Welcome, Bitcoin beginners! In this guide, I’m going to teach you how to buy Bitcoin with credit card payments.
We use credit cards every day to make all kinds of purchases. The one thing that you can’t seem to buy with a credit card is Bitcoin (BTC)! There are hundreds of exchanges where you can buy Bitcoin, but very few that allow users to pay with a credit card.
Today, I’ll tell you why so few exchanges offer credit card purchases. More importantly, I’ll show you four exchanges where you can buy Bitcoin with a credit card. By the time you finish reading, you’ll be able to decide which exchange is the best place for you to buy Bitcoins instantly with credit card payments.
The exchanges I’m going to talk about are; Coinmama, CEX.IO, Bitstamp, and Bitpanda. You’ll learn how to use each exchange, what services they offer and what fees they charge for buying Bitcoin with credit card payments.
Before I teach you how to buy Bitcoins instantly with credit card payments, I’ll tell you why there aren’t very many platforms that offer the service…
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Table of Contents
- 1. The Problem with Buying Bitcoin with Credit Card Payments
- 2. Coinmama
- 2.1. How does Coinmama work?
- 2.2. Coinmama Fees
- 2.3. How safe is Coinmama?
- 3. Cex.io
- 3.1. How does Cex.io work?
- 3.2. Cex.io Fees
- 3.3. How safe is Cex.io?
- 4. Bitpanda
- 4.1. How does Bitpanda work?
- 4.2. Bitpanda Fees
- 4.3. How safe is Bitpanda?
- 5. Bitstamp
- 5.1. How does Bitstamp work?
- 5.2. Bitstamp Fees
- 5.3. How safe is Bitstamp?
- 6. Conclusion
The Problem with Buying Bitcoin with Credit Card Payments
There are two main reasons why most crypto exchanges don’t allow users to buy Bitcoin with a credit card. They are;
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- Chargebacks: When you make a purchase using a payment provider like PayPal or Visa credit card, you have the option of requesting a chargeback. This means you can reverse the purchase and get your money back. However, chargebacks create a serious problem for exchanges that want to allow their users to buy BTC with credit card payments. Here’s how…Bitcoin only exists on a blockchain. Blockchains are huge shared databases of transaction information. One kind of information that isn’t stored on the Bitcoin blockchain is the user’s names! This means it’s very difficult to prove who owns Bitcoin. If I sell you Bitcoin, I have no easy way of proving that I sent it to you! You could pay me with a credit card then, after I’d sent you the Bitcoin, you could pretend that I hadn’t! Your payment provider could issue a chargeback so you would get to keep the money and the Bitcoin. This problem makes a lot of crypto exchanges very nervous about letting their customers buy Bitcoins instantly with credit card payments.
- Competition: Payment providers, like Visa and PayPal, see cryptocurrencies as a major threat to their businesses. Bitcoin wants to provide cheap and fast payment services to millions of people around the world. If they succeed, they could destroy a lot of traditional financial organizations. Therefore, these organizations make it as hard as possible for people to buy Bitcoin with a credit card. It’s nothing personal, it’s just business!
So, that’s the bad news for crypto newbies who want to buy BTC with credit card payments. Next up, the good news! I’m going to show you how to buy Bitcoin with credit card payments on four well-known exchanges. The first exchange I’m going to talk about is Coinmama…
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Coinmama
Coinmama is a crypto broker exchange based in Slovakia but owned by an Israeli company called New Bit Ventures Ltd. It was founded in 2013 and operates in 188 countries, including 23 states in America.
How does Coinmama work?
You can buy Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Cardano (ADA), Qtum (QTUM), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ripple (XRP)and Ethereum (ETH) using Coinmama.
Users need to be verified to buy Bitcoin with a credit card. This means that you need to provide personal information to create an account. The information you need to provide includes; your email address, name, and home country.
You also need to verify your identity by scanning a form of government-issued photo-ID (driver’s license, passport, etc.). This is called Level 1 verification and can take a few hours.
Once verified, you will be able to buy Bitcoin with a credit card provided by either Mastercard or Visa. Each user has a daily spending limit of 5000 US Dollars (USD) and a monthly spending limit of 20,000 USD.
So, what does Coinmama charge for allowing users to buy BTC with credit card payments?
Coinmama Fees
Coinmama charges a fee of 5.9% every time you buy BTC with credit card payments. This isn’t all you’ll pay though. The exchange’s credit card processor, Simplex, adds its fee of 5%. This means that the lowest fee you will ever pay on Coinmama is 10.9%.
To work out how much Bitcoin you’ll get for each purchase, take the amount you’re willing to spend and divide it by 1.05. For example, if you have 1000 USD to spend, divide it by 1.05. So, you get 952 USD worth of Bitcoin for every 1000 USD you spend.
However, case studies have shown that charges made by a user’s card provider can add an extra 10% on top of this amount! So, expect to pay more than 20% in fees when you buy Bitcoins instantly with credit card payments.
Before we look at another exchange, let’s see how safe Coinmama is...
How safe is Coinmama?
Coinmama serves over 600,000 customers per month and hasn’t had any big security issues so far. It has built a good reputation over the years for being a safe place to buy Bitcoin with a credit card.
The exchange has one very important security feature. It doesn’t hold any user funds. If an exchange doesn’t hold any user funds, it can’t lose them! Coinmama doesn’t offer a wallet service which means that users need to have their Bitcoin wallet before they can make a purchase.
Coinmama is a safe and fast way to buy Bitcoins instantly with credit card payments. But how does it compare with other exchanges on the market? Let’s find out, starting with Cex.io...
Cex.io
Cex.io was founded in London in 2013, making it one of the oldest crypto trading exchanges on the market. The exchange operates in 99% of the world including 24 American states.
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How does Cex.io work?
Cex.io offers a lot more trading features than Coinmama. Users can buy and sell cryptocurrencies with a variety of different trades. The site has four levels of verification; basic, verified, verified plus and corporate.
You’ll only need a basic account to buy BTC with credit card payments. Users can fund their Cex.io account with a credit card, make instant purchases and even make withdrawals onto a credit card. This is a service most exchanges don’t offer.
The quickest way to buy Bitcoin with a credit card on Cex.io is with an instant buy. Higher charges apply to this kind of trade, so let’s have a closer look at Cex.io fees...
Cex.io Fees
Instant buys on Cex.io are charged a fee of 7%. This is for a trade where you buy Bitcoin with a credit card directly. If you choose to fund an account with a credit card then you’ll be charged less. Cex.io charges a fee of 3.5% for deposits made with a credit card.
Trading fees are calculated monthly and will be between 0.16%-0.25% if you trade less than 5 BTC (which you probably will because 5 BTC is worth more than 35,000 USD!). With a basic account, you can spend up to 1000 USD per day or 3000 USD per month with a Visa or Mastercard credit card.
So, Cex.io allows its users to buy Bitcoins instantly with credit card payments for less than Coinmama. But is it safer?
How safe is Cex.io?
Cex.io has over 700,000 users and follows some of the toughest financial laws in the world. These include American FinCEN laws, as well as the regulations of the UK government. Cex.io also uses encryption to hide all user data and is PCI DSS compliant.
However, Cex.io has been criticized by some users for losing funds and being slow to react to complaints. It has a user rating of 5.2 out of 10 on Trustpilot, which suggests it’s only keeping about half of its customers happy!
Cex.io charges less than Coinmama to buy BTC with credit card payments and offers more trading options but has a worse reputation for safety and customer service. Next, I want to talk about Bitpanda...
Bitpanda
Bitpanda is a broker exchange founded in 2014. It’s based in the SEPA. The exchange mostly serves customers inside the SEPA but it does offer services to international users as well.
How does Bitpanda work?
Users of Bitpanda can buy or sell eight different cryptocurrencies; Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Dash (DASH), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ripple (XRP), Komodo (KMD) and IOTA (IOTA). Users can pay with Mastercard, Visa, Skrill, and Neteller.
You’ll need to get verified to buy Bitcoins instantly with a credit card. The verification process involves several steps. First, users need to provide a phone number, an email address and their details (name, address, etc.). Then, users show their passport on a verification video app. Driver’s licenses aren’t accepted as ID by Bitpanda.
Users can buy Bitcoin worth up to 2500 EUR per day with a credit card. This means that Bitpanda has a high daily spending limit compared to Cex.io but what about its fees?
Bitpanda Fees
Bitpanda charges a fee of 1.49% for all purchases of Bitcoin. This seems low but because Bitpanda is a broker exchange the price it offers for Bitcoin will be higher than those offered by trading exchanges.
A comparison between Bitstamp (my next topic!) and Bitpanda showed a difference of 2.1% in the prices they offered for Bitcoin. This would make the final fee for buying Bitcoin with credit card payments on Bitpanda closer to 3.5%. However, that’s still cheap when compared with the fees charged by Coinmama and Cex.io.
Bitpanda is cheap but is it secure?
How safe is Bitpanda?
Bitpanda has a good reputation amongst its users and it hasn’t been hacked. It has a user rating of 8.5 out of 10 on Trustpilot. It has only been reviewed 899 times though.
This is the problem with Bitpanda. Not enough is known about the platform. Its code isn’t open-source, its fees can be difficult to predict and its homepage says it’s “100% safe” without explaining why!
Bitpanda is a tricky one. It offers fast trades at low fees but more information about how the exchange operates would be nice! Next, I’ll show you how to buy Bitcoin with credit card payments on Bitstamp...
Bitstamp
Bitstamp is a crypto trading exchange. It was founded in Slovenia in 2011 and is currently based in Luxembourg. The exchange mainly offers services to customers in the SEPA but credit card and US Dollar purchases can be made by international users in more than 60 countries.
How does Bitstamp work?
Customers can buy BTC with credit card payments after they have registered an account and got it verified. The Bitstamp verification process is quite long and users will have to provide a lot of personal information. This includes; name, email address, a scanned photo-ID and proof-of-residence like a phone bill or bank statement.
Once verified, users can buy BTC with credit card payments. The exchange also offers to trade with Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), Ripple (XRP) and Ethereum (ETH). Verified users can buy Bitcoins instantly with credit card payments worth up to 5,000 EUR/USD per day or 20,000 EUR/USD per month. So, Bitstamp has the same spending limits as Coinmama but is it cheaper?
Bitstamp Fees
Bitstamp charges a fee of 5% each time you buy Bitcoin with a credit card. However, the Bitstamp team is quick to remind its users that extra card fees may be added by providers like Visa and Mastercard.
Now you know how cheap Bitstamp is, let’s see how safe it is...
- A very well-known crypto exchange platform
- More than 500 different cryptos available
- Two-factor authentication
- Over 500 different cryptocurrencies available
- Strong security
- Small withdrawal fees
- Very low trading fees
- Exceptional functionality
- Mobile trading app
- Very competitive trading fees
- An intuitive mobile app
- Up to 100x leverage available
- Secure and reliable
- Low fees
- A good amount of fiat currencies accepted
- Reputable exchange
- Multiple fiat currencies are accepted
- Relatively low trading fees
How safe is Bitstamp?
Bitstamp is one of the safest exchanges on the market. The team is very serious about account security and stores 98% of user funds offline. Online funds are fully insured against theft.
The exchange was hacked in 2014 and 2015 but was praised for how it dealt with the incidents. Bitstamp added data encryption and SMS-text alert service to the platform to make sure the same mistakes weren’t made again. The exchange is very open about how it operates and it was also the first crypto exchange to be fully licensed by a European nation (Luxembourg).
Overall, Bitstamp is a professional exchange with high spending limits and reasonable fees. Before you choose which exchange is the best place for you to buy Bitcoin with a credit card, I’ll give you a few recommendations of my own...
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Conclusion
In this guide, I’ve told you about four of the most popular exchanges where you can buy Bitcoin with a credit card. Now all you need to do is choose which one is right for you.
To do this, decide what’s important. We’d all love to find an exchange where buying Bitcoin with credit card payments is quick, easy, cheap and safe. Unfortunately, there isn’t an exchange that has all of these qualities in one place.
When I’m choosing a crypto exchange, I always follow my grandma’s advice and think about safety first! For this reason, I would choose to trade with Coinmama or Bitstamp. They’re both open about how they operate and store little or no user funds online.
From here, my choice would depend on whether I wanted low fees or a fast transaction. I’d choose the quick and simple service offered by Coinmama if I wanted my Bitcoin fast. However, I’d choose Bitstamp if I wanted more trading features and lower fees. Bitstamp’s verification takes longer than other exchanges but I think that the service offered is worth waiting for.
So, there it is; my complete beginner’s guide to buying Bitcoin with credit card payments. Just remember to be very careful when you buy Bitcoin with a credit card. Crypto exchanges are more professional now than they’ve ever been before but the industry still has a long way to go. Exchanges still don’t offer the level of customer support that you get at your local bank. However, Bitstamp and Coinmama come pretty close!
Let me know if you’ve found an exchange where you can buy Bitcoin with a credit card quickly, cheaply and securely. I’d love to hear about it!
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