Thinking about buying some cryptos with your local currency and don't care for expensive forex and transaction fees? Here are some great platforms to your rescue.
LocalBitcoin and LocalEthereum
These 2 platforms allow you to trade bitcoin and ether respectively with other peers directly. The platforms serve as escrows between buyers and sellers.
Here's how it works:
- Whenever a trade is initiated, the crypto currency is sent to the platform for temporary custody.
- When the buyer sees that the crypto is ready to be paid, s/he can then pay local currency to the seller via the channel they have agreed upon (bank transfer / cash deposit / face-to-face trade / ...any payment method supported in your area really).
- When the local currency is received by the seller, s/he can then confirm it on the platform, which will release the crypto to the buyer.
The whole process is fast and secure. Buyers won't have to worry about not receiving the crypto and sellers won't have to worry about not receiving fiat currency either.
So how do you setup a trade? Let's say for example you wanna buy Bitcoin and pay Euro. There are 2 ways you can do it.
You can either search on the platform to find an existing offer; or
You can create your own offer, either buy or sell
The first way of buying the crypto is called "taking" (offers) You are the taker and your counterparty is the market maker. Second is reverse, you're the maker where as your counterparty will be taker.
LocalBitcoin is completely free for takers as of writing. Whereas makers pay a 1% fee for every completed trade.
LocalEthereum adopts an asymmetric fee structure where makers pay 0.25% fee and takers 0.75% to encourage market makers to create more liquidity.
You can typically get a better rate on these local crypto sites than on exchanges, which covers the fees and spares you some more.