Where and How to Buy Bitcoin

These are exciting times to be a part of the cryptocurrency community, with a lot of people getting heavily involved with Bitcoin.

And if you’re new to it, you’ll find that there’s a ton of content out there that tells you all about cryptocurrency projects, when to put your money in bitcoin, and what that money could be worth at the end of this year. Most likely, you’ll also find some content on other types of cryptocurrency as well.

But I imagine, being new to this space, that you might be wondering about the most essential part of starting with crypto, which is, well HOW and WHERE do we buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies?!

So if you’re interested in getting started, but you don’t know how and where to begin, here are the 3 Simple Ways to buy Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies.

What to know before buying Bitcoin

I wanna begin by getting you into the right mindset. Buying Bitcoin and exploring other cryptocurrencies is a great way to experiment with a different kind of investment. And just like any investment, there are risks involved too. And even though you’re new to crypto, I’m sure you’re not naïve to that fact. So before you invest your entire life savings or your retirement savings into Bitcoin, pause and re-consider.

You guys have asked me what’s a good amount to start with as a beginner investor in cryptocurrency. Honestly, you could go as little or as big as you can — this is relative. I suggest that you only put in disposable cash, or cash you’re okay not touching for a while, whatever that amount may be. You could do this with a portion of your monthly savings. Compound that over the course of a year, and you’ll have a sizeable amount invested.

Personally, whatever fiat money I put in cryptocurrency, is considered “locked money” for me. It’ll be my generational wealth creator. So, I don’t convert that fiat to crypto so I could take it out in fiat again. You won’t really gain much from doing that.

Speaking of risks, also be mentally prepared to see your investment go down a bit from time to time. This is normal as no investment goes up in a straight line in the charts forever. In the midst of these changing numbers, I always keep a positive attitude towards investing in bitcoin — or what they call in this space as “being bullish”. When you’re a bull, you go for it and you go long.

Why do I have this attitude? Well that’s because of my strong belief that cryptocurrency is also a movement to change the landscape of finance forever. The innovators in this space are in it to change things. As far as they’re concerned, it’s crypto and they’re not looking back. They’re not in this for the fiat money. They’re in this to change the world forever.

It’s helpful to know this about the community behind the movement as you get more involved. After all, you’ll be part of the same crypto team.

The 3 simple ways to buy Bitcoin

You can purchase Bitcoin from several cryptocurrency exchanges. Some of them charge a percentage of the purchase price. As of the creation of this video, Bitcoin trading price is at $55,300 per coin. And as I’ve mentioned before, you can buy a portion of a coin. So, you can go as little or as much as you can handle as far as how much to invest.

OKEx.com

My first recommended platform for buying Bitcoin is OKEx.

OKEx offers a fully customizable Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange for traders at every level.

The OKEx platform is easy to use and allows you to purchase and store Bitcoin, withdraw it to an external wallet, as well as convert it into other types of crypto coins or tokens.

There are 2 primary options to buy bitcoin on OKEx: through quick trade and peer-to-peer (P2P) trade.

With quick trade, you can buy Bitcoin with any Visa or Mastercard debit or credit card. And currently, OKEx supports 30 different fiat currencies. OKEx charges you a fee of 0.15% and offers a discount on this fee the more you value you hold in your account.

With P2P, you buy bitcoin from approved individuals on the OKEx platform. When purchasing cryptocurrencies from another customer on OKEx P2P platform, you are buying at a rate set by the customers themselves.

P2P is a popular option for people who don’t want to pay the fees and want more payment options. I hold a Philippines-based account and was pleasantly surprised to see that when I explored P2P options for Philippine Peso, that GCash payments are available, which is a local payment platform.

However, for full transparency, I’d like to bring up a concern that some people share on the reliability of the trades with P2P in general. In some cases there are delays on the seller’s side, resulting in an unfulfilled bitcoin order. You don’t really lose your money in this situation, your transaction simply gets cancelled which can be frustrating especially if you need to get your hands on some bitcoin right away.

OKEx remedies this by making sure they protect both the buyer and the seller also called the advertiser. The OKEx P2P platform makes use of the escrow technology to ensure a fair trade experience for all users.

This means that when you put in an order for bitcoin, the amount is moved from the advertiser’s wallet into the OKEx escrow where it will be held until the transaction is completed.

So if a buyer makes the payment but the seller refuses to release the cryptocurrency, the secure escrow serves as a guarantee. You still get the bitcoin you paid for. On the other hand, if a buyer fails to pay for the bitcoin they ordered, the cryptocurrency in the OKEx escrow will return to the advertiser’s wallet.

To get started with OKEx, create an account by clicking HERE. This link gives you $10 in Free Bitcoin once you start purchasing $100 in crypto.

Here’s a simple tutorial on how to do P2P trades on OKEx.

After you sign up for a free account using the link below, you can also purchase through the OKEx Mobile App.

Shopper Pro-tip: You might notice there are other cryptocurrencies you can buy too. These are called altcoins and tokens. If you want the biggest selection of exciting cryptocurrencies to invest in, check out the OKEx Market! It shows you the current price for each coin and some background information as well if you’re doing some research. I have my personal picks on which altcoins are gonna perform well this year and I talk about them in a number of videos on my Youtube Channel and Facebook Page.

One thing about OKEx is that they may not be accessible for some users living in the US. So as an alternative for all my US viewers, here’s my 2nd suggested platform:

Coinbase

Just like OKEx, Coinbase allows you to purchase and store Bitcoin, withdraw it to an external wallet, as well as convert it into other types of crypto coins or tokens.

Here’s what’s cool about Coinbase: if you’re serious about holding Bitcoin as an investment, you can also make a recurring purchase by clicking on Set Up Recurring Buy on the homepage.

One exciting thing you should also know is that Coinbase is coming out with their own Coinbase debit card which will allow you to shop using your cryptocurrency and earn crypto rewards back. Pretty awesome stuff.

To start, sign up for a free account HERE. This link gives you a $10 bonus once you purchase a minimum of $100 in crypto. After creating your account, here’s how you buy:

1. Click the Buy/Sell button on the home page.
2. From there, select Bitcoin.
3. Next, enter the dollar amount you’d like to buy with.
4. Select your payment method.
5. Preview your purchase, and if everything looks good,
6. Click Buy to complete your purchase.

Shopper Pro-tip: Coinbase boasts about being most user-friendly platform for cryptocurrency exchange, and that’s true for me too, both on desktop and mobile. I highly recommend you check out the Coinbase mobile app and try it out on future purchases you make.

Swan (USA Only)

My 3rd suggested platform for those of you who’d rather buy Bitcoin with a bank account instead of a debit card or credit card, is Swan.

With Swan, you can make one-time purchases funded either via a wire from a bank account or Instant ACH. They accept USA bank accounts and international bank accounts.

There is, however, a short KYC process where Swan verifies your identity by requiring you to upload a government ID and a proof-of-address document before you can start connecting your bank account. This only takes 5 minutes, which is not bad, and verification takes between 30 seconds or 5 days, depending on the type of ID you submitted. For most people though, it takes about a day to verify.

After that, you can set up your account and start purchasing. Make sure you click my Swan link below to earn $10 in free Bitcoin when you purchase.

Now, the best thing about Swan is that it works like an automation tool for Bitcoin savings. You set it and forget it.

Shopper Pro-tip: If you plan on regularly saving up some Bitcoin, sign up for a recurring plan with Swan and select how much money you want to save in Bitcoin and how frequently like every day, once a week, or once a month. Swan will automatically pull funds from your bank account, and buy Bitcoin for you. Swan doesn’t know when the price will be high or low, they just buy consistently.

After your purchases are completed, you can withdraw your Bitcoin manually into an external wallet or you can set up an auto-withdrawal plan that automatically withdraws Bitcoin to your own wallet.

Conclusion

Depending on your country of residence and the cryptocurrency you’d like to buy, you may register for several cryptocurrency exchanges as they will all have different coin listings available, as well as varying accessibility.

It would be a good idea to follow them on Twitter to stay updated on their newest cryptocurrency listings. While you’re at it, follow @thecryptoshopper on Twitter as well to stay updated on which coins I’m looking at.

This article is written by Sixteen Ramos.

Disclaimer: Sixteen is not a financial advisor. This article is for educational purposes only. Please do your own research outside of reading this article.