If you are looking for the best platform that can provide you with reliable money transfer services via cryptocurrencies, then Western Union will be the solution for you! In comparison with Paypal, Western Union does not place such drastic limitations on its Bitcoin trade customers. On the contrary, this platform’s conditions encourage you to buy Bitcoin, for example.
Continuing this comparison, Paypal has a limit for your weekly purchases of Bitcoin, which is 100,000 dollars. For other cryptocurrencies, you could buy Bitcoin for no more than 50,000 dollars a year. With Western Union, you have a wider range of possibilities, as many crypto exchanges have fewer restrictions for their WU investors when it comes to Bitcoin trades.
You can always be sure that Western Union is a trustworthy solution, as this platform never restricted its users from making a money transfer to exchange platforms, as some other banks have, such as UK Barclays, which prohibited its customers from using their credit or debit cards for Binance transactions.
More About Western Union’s History
Western Union is an American financial services company that is specializing in the financial services industry, but that was not always the case. At the start of the company’s development, it was focusing on telegraphic services.
What is more, the company was quite successful in this sphere. Western Union has built the first transcontinental telegraph line and was planning on connecting America with Europe via Alaska and to Moscow through Siberia, but this was not achieved, as the Western Union started to pursue another goal of creating the first transatlantic cable.
By that time the Western Union was very successful: when the NYSE index stock was created, Western Union was included in its list of 11 original companies. What is more, the corporation was the first American communication company that had its own geosynchronous satellites.
However, the decline of telegraph development made Western Union change its business direction to a money transfer one, which is why the company has changed its name from Western Union Telegraph Company to Western Union Corporation.
When the reframing has happened, only three sites could receive money transfer services from the company, namely Boston, New York, and Chicago, but with time, the Western Union went international and even produced one of the first cards called “Metal Money”, which later could be used as a payment method for loans and mortgages.
Now Western Union is a largely accepted and respected company that works in more than 200 countries and definitely can compete with Pay Pal, especially after it started to accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Pros and Cons of Buying Bitcoin With Western Union
As with any other company, Western Union also has its own advantages and disadvantages, especially when it comes to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Here you will find some of them that are related to buying Bitcoins.
Advantages:
- You will not find any limitations for the amount of Bitcoin currency that you can purchase
- The platform will provide you with one of the fastest ways to buy Bitcoins
- The reputation of the Western Union will ensure you of the security of its services
- Purchases in the USA are allowed with any credit cards
- You can make transactions both through an online website or mobile app
Disadvantages:
- Fees in Western Union are usually higher than you would expect
- Still, not every exchange platform accepts Western Union
Buying Bitcoin with Western Union
One of the greatest things that Western Union provides you with is the absence of need in any third parties for your Bitcoin trade, so there is absolutely nothing complicated about this process, we can assure you.
And to prove that to you, we will now explain every step of Bitcoin purchasing with Western Union.
First, you would need to choose a Bitcoin exchange of your preference, or use one of our recommendations, such as Paxful.
Second, you would need to create a Western Union account and verify it. To open an account you simply need to provide Western Union with your email address and create a solid password, and to verify your account you will need to use your email and a phone number.
The third step would be to verify your identification, but this is not necessary for all of the countries. For example, Paxful also asks for the verification of your ID in the case when your annual bitcoin wallet trade activity is equal to 1,000 dollars. When it would reach 10,000 dollars, additional proof of your address would be required.
When all of the previous things are done, you can finally move to the fourth step, which is browsing the Western Union platform for the best offer for you. While doing that, simply indicate in the left bar of the website that you would like to use Western Union as your payment method, which will then let you choose the fiat currency with which you would pay for and buy Bitcoin.
The final step is to buy Bitcoin with Western Union from the most suitable offer to you that could be found: here, depending on your choice of the Bitcoin wallet, you can start trading. And before that, of course, do not forget to send money to your Western Union account, so that it would be taken from there for your transaction.
You can check the trustworthiness of your seller by reading his or her reviews and by communicating with this person via chat.
When this is done, simply follow your seller’s terms, and if everything is okay, you will finally receive your Bitcoins.
Can I buy Bitcoin With Western Union Anonymously?
Yes, you can. One of the possibilities is to find sellers who would accept your request to trade with cash. You can also use Paxful to find such people and make a deal with them in cash.
Another possibility available at Paxful is creating an account with pseudo email and without the need to confirm your ID and account. With this choice, you also stay anonymous but note that there will be some restrictions for such an account, for example, bitcoin amount limitations.
Also, do not forget that there are some risks of making an anonymous trade.
The probability to meet some scammers and hackers is definitely higher, as many users report that anonymous trading is the most common place for such shenanigans of the sellers. This happens due to the fact that anonymous trade does not allow any third parties to be able to regulate the selling/buying process.
You can escape this risk by simply avoiding anonymous offers or by creating an escrow trade. The latter means that both the seller and the buyer will know about another place to which the bitcoins have been transferred, and until a second party will not send money to you, the crypto will not be received by him or her.
An additional thing that you can do is to choose a decent broker that has a long history of good reputation and constant verifications. However, it still cannot guarantee you that anonymous deals between buyers and sellers will be made honestly.
Withdrawing the Funds to Western Union
This process is also quite simple, all that you need to do is sell your coins through the exchange platform, receive money for them, and make a request to transfer the resulting price to your Western Union account.
For example, you can make these steps with the help of Paxful, and as we have already started to explain different ways to transfer money through this platform, we will continue to do so here.
Go to Paxful and browse through the offers to buy bitcoins that the site already has and choose one of them. But if you did not find anything attractive, you could also create your own offer and simply wait for the buyers to come.
After that, do not expect the money to come to your Paxful account, as it will go straight to your Western Union one (if this was your chosen payment method). And when you will get the money transfer, you can send the bitcoins to your buyers.
But this does not work the same with brokerage platforms. In this case, the broker does all the work for you: after you have sold your bitcoins, the money that your buyer has paid will go to your brokerage account, from which you can later make a money transfer, to Western Union included.
Choosing a Crypto Exchange Platform
With all of the variety that is surrounding us in the crypto world right now, it is quite common to get lost in multiple crypto exchange options.
In order for you to be able to solve this problem, we created a list of the best crypto exchange platforms that are existing at the moment: all of them were tried out by us, as well as highly recommended by other crypto users.
Paxful
Created in 2015, now this person-to-person platform definitely can be named one of the best ones in the crypto exchange world. Here you can meet with other users and buy/sell Bitcoin with Western Union from each other.
Paxful does not have any country restrictions, which means that this platform is open to everyone!
In addition, as this market is crypto-based, you usually would not expect it to have any fiat currencies available, and it does not have such. However, you will have an opportunity to use them as one of the many payment methods of buying/selling Bitcoin at Paxful, as there are more than 300 of them! You can also use credit cards and e-wallets.
Buyers you will not receive any fees for purchasing Bitcoin from your Paxful wallet, but sellers will. Because the sellers need to pay 1% fees for every trade, they can increase their prices, so that the payment would cover the fee. In addition, you will also face deposit and withdrawal fees on this platform, and their amount will differ according to the payment method that you have chosen.
Binance
Binance is another person-to-person platform that is great for both experienced traders and newcomers of the crypto world. This platform never stops developing, which is why it has recently added 62 new payment methods, Western Union being one of them.
In comparison with Paxful, this platform does have some country-based restrictions, which is why US citizens cannot use it at the moment. US residents can use a California-based BinanceUS platform, but they should note that it does not have the variety of the original Binance.
Aside from that, the platform is completely available for nearly 180 countries.
Here you will have access to 280 cryptocurrencies, and you can use the platform via the desktop, website, or mobile app. In addition, there is a personal hot wallet available for you that is used for the storage of your assets, and it is called Trust Wallet.
As for the US, the variety of cryptos is limited to 50 to the citizens of this country.
Binance is considered to be one of the best exchange platforms because of its low deposits fees and a great variety of tools and cryptocurrencies for you to try out.
Coinmama
Coinmama was created in 2013, and now it has over 2.5 million users worldwide, which only proves that this platform is trustworthy. In addition, the interface of Coinmama is very user-friendly, and the service is quite fast. But there are some restricted countries, which you should check out.
The platform has more than 10 different cryptocurrencies and its most popular payment methods include:
- Mastercard
- Visa
- E-wallets
- Wire transfers
The platform was supporting the Western Union before, but it stopped that for now. However, everything can change, so you better check out any possible shifts in this information.
Keeping Your Bitcoins Safe and Secure
We would not say that exchange wallets are the best place to store your cryptocurrencies for a long time. Other types of wallets are needed to secure your assets decently, such as cold and hot ones.
A hot wallet, or a software one, is still an online wallet, to access which you need to download the app. This means that there are still pretty high chances of fraud with your account.
A cold wallet, or a hardware one, is a physical wallet with the greatest level of security. This kind of wallet keeps still keeps your coins on the blockchain, but it is done in an offline format.
To access hardware wallets you need to make a private key that only you would know, which means that your money would not be stolen in any way. You can only lose your private key or physical wallet device, but this would be your own fault, not of others.
You will mostly come upon wallets that were created for Bitcoins, but it is also possible to find wallets that accept other cryptos.
We would always recommend you to choose a hardware wallet, but it is often not comfortable to have one for people that are accessing their coins very often. However, if you have a big amount of crypto that you do not plan to use for a long time, a hardware wallet is the best choice to secure your assets.
