I've been looking into this lately , and it seems like I am going around in circles at times. I've signed up to goodness knows how many different sites lately , just looking for a simple way to buy crypto with fiat. Simple right? Maybe it's been easy for some , but my experience thus far , attempting this seemingly gargantuan feat , has proven to be anything but.
First I see Changelly had been mentioned on here a few times after searching on steemit for related posts on the subject. Looks pretty easy. First thing you see is two boxes with drop down menus to choose different currencies and fields for the amounts you want to exchange. I see USD and EUR are the fiats listed with a good number of crptos listed to be exchanged into. Below the fields it states that you can pay with visa or mastercard. (Funnily enough , I went there yesterday and there were no fiats listed in the menus , only Tether USD).
I haven't actually used this site , but the first thing I noticed is the amount of BTC you get for USD. It is horrendously less than what you would get if you were paying the current BTC to USD price. At this moment , for example , $350 USD gets you 0.09525508 BTC on Changelly. However at the current BTC price you would get 0.144470 BCT for $350 USD. I get that there are fees , but that is a big difference.
Next , I thought maybe I can just buy some Tether USD and then exchange that for BTC or other cryptos. So I had a look at Tether.to , which seems pretty straight forward , so I signed up for an account. First thing to do is to setup 2FA , 2 factor authentication , of which it seems Google Authenticator is the most common , but I have found at least one site that also offered Authy as the authenticator.
Next , you have to go through verification in order to deposit funds. And in all honestly the amount of verification they ask for (not just tether.to , but other sites related to crypto as well) is , surprising at first glance. First is a 'know your customer' form , which basically just needs your signature and the date and is stated that all the info and proof of identity you will be submitting is true and correct.
Other things you need to provide are Name , Address , Phone Number ect. , standard things. So then you need to prove all of that , by providing them with scans of your Passport , or National ID , or Drivers License , or some other government issued ID , and you need to submit two of those. Also , you will need to provide proof of residence by submitting scans of a Utility Bill , a Tax Statement , a Service Bill or a document from a licensed company. And which ever you submit needs your full name and address on it. And on top of all of that , you need to provide a selfie with your photo ID (which ever one you chose to submit) with you holding that and a letter that says 'Tether' , the date and has your signature on it.
Now maybe it's just me , but my first reaction to all of that is that you are setting yourself up for identity theft. And lastly , if you get through all of that , you need to provide financial verification, which would be a scan of a bank statement from where you intend to send funds from. The form you need to fill out includes your banks name , address , swift/bic code and your account number. If necessary you have to also include any intermediary banks that your bank uses for international transfers.
They also ask that you provide them with your Employment Status , what you do, where you work and your employer's address. And finally they ask for your Net Worth , your expected level of deposits and where the source of your funds are coming from. So far I've submitted everything except the Financial info , and still waiting to be approved. It has only been a few days however.
Next , I went to go check out Kraken . There isn't too much I can say about Kraken so far , because I am still in the verification stage. I was notified earlier today that I am verified for Tier 1 , which states that I can trade between all currencies , but can only fund my account with cryptos , so it's not exactly what I am looking for at the moment. Verification involves submitting similar things as mentioned for a tether account , to prove you are who you say you are.
Anyone out there have any experience using Kraken? And/or using Kraken to buy cryptos with fiat?
Then I checked out Coinbase . Perfect , seems exactly what I was looking for. You can use a bank account , a credit card , or even paypal to buy bitcoin. Unfortunately , I haven't had a chance to try any of these methods out. After verification , I found out that coinbase doesn't support my country yet. (Sigh)
This was starting to get old really quick. I was ready to give up. Then I found that there is actually a cryto exchange in NZ called Cryptopia.
Now this is more like it. Yeah! They even offer NZ Tether. So , signing up was pretty easy , and transferring from one NZ bank to another NZ bank , easy again. Funds showed up on the site not too long after(I only transferred the minimum amount at first , which is $25 , to make sure everything worked). This is working out pretty well , I thought to myself. Now, because no other exchanges list NZ Tether , I'll have to trade it for something else first.
I had a look around and saw that NZDT(Tether NZ) had a few trading pairs : BTC, Doge , LTC , XMR , ZEC , Waves , SKY , DOT. And USDT on top of those. So I was all set and ready to go. I had my plan. BTC was trading a bit high on the site , so I thought I'll exchange my NZDT for USDT and send it to my Poloniex account and go from there.
It was only then that I realized what the problem was and why this wasn't the way to go. Now , with that said , I think it's great that NZ has it's own crypto exchange and that it's a good idea to have one here. However , at this point in time , the volume of trading is so low on most things , you will either never sell what you are trying to , or you have to be willing to be ripped off just to make a sale. If that ever changes I will definitely go back and give it another chance , but at this point I am considering my $25 deposit a donation.
Oh well .... time to move on and keep looking.
Others I have checked out are Cex.io , in which their exchange rate , when compared to the actual rate , is way higher. And I am still waiting on verification. So no action there.
And lastly , for what ever reason , I decided to try Bitcoin.com. After searching a bit , and being tired and frustrated at this point, I had a look through that site. They have quite a bit of info about bitcoin and starting to explore the world of cryptos , well bitcoin specifically , as would be expected from the name of the site.
From what I have seen on their site so far , there is an entire category for buying bitcoin , with the first two listings under that being : Buy Bitcoin and Buy Bitcoin with a Credit Card. The first option will bring you to another page listing different exchanges you can get bitcoin at , with a 'Featured' one listed first. The second option will allow you to buy bitcoin with your credit card and have it sent to what ever BTC address you put in. This defaults to using Simplex to process the transaction. Put in the amount of BTC you want or how much USD you want to spend , then do a check that you are not a robot and click continue.
First they ask you for your personal detail and your address , and on this page they tell you how much they will charge you. Next you go to the Payment Information : your credit card details. Then after that , you go to the Verification page. Which I find rather odd now that I think about it. They verify you .... after .... they take your credit card info.
I guess at that point that should have raised a red flag , but for some reason it didn't , I guess I just wasn't thinking about it at the time. Usually I am pretty cautious and aware of things , but I guess my spidey-sense wasn't working then.
So far I had one response from simplex (after the transaction) saying that my verification images weren't up to their standards and I should re-submit them, which I did yesterday , and to be fair enough the first ones I submitted weren't great , but still readable. I then proceeded to email them back to inform them that I had resubmitted my verification images. To which they responded a short while later(a minute later) telling me that ' All support staff are currently unavailable ' and that ' We will return to you first thing in the morning – on business hours, we usually reply within the hour ' .(I have not heard from them after this message, and have emailed them twice more already) Automated messasge? Maybe , but I'm not fully convinced. There were two previous emails that do seem automated , that address me by my full name. The last message stating that no one was there , did not address me by my full name.
God , that's depressing ... I'm usually not that stupid. As of now , in my honest opinion , I would say that I made a $200 USD donation to these people. I , honest to God, hope I am wrong. But if I had a magic 8-ball , I think it might be telling me 'Outlook not good'
Anyway Did anyone ever use bitcoin.com to successfully purchase bitcoin? Or has any of you used that site at all? If so I would greatly appreciate you letting me know in the comments.
Thanks for reading.
So how'd it turn out for you @betelzeus? Did you get to actually buy some BTC? I just went through the same headaches and hurdles trying to use my USD to get BTC. Very exhausting indeed. It took me far less proof to get across borders or any account I've ever opened and had to verify...and cryptocurrency is not even regulated yet!!! What a mess our old archaic banking systems are. I can't wait for the transition into crypto goes full swing and we can deal strictly with one seller and one buyer directly.
Hey seymourtoa , thanks for leaving a comment :) . I was going to do another follow up post on this one (but honestly I didn't think anyone was really reading anyway haha) ... But yeah , I finally got some crypto through Cryptopia and worked out pretty well in the end. I think I may have been a bit lucky though , because the volume on Cryptopia is very low relative to other exchanges anyway.
I've heard others talk about coinbase , and I probably would have used them too if they were supported in NZ , not yet but maybe one day.
Glad to hear it! I'm trying various entry points to get btc then I can get into the proper altcoins at different exchanges. Thank you for your insight!
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I am in India and I face the same problem. All exchanges here sell Bitcoins at 13% higher rate. So I tried exploring other options. CEX.io adds a 7% fees, otherwise it would have been a good option. Tether.to is my only option left now. I am doing the verification process now. Did you ever get Tether.to working?