As you research different ways to buy and sell cryptocurrency, a common theme that comes up is the fee. There’s a cost to trading crypto. When you purchase cryptocurrency, an exchange like Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, and others will take off a percentage as a service fee. What this percentage is can vary from platform to platform.
Thankfully, there are some low-fee ways to buy crypto, including alternative trading methods where you may not need to pay any fee. While online exchanges offer security, reliability, and ease of use, it may be more affordable to trade through another method. An investment like crypto can quickly add up to hundreds in fees cumulatively throughout a trader’s career. Limit how much you’re paying in fees and keep a little more for yourself.
Here are the best low-fee ways to buy crypto and the sort of trading experience you can expect.
No debit, no credit
The highest fees associated with buying crypto tend to come through online exchanges advertising the ability to purchase crypto using debit accounts and credit cards. It is much better to trade with cash, such as at a Bitcoin machine near me, and some exchanges may even allow you to use platforms like PayPal.
Always look to the fee structure. It may be more worthwhile to go through a different buying method or switch to something like a Bitcoin ATM. You can avoid high transaction fees and processing fees with a suitable technique.
Coinbase vs. Binance
There are many ways to buy and sell crypto. Numerous exchanges offer security in the online exchange world, but they come at a cost. Coinbase is the most popular globally, offering strong liquidity and excellent prices on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other coins.
However, many investors prefer Binance since it can be more low-fee. There are no deposit fees, and the trading fee is reasonably low. For beginners and experienced crypto traders alike, Binance is a great place to start seeing what a low-fee exchange is supposed to look like.
Peer-to-peer exchanges
A peer-to-peer exchange is where you talk directly with the person you are buying from. Across an online exchange, there is no interaction, and you are buying from the market and with no clue who the previous owner of the coin was.
In peer-to-peer, you are looking at offers for available coins. Then, you can negotiate to price or speak directly with a peer to come up with the right deal for everyone involved. These peer-to-peer exchanges are a low-fee way to navigate the sometimes-high fee environment that online exchanges maintain successfully.
Using a personal crypto wallet
A crypto wallet is hosted on a device like a smartphone, and it is a place to put your cryptocurrency on an online exchange. With a crypto wallet, it’s the same as having a physical wallet in your pocket. It vastly opens up what you can do in buying crypto, reducing the sizeable fees of acquiring these assets through a different method.
A Bitcoin machine, for example, uses crypto wallets. Any sort of peer-to-peer in-person exchange, such as someone using Bitcoin to pay for an item you’re selling, uses a wallet in the same manner.
Find a bitcoin machine near you
A Bitcoin machine is a quick, easy low-fee way to buy crypto. You go up with cash in hand and your wallet. You enter the cash into the Bitcoin machine, select the crypto you want. Then, you deposit what you buy into your wallet.
The Bitcoin machine is simple, fast, and efficient. Although there is a fee, it is pretty minimal compared to other methods. Making things even easier is how readily accessible Bitcoin machines are. If you look for Bitcoin machines near you or me, you’ll find a dozen spread out across your immediate vicinity.
Using hardware wallets and hardware storage
Another way to buy crypto is with physical hardware. Hardware wallets exist, as do hardware storage. You can choose to buy the hardware wallet itself or the hardware storage device, and this would be done in a peer-to-peer situation and entirely avoids any fees.
This method allows you to keep your crypto coin offline and without it plugged into an online database of any kind. Should there be a day when you want to trade or sell it, all you have to do is upload it to a designated platform and get it done.
Buy with prepaid gift cards
To make cryptocurrency more gift-able, prepaid gift cards are available through sites like CardCoins and others. These allow someone to use gift cards to pay for cryptocurrency essentially with cash, and the transactions can be done without the use of any online exchange.
You don’t necessarily need to go through an online exchange. You buy a gift card from a designated store and cash it out to receive the Bitcoin or other crypto coin, which is then deposited into your wallet. This is one of several developments around the Lightning Network, making it easier and ultimately cheaper to buy crypto.
Sell an item in exchange for crypto
It’s not your traditional trade when you accept crypto as a form of payment for an item, and you are providing either an item or service in exchange for cryptocurrency. In buying the crypto, once a wallet’s set up to receive it, you won’t be paying any fees to acquire it.
Although this isn’t precisely buying cryptocurrency, it is one way to build your crypto investment portfolio. Best of all, you can limit the funds that would otherwise be dedicated to paying fees.
