Where To Buy Bitcoin By Country

Where To Buy Bitcoin By Country

DISCLAIMER: None of the following is intended to be investment advice. This is only meant to be a description of what has worked well for me so far, and my own opinions. Also, full disclosure, my links to Coinbase and Binance, etc., include referrals. It actually benefits you to use them because we will both get an extra $10 worth of BTC for free if you deposit at least $100 to Coinbase. Thanks in advance if you follow the links when you make your accounts - and even if you don’t, I hope this list helps you out!

Let me preface this by saying that this is a “living document.” What this means is that I intend to update this as information becomes available - you, dear reader, can help me with that via your responses. As an American it can be very difficult for me to get any direct experience with some foreign exchanges. With that said, I am good at doing research, and have noticed there is a dearth of good documentation about so-called basic things like “where to buy Bitcoin.” I’ve had people all the way from Mexico to Lebanon ask me about this! I’ve therefore decided to make an easily searchable list for people who are trying to buy coins.

To use this list, simply use your browser’s search function (usually ctrl+F) to search for your country’s name. My intent is to name as few exchanges as possible, with emphasis on those that provide the most convenient, cheapest purchasing experience. In general I will err on the side of convenience - for example, Coinbase is relatively heavy on fees but is easily the most convenient way to buy Bitcoin in many countries. With that said, let’s start the list:

Coinbase

This is arguably the most “trusted” exchange. With that said, I do not recommend selling your Bitcoin here, nor on GDAX (the actual exchange that backs Coinbase). Buying, however, is a very convenient on this exchange. In fact, if you’d like, it is possible to buy other coins such as Ether, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash on Coinbase.

Australia, Canada, Singapore, the United States/USA, the United Kingdom/UK, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland

Using Coinbase is pretty straightforward, but I can understand that almost everything about cryptocurrency can seem daunting for beginners. It’s so easy for crypt-experts to forget how steep the learning curve is when you’ve been doing this for years - but I’m here to make it easy! If you need some extra help getting your account set up and purchasing BTC, I recommend you take a look at one of my other guides and look for the section titled “Starting Out On Coinbase.” There you’ll find an easy, comprehensive, step-by-step guide on how to buy Bitcoin.

Bitstamp

Bitstamp is one of my favorite exchanges. They are a little more complicated to use than Coinbase, but in my experience they offer an unparalleled experience for selling Bitcoin and having the resulting fiat wired to your bank account. It is a great place to buy cryptocurrency as well, and is what I would recommend to people if Coinbase is not an option. As a bonus, Bitstamp offers the ability to purchase other coins such as Ripple, Litecoin, Ether, and Bitcoin Cash.

Bitstamp supports the following countries for debit/credit card purchases of Bitcoin:

Switzerland, Norway, Monaco, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey, Andorra, Moldova, Gibraltar, Iceland, Greenland, Liechtenstein, Isle of Man, Faroe Islands, Åland Islands, San Marino, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Israel, South Africa, Chile, Kuwait, Cayman Islands, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, India, Lebanon, Puerto Rico, Peru, Madagascar, Mozambique, Dominican Republic, Curaçao, Dominica, Jordan, the Bahamas, Bahrain, French Polynesia, Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Réunion, Jamaica, Paraguay, Brunei, New Caledonia, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Sint Maarten

Debit/credit card purchases are also enabled across all 28 member states of the European Union, including:

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom (UK)

Bitstamp further supports non-debit/credit-card purchases of Bitcoin in a wide variety of other countries via international bank wires. This process is, of course, a bit more complicated than using a credit card and is detailed on their website. If your country isn’t listed here, I’d recommend you go ahead and make a Bitstamp account anyway - they probably support it.

All About Altcoins

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention altcoins here. “What are altcoins?” you might be asking - easy: an “altcoin” is defined as any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin. To get them, you usually need to trade a more common coin like Bitcoin or Ethereum for them rather than money. Now that you know what they are, I’m guessing you’re wondering “How do I buy altcoins?”

Thankfully, this process is much less country-specific. If you want to trade your Bitcoin for lesser-known altcoins, I recommend Binance due to its ease of use and lack of identity verification requirements (assuming you aren’t moving a tremendous amount of coin around). Some other decent exchanges/exchange services that I’ve used include Changelly, HitBTC, and KuCoin, but there are many alternates. If you want to buy a particular coin, it’s easy to find out what exchanges it’s traded on. If you go to coinmarketcap.com and search for a particular coin - let’s use ARK as an example - then all you need to do is click “Markets” and you’ll see a list of where you can buy.

I won’t get into specifics on the altcoin buying process in this article since this is more about Bitcoin, but I have other guides on my main Medium page which give great, useful information about how to buy any cryptocurrency. Likewise, if you’re looking for information on individual coins, I provide a lot of it - a good starting point would be my list of the top 6 coins I’m interested in for 2018.

Once I buy Bitcoin or Altcoins, am I done?

Sort of. We have a saying in the cryptocurrency world: “if you don’t control your private keys, you don’t control your Bitcoin.” This means that keeping your coins on an exchange has some risks—and this is true whether we’re talking about Bitcoin, Ethereum, or some other altcoin. An exchange might get hacked, for example, or they might have some sort of error which results in the loss of your funds. This type of thing is by no means common on trusted exchanges, but it has happened in the past - search online for the history of the “Mt Gox” exchange if you’d like to see an example. Thus, it’s best to store your coins offline in a wallet for security purposes. Use an inexpensive Android phone with the Coinomi wallet app, or go ultra secure with a hardware wallet like the Ledger Nano S or Trezor. I talk more about this process in some of my other articles.

Some Final Words

I always love to hear feedback from people and get ideas on what coins to research. For the sake of this article, it’s more important than ever. Have I left your country off the list? Do you have an opinion on the best exchange in your country? Let me know. I will do my best to keep this article updated with the latest information about exchanges.

Come back soon because more content like this is always coming! If my work helped you or gave you something to think about, share it with others:

Sharing helps more people find my articles, and I’d love to be able to assist as many people as possible with cryptocurrencies. Also, if you have any ideas for future articles or specific questions, I’d love to hear them. One last thing: if you’d like to chat with me in real time, check out my Discord!

Posted: Jan 3, 2018

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