Bitcoin Forum

Hey guys,

Why would anyone purchase for such a high price at localbitcoins.com when bitcoin is being sold for less or its original
price at other websites or apps?

I don't know what kind of spread you are looking at.  I have used localbitcoins many times and have decent feedback there.  Depending upon where you live you can deposit cash in a bank and have your coins in minutes.  Or you can do face to face transactions there.  Convenience, safety, escrow forced are all good features.  Sure you will pay a small fee in that there is a spread.  Well worth it to me in the past.

BItcoin is $18,937 on coinbase,  but on localbitcoin it is being sold for over $19000.
Why is there so much difference and why should people buy on localbitcoin and not on coinnbase in this case?

Here in India, we normally have around 5% premium on Localbitcoins when compared to the international exchanges. The reason may be that in India the demand is much more than the supply.

I don't understand why are you comparing it with localBitcoins.com. that site is basically used to transfer your btc into the currency your country uses basically. And obviously I guess there might be some delay in updating the prices of Bitcoin. The only problem with that site is its fees. If you go to covert your btc then you have to pay alot of fees to the website inorder to convert it into fiat.

I never used coinbase, I checked on website and I got

https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/1767231-payment-methods-for-european-customers

SEPA transfers can take ages to be completed ... and as you probably aware of ... bitcoin price is a bit volatil .. localbitcoin act more as scrow than exchange ..

https://i.imgur.com/l5Sh7qC.jpg

How do people sell bitcoin on localbitcoin.com? Do they give a coin or some kind of certificate that you keep?

Because it`s one of the easiest ways to buy BTC. People are ready to pay more for comfortable trade.

You are wrong.

It depends on the seller, if you find someone who sells over 15% of the actual price, would you buy him or not?

I would not.


This is true, a lot of people are just using localbitcoins because it is safe, the seller can never scam you, because you have a dispute sistem.

Localbitcoin have higher prices for bitcoin because people buying there have no other choice in their countries to buy bitcoin.

What is this dispute system? I see no dispute system with coinbase, I am unable to contact them, their contact form doesnt work.

And what do you get when you buy bitcoin from localbitcoin, do you get a tangible coin or some kind of certificate that you bought it?

Well if that's the case then the traders are minting huge profit at certain risk factors but i think it's a strategy which these traders have come up with as they want to reach break-even mark before they get profit that's the reason they are charging a huge premium of 5% which is too much for any transaction at any level but i feel they want to be on a safer end just in case if the value dumps.

I haven't used localbitcoin, but I'm pretty sure you don't get a "certificate" or anything like that. Once you deposit/transfer the funds on the sellers bank account, you will be asked to provide your bitcoin wallet where X amount of Bitcoin will be sent. If you are from the same country as the seller, you can buy and get your coins a lot faster than doing it through Coinbase, for example. But you have to be careful, though, only choose sellers who have a lot 'positive feedback'. I think there's also an escrow system.

This is a something good and it must be discussed. I think relying on other websites for a little bit of the profit may become invalid and all the loss will be on the investors and no one else.

Bitcoin has shown that it is the currency of the future, so there will be a lot of scam involved in many parts of the world to take advantage from the bitcoin. It is better to trade with the bitcoin from the official sites and not from any other exchanges.

Localbitcoins does not act as a vendor of bitcoin. Rather, think of it as just a platform where people can list their offers for buying and selling bitcoin. These people who are listing the offers obviously want to earn from it and take advantage of the spread. They're not interested in selling their bitcoins for less than market rate, they want the opposite to be true.

The reason why you see the spreads so high on localbitcoins is that you're only limited to seeing the payment processor/country you're interested in(meaning less volume in general) and also because the payment methods are a lot more high risk and does not require ID, for example bank transfers which require ID on exchanges.

Nobody would buy high amounts and trade actively on localbitcoins. It's just a conevnient and handy way to get BTC.