Bitcoin Forum

If I go to a online bitcoin service and try to buy bitcoin, they always sell it for way more then the current rate is showing.
Over $100,- more even for a whole bitcoin.
Then they also charge a transaction fee even.

Why do these website buy and sell for prices that are not the current rate?

Is there a way around it?
Can I go somewhere and offer bitcoin for a price that I ask?

I'm not sure what sites you're talking about, but all the major exchanges use normal prices.

You can see all the exchange rates relative to altcoins and fiat on https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets (https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets).

If you're trying to buy with a credit card or PayPal, you'll be given crazy fees because they're reversible payment systems and the service could get scammed.

I'm fairly new to bitcoin, so perhaps I'm just unaware of what is "normal" prices.

For instance, If I go to blockchain.info and try to sell or buy bitcoin on my account, I can see the following:

current rate: $4,169.09
buy 1 bitcoin for: $4,236,19
sell 1 bitcoin for: $4,031,99

I think that's pretty big gap with the current rate and I don't understand that difference in price.

You can visit localbitcoin and ask for your price. There is option to put your call or otherwise you can also bid with the person with whom you are making the deal. You can chat with that person and negotiate the price of bitcoin. I don’t know other places like this but localbitcoin works for me best.


They show more prices because they are providing you services and they also want to earn the profits from your trade. So everything gets covered in that extra money and people with lots of money wanting safety and security will never hesitate to use services like that. Hope it helps.

2-4% is not big gap for BTC I think.
We have fair market (as I know) where real BTC circulate without any derivatives and etc. Because of that we have low liquidity comparing with traditional markets.

Bullshit.  The liquidity is about 3 billion dollars in a 24 hour timeframe right now.
There's your problem.  Blockchain.info is not an exchange.

Did you see the link I posted?  It shows all of the major trading pairs with Bitcoin.  If you scroll down, you will see that the fiat trading pairs have pretty much the same price as the market price.  Blockchain.info is not an exchange, they just partner with the service Coinify.  Coinify is also not an exchange in the conventional sense, they just allow spending with credit cards and have crazy fees (and incorrect exchange rates) in order to protect against the huge risk of chargeback fraud and to earn significant profits.

Now I am oversimplifying this a tad because there is a slight gap between buy and sell prices on the conventional exchanges, called a "spread".  However, it's not that significant and it happens naturally because of market forces and any other market (like gold for example) would be the same.

Do you mean Coinbase ? In Coinbase you can directly sell or buy Bitcoin on their site without moving your coin to exchanges and exchange it to flat.

Try to buy and sell Bitcoin in this forum, place your price and wait till client call you but keep in mind you have to check the buyer again to make sure you're doing a trade with right person.

Many thanks for the info that you all posted here.
I think I'll find my way to a fair exchange platform now.


My apologies, but 2-4% is insane imo.
What if someone would want to sell a million $ worth of bitcoin?
He'd have to pay (lose) up to $40.000,-   just for a service that takes little time and effort.
That's just very wrong.

I bet that 90% of the people that buy at such rates are unaware of all the facts, such as the 2-4% commission that is charged.

It's just like visiting a mortgage adviser, assuming that he will help you to find a best mortgage in the market for your personal situation, while in fact,  he has secret deals with only a few of them and will channel you to one of those and shovel in his secret percentage with that corporation.

I would recommend you to buy bitcoins on either kraken or bitstamp(i use kraken to buy bitcoins). $100+ extra per bitcoin is rip-off. if you're in US, gemini is a really good option.

So why bs? On traditional markets liquidity is about trillions per day.

Insane in comparison with what? In traditional finance we have such commissions (or may be i mistake?)

Depends on the location, in many countries trading stocks and shares the commissions are fast closing on zero.

Perhaps there was a time that changing one currency into another required a physical act and skill that justified a 2-4% commission, but in these days we have computers and such a percentage no longer represents a service delivered (if it ever did).
No costumer in possession of the facts would feel happy to pay such fees.

OK, but the liquidity is easily enough to sell a million dollars or so all at once while barely affecting the market at all.  So it's not like 2-4% would become a normal gap when dealing with much smaller amounts of money than that.
In BTC most exchanges take 0.25% at most.  More than that and they wouldn't be competitive.  Coinbase charges 1.5% but they remove the spread altogether and they still have their dedicated exchange, GDAX.  

In traditional markets, the fees vary but I don't think I've seen fees that high before.

To get "your price" you have 3 options that i´m aware of:

1. This forum. You can ask for what ever price you want, and of course people will agree to it or not at their own discretion.
2. Localbtcoins. Pretty much the same as above.
3. Exchanges: like poloniex, bitfinex or others. You can put your buy or sell order on the price you want and wait for it to be filled, or not.