Not surprisingly the first thing we do is buying BTC, since almost all altcoins are traded for BTC. We have bought 1.2 BTC. Note: the purchase has been made on 17th Jan, but since it took 6 days for Steemit to activate this account, it wasn't possible to write it here. Therefor if you wish, you can multiply the portfolio value by 0.8866 in the future.
There are 4 major ways to buy Bitcoins for Europeans.
- Kraken
- low spread
- low fees (0.26% taker/0.16% maker and lower based on volume)
- high liquidity
- limits based on personal identification levels
- margin trading possible
- Bitstamp
- low spread
- low fees (0.25% and lower based on volume) + free withdrawal
- high liquidity
- thorough personal identification
- Bitcoin.de
- P2P marketplace, exchange acts as BTC escrow
- price is determined at the time of closing a deal, the buyer then sends EUR via SEPA to the seller
- low spread
- medium fees (0.5%)
- high liquidity
- limits based on personal identification levels
- LocalBitcoins
- P2P marketplace, exchange acts as BTC escrow
- price is determined at the time of closing a deal, however it's not closed until makred as paid
- many payment options, including cash
- high spread (depending on location and currency)
- medium fees (1% when creating your ad, 0 when using someone else's ad)
- high liquidity (for major currencies)
- personal identification not necessary
Conclusion: if you want to buy at a low price, use Kraken or Bitstamp (very useful for tiny purchases thanks to free withdrawal). Bitcoin.de sometimes offers even lower price despite higher fees and is very useful when BTC price dips and you don't have money available on an exchange. LocalBitcoins can offer full anonymity, but prices are usually around 3% higher, for high risk payments like PayPal it can reach 20+%. On the other hand higher prices are useful if you wish to sell.
Disclamer: this article contains referral links