PayPal is one of the systems that allow you to use for various transactions bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It is now immensely popular to use PayPal because there are some profitable ways to purchase bitcoin with it. Certainly, there are still some details that you should know to avoid problems during this procedure. The most common issue is a chargeback. In this review, we will describe possible ways to buy bitcoin with PayPal and reveal the approaches to avoid issues with the chargeback.
Overview on Buying Bitcoin with PayPal
Probably you know that there is an opportunity to perform different operations with bitcoin through the platform of PayPal itself. It is not the best option for you because you will not be able to use bitcoins outside of this platform if you do it in this way. Also, before the block of Virwox, there were more profitable functions on PayPal for bitcoin obtaining. After the January of 2020, it became more complex to perform this process and use PayPal coins.
You have two alternatives to purchase bitcoins via PayPal: eToro and LocalBitcoins. The former one will be practical for those who do not want to use coins but want to earn some money on the BTC price fluctuations. The latter one will be useful for you if you decide to transfer money from coins to your account.
Pay attention to the statistics on usage of eToro. Nowadays, 75% of eToro users who are interested in CFD lose their money. So, it can be a risk for you to buy and sell bitcoins with this system. Besides, US users cannot do CFD because of the laws. If you are American, you can sell only real assets without credit leverage.
Here is the list of topics we will cover in this article:
- Description of eToro platform and its usage
- LocalBitcoins platform for bitcoin trade
- xCoins and PayPal usage
- Paxful to buy bitcoins with PayPal
- Purchase of coins through PayPal
- Additional aspects of buying crypto with PayPal
1 — Description of eToro Platform and Its Usage
Every system has its pros and cons based on convenience and profitability. As regards eToro, some factors can influence your usage of this platform in both ways, negative and positive.
The main advantage of eToro for the trade of bitcoins is its low commission and transaction payments. Moreover, it allows you to pay using various types of systems.
Of course, there are minor disadvantages in the usage of this service. Firstly, the area where you can use it is limited. Secondly, there are some challenges in withdrawing crypto from the platform.
eToro is suitable for the small scope of goals. For example, it will take a lot of time to withdraw your profit from eToro. You can easily pay with PayPal in eToro, but you will need to obtain several steps to transfer your money to your wallet or bank account.
As we said above, this service is advantageous when you want to manipulate coins through changes in their price. eToro will be the cheapest option for this purpose. If you want to use crypto in real life or send them to someone, it will be complicated with eToro. Other services are more suitable for buying bitcoins with Paypal and transferring them to a cash account or personal wallet.
By the way, speculation of bitcoins with eToro does not require creating a coin wallet. The process of eToro usage was discussed in another article on this website. You can read more information about this process here.
Make sure you are informed about the consequences of bitcoin trading. Every cryptocurrency is not stable now, and you can lose capital using it. You should be aware of the main features of the crypto you use and choose the most beneficial service for your goals. EU laws do not regulate crypto trading, so you should always understand the risks of this activity. Weight your abilities and risks to do not lose all your budget.
2 — LocalBitcoins Platform for Bitcoin Trade
The main point of using LocalBitcoins is that there are plenty of traders from all over the world who uses it. Nevertheless, there is always a chance to be deceived when you use LocalBitcoins. Also, their fees are high in comparison to other services.
LocalBitcoins is different from the eToro in the way of communication between sellers. Usually, you communicate with a real person when you make some financial operations through this platform. That is why you should check the reliability of your partner to avoid fraud actions.
Moreover, you will need to pay a fee using LocalBitcoins because sellers protect themselves from chargebacks getting charges. There is one more beneficial thing — you can receive your bitcoins faster than with LocalBitcoins than with other platforms. If you want to know the specifications of work with this service, you can explore our review about LocalBitcoins.
Here is a short tutorial with all steps you need to follow to make trades on LocalBitcoins with PayPal:
- Select the amount of bitcoin you want to buy or sell and the country of exchange. Selection of country is required here because LocalBitcoins does not allow to scroll all the suggestions. The platform got these limitations at the time of the foundation.
- Look through offers from sellers and choose the one more suitable for you according to the exchange rate and expertise of the seller on this platform. Pay attention to the age of the seller’s account, reviews from other clients, number of blocks, and number of sales. The more accurately you select the seller, the least is an opportunity to be deceived.
- Continue the trade after you select the most reliable seller. You will get info about the amount of your trade, exchange rate, payment method, and period of validity of the deal. You should read this data carefully to avoid misunderstandings with the person on the opposite side.
- Get acquainted with the conditions of trade. It is a crucial point to read all the terms offered by a seller. If you do not follow the rules, you can lose your money. It means that if you decide to continue trade, you agree with all the rules.
- Confirm trade if you agree with the rules of the seller. Enter the amount of crypto you want to sell and finish the process of the sale.
Some issues can occur during the trade:
- Seller may reject your request if you do not have experience in working with this program. To solve this problem, you need to make several small transactions and earn a good reputation on LocalBitcoins.
- LocalBitcoins cannot solve problems occurring during trade if you do not use them as a service for communication with users. That is why you always should text your opponent via the platform itself.
So, this way of crypto trading is simple and fast. However, it will take some time to find users who will trust you if you are a beginner here.
3 — Paxful to buy crypto with PayPal
Paxful also allows users to choose a PayPal account as a payment method for the purchase of bitcoins and other cryptos. It has similar characteristics with LocalBitcoins, but it has one disadvantage — a high exchange rate. You may be confused with the value of cryptocurrencies in this system. This is one of the factors that makes this website less popular among traders.
Paxful allows you to find sellers and buyers from various countries and make trades with them. The cost of this convenience is a high probability of being cheated. The concept is similar to LocalBitcoins — people communicate directly during the trade. This approach always has its drawbacks.
The great thing about Paxful is that you can choose an option to pay from the huge number of methods. For instance, it permits you to purchase bitcoins even with Amazon gift cards, and it is a rare case.
The process of trade does not require special skills from you:
- Register yourself on the website of Paxful;
- Clarify the needed amount of coins and set chosen payment method;
- Explore suggested sellers and choose the one who seems more trustworthy or let the app select by itself;
- Read the rules and discuss all questions with the seller in a special chat;
- Make a payment in a set period and confirm the payment on the website. Pay attention that firstly bitcoins will be transferred to escrow, and then they will be credited to your bitcoin account only after confirmation of payment. If you do not follow time limits, you can lose your money.
4 — xCoins and PayPal usage
Described systems aren’t the only ones that allow you to buy bitcoin with PayPal, but others are less popular. For example, xCoins is a system that is available on the market for a long time. However, some of the processes behind the trades of crypto are hidden for users. That is why some people do not trust this marketplace and do not make transactions through it. Moreover, fees for trades are high when you use xCoins.
To understand the low popularity of xCoins
The procedure of bitcoin purchase is as simple as in other systems. You should register yourself on the website and complete verification. After that, you will be able to receive the amount of bitcoin you want using various payment methods, including PayPal. However, as it is a loan, you will pay interest when you buy bitcoins using xCoins. So, do not be surprised by the amount it requests because it includes equivalent in USD to the amount of crypto, charges for paying with PayPal, and loan interest rate.
Read this guide to know the detailed algorithm of buying procedure with xCoins.
- Log-in or register a new account on the platform;
- Enter the amount of crypto you are ready to purchase;
- Start trade by checking the conditions and agree with offered rules;
- Complete verification using ID;
- Use PayPal or another payment method to finish the trade.
The main drawback of xCoins is high commissions and transaction fees for the services because of the special sale structure. It means that you will pay more for the same amount of bitcoins here because you will take a loan from the company. I described all the features of xCoins in another article. Read it if you are going to use this system.
5 — Purchase of cryptos through PayPal
PayPal does not require external platforms to buy bitcoin, but there are several limitations on the usage of bitcoin in this case. The main disadvantage of this approach is that you will not be able to transfer cryptocurrency to your bank account or accounts of friends and family if you buy bitcoin with PayPal.
Maybe you do not need to withdraw cryptocurrency from your wallets. In this situation, PayPal is a convenient service to buy bitcoin because all transactions are safe and protected by the service itself. Moreover, transaction fees are not high in PayPal. Buying bitcoins with PayPal is an available option only for US citizens now.
Besides, it was not always an available function to purchase cryptocurrency and do crypto exchanges with PayPal itself. All clients of PayPal got this opportunity only in the second half of 2020 because purchases of crypto became widespread at that time. The partner of PayPal in these processes is Paxos.
As we said, the crucial limitation of this marketplace is that you cannot make transactions and withdraw to accounts of other people or wallets. That is why sellers and buyers prefer to use external services where they can make payments with PayPal.
We guess that PayPal will extend the scope of service they provide in the nearest future. We hope you will be able to buy bitcoin with PayPal from any country of the world and do everything you want with crypto soon.
The transaction fee on PayPal depends on the transaction amount. Usually, the minimum fee is equal to 1.5%, and the maximum one equals 2.3%.
If you decide to try this approach of cryptocurrencies purchases, you should perform six simple steps:
- Sign-in into PayPal or create a new account if you do not have it now;
- Use the function “Buy and Sell” if it is available in your PayPal (depends on the region);
- Choose the cryptocurrency you want to buy, for example, Bitcoin, and click the “Buy” button;
- Set the amount of crypto you want to obtain;
- Choose the way of payment;
- Read info about exchange rates, limits, and fees carefully and continue the transaction if you agree with the privacy statement.
After that, you should finish the trade, and bitcoin will be available in the digital wallet of your PayPal account.
Additional aspects of buying crypto with PayPal
Probably you want to use PayPal as payment methods for the purchase of other cryptocurrencies. The approach will be the same — choose one of the platforms with the most beneficial conditions for you. For instance, you can use one of these systems: LocalCryptos or Local Monero. You can find seller or buyer of Ethereum or Monero with these platforms in the same way as we described it for bitcoin. Pay attention to fees and commissions in these apps, as well as to the safety of transactions. Some of the services do not allow customers to do bank transfers and share finances with other account holders. Make sure that all the terms of the used service correspond to your needs.
If you are interested in buying bitcoin with Coinbase, you should know that you cannot do this with PayPal. There are no options on Coinbase to buy bitcoin with PayPal. You can only sell them and transfer money to your PayPal account.
More apps allow you to buy bitcoin with PayPal, but we are not sure about their quality and safety. All the recommended services we described were tested for years and have a great reputation among users. Of course, you can try another app to buy bitcoin but be confident that it let to make payments with PayPal, and all the parties included in financial transactions are trustworthy.
Share your experience of using another marketplace, describe its limits and options, and we will provide our opinion on it.
Summing Up
There are still issues in buying bitcoin with PayPal today because of rates and confidentiality of platforms. If you want to speculate on the price of bitcoin, you will not face any problems with PayPal. However, if you want to get cash from a bitcoin purchase and use the finances for other goals, use the recommended systems and be ready to pay fees.
FAQs
Can I use PayPal to buy Bitcoin?
Yes, there are several approaches to do this, and we provided a comprehensive guide about it in this review. In brief, we have checked eToro, LocalBitcoins, xCoins, Paxful. We can declare that they offer the most beneficial conditions to not only speculate with rates but also withdraw bitcoin cash to other accounts.
Where can I buy Bitcoins with PayPal?
There are plenty of systems to purchase bitcoin with PayPal, but not all of them have a high reputation. Do not use new platforms, especially if they are not reviewed by professional traders. Use one of these systems to save your capital from frauds and extra fees — LocalBitcoins, eToro, xCoins, Paxful. By the way, you can try to find a buyer or seller directly through PayPal if you live in the US and do not want to transfer your finances to another cash account.
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