check the reputation of a service. Search online-forums or specialized websites that aggregate and monitor online exchange services. You pick the desired conversion options and the site shows you the rating list of services, testimonials and other useful information.

You can buy or sell Bitcoin offline. There are specialized websites that connect people willing to trade in the same location. The most popular of these is LocalBitcoins. You pick a country and a city, the amount you want to trade, and your preferred payment method, including meeting in-person to pay in cash.With this type of purchase, it is crucial to pick a reliable seller you can trust. LocalBitcoins exchange rate is typically lower than the market average since parties don’t have to pay fees. The buyer sends the funds to the seller and then gets Bitcoin in return (unless they get scammed).

Therefore you should be cautious when buying Bitcoin or other crypto at LocalBitcoins or other similar platforms. Do not purchase crypto from people you don’t know without checking their reputation.