Bitcoin Forum

I guess all (most) HODLers are considering to cash out at some point after new highs are reached. So here in this thread we can share experience and ideas on how to do it safely, swiftly and efficiently. Best rates, opsec issues, crypto-friendly banks etc... any hints will be appreciated!

P.S. I lost nearly all my stash in an unfortunate boating accident so my interest is purely theoretical.  8)

P.P.S. If this topic doesn't belong here please feel free to move it to the appropriate section.

Also if you are planning to cash out your Bitcoins, you should plan it ahead. Just like what I am doing when I want to cash out, I am transferring my Bitcoins to my exchange account and use only 1 - 5 satoshi per byte, like maybe 3-5 days before I want to sell it since sometimes the traffic of network is too high, so 1 - 5satoshi per byte fee is kinda too long but I also saved some bucks there.

Great tip, in fact it's clever to keep a small fraction of your stash on an exchange(s) so you can cash out faster? It's a win-win as you get lower fees and save lots of time if compared to transferring last minute? I'd like to add that you should only keep the amount you can afford to lose on an exchange!

I did set a specific profit percentage from my capital realistically. I always consider 70%-100% profit on my capital holdings, and of course I always try to find the most possible bottom to have a higher chances of hitting my target.
But, during this period where Bitcoin is expected to enter a bull market soon, then I might be considering a higher profit percentage. Like for example I bought Bitcoin at $5,000, and $15,000 is a realistic range during the bullrun, so that's exactly a 200% gain.
You just need to understand the importance of setting a target to avoid regrets selling your Bitcoin inconveniently.

Here are some links for OTC trade provided by one fellow WOer:

https://genesistrading.com
https://www.b2c2.com
https://cumberland.io
https://www.circle.com/en-gb/trade

Haven't tried myself I'm curious if somebody here tried one of these? Minimum amount could be something like 50-75k?

That's not my habit. I don't really store some Bitcoins on such exchanges unless I do trading.
These recent weeks/months I use the only exchange to cash out some Bitcoins, so all Bitcoins I transferred to the exchange I will convert them to fiat. I think we have the same reason why I don't want to store such Bitcoins on an exchange which is kinda risky.

What I'm worried about if that if we'll see a huge spike say from $20k to $150 (all numbers SOMA) and back down into $20k-50k area you can expect miner fees go up (hundreds even thousands per transaction in FIAT equivalent) and you won't be able to catch the top?

One of the few threads ever about it here - https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/8ecm6h/otc_what_are_your_experiences/  And not as informative as it could've been.

In an ideal world I'll never cash out, but I can't take sitting through another cycle without having enough pulled out to not have to pay close attention constantly so it's going to be done. It's too goddamn boring and I've served my time now. I will probably go with Kraken's OTC operation as I've never had any ball ache with their normal exchange operations.

My top tips -

Get yourself verified on the places you plan to use now while things are relatively dead still. The seizure in customer responsiveness if things heat up will be painful.

Set the price you're willing to sell at now and the proportion you're going to sell, and I'd never go let go of more than half, and stick to it no matter what the market is looking like. When the moment comes and you can't bring yourself to do it then you clearly did not set the right price. I would vastly prefer to get rid when things were quiet rather than fight my way on to some exchange or beg for the attention of an OTC trader who is swamped.

I have a Kraken account but I've never used it. It's verified and all but for me the main issue was that they don't work with the so-called 'cloud' banks like Revolut etc.   

Any more exchanges like CB where Paypal and online (cloud) bank withdrawals are allowed? 

Actually, there’s not only the how, where and how much to ponder, but also the ramifications in may have in terms of taxation/deanonymization (from an IRS or equivalent point of view).

The second part of the story I have added will depend on stuff like the country of residence, applicable law, will to come clear or remain opaque, and so forth, but adds an interesting, and potentially nerve-wracking post-sell set of variables to consider beforehand.

I personally do not intend to sell everything at once, but I do it only in small quantities when I need it. Luckily I have the option to sell one decent amount (on a daily basis) without any KYC completely legally, or to buy gold directly with BTC and then sell gold for cash (also no KYC).

My strategy though is to keep most of the BTC and use it as a means of payment and as a store of value, but I realize that most still have some sort of exit strategy when the price reaches a certain levels. It will be hard to resist $50k, and certainly even harder when one day that figure become $100k. I don’t think it’s a smart idea to sell 100% of everything you have in crypto, I would leave at least 10% -15% in case I decide to sell most of it.

I plan to change my crypto to stablecoins on it's peak and sell it on batches. Withdrawing stablecoins or converting them to digital payment gateway like paypal and skrill is easier which can easily be deposited to banks without questions raised. I'm even thinking about NEXO mastercard. If it works as advertised, it's the easiest way to change your crypto to cash.

When it comes to significant amounts I would regard the lack of cloud bankiness as fucking superb news. I would never trust Revolut with anything above amounts needed to pay for hand jobs in airport toilets in far off lands.  

They shut people down for the most piddling reasons and amounts. I wouldn't do a large sale without being confident it would go through smoothly from start to finish and there's zero guarantee of that with some faceless entity hiding behind an app. With a real bank you have a fighting chance of reasoning with a real person somewhere.

I've stated may times here I'm an investment advisor by trade, so this subject is something I'm quite versed on.  The same goes for cryptocurrency as it does for equities in the stock market.  Unless you know how to trade, you can read technical analysis and know how to do fundamental analysis, and have the extra money to prepare to lose...then you shouldn't be trading coins.  

That said when it is time to cash out, try always going OTC ( Over The Counter)first. There's a section right here on bitcointalk to facilitate this.  Then compare exchanges.  Coinbase and Gemini are big ones in the U.S.  I know Kraken is big over in the EU and the UK in particular.

Cool, welcome to this thread. It would be nice if you could share some website links or at least company names? I will then create a list and try to insert it into the first post of this thread like sort of a sticky. Also, you could describe for us noobs how does a regular OTC trade look like? Is it similar to LocalBitcoins (RIP) where you meet in person and do the exchange? Or like in gangster movies where peeps swap suitcases full of cash etc?  ;D Just curious...     

I can confirm Revolut works for sums like $2-3k perfectly well (a bit more than an airport handjob I guess). Haven't tried bigger sums but it seems it should work up to something like 5-10 grand. If we speak about at least $50-100k or more I wouldn't do it via Revolut. Perhaps someone here has more experience with bigger amounts?

Interesting but... what about limits on an exchange? If the amount in stablecoins is big enough can they freeze your account? Perhaps also request some additional proof of ownership? In any case, you need to study their terms and conditions before you do it. What is the exchange you'd recommend for this? What are the exchanges with less restrictions/higher limits?

That's another area I wouldn't touch. It's either Tether, which is terrifying in its own way, or it's something like USDC or Paxos where you're at the mercy of one entity's good will to make good on the redemption, then you have normal banking to worry about too. Both Gemini and Paxos have refused stablecoin redemptions in the past because too much redeeming made them look bad on CMC.

All of these systems will be under intense pressure if you're offloading near a peak.

I don't get what's wrong with good old real dollars.

As far as I know paypal withdrawals are just supported for US citizens and there is no other top exchange that is offering a fiat deposit like coinbase even the binane hasn't doing it yet.
As for my cashing out strategy, I always sell by batch so the fee is more in control especially when it is from a stablecoin when you converted bitcoin or any coin.

I personally convert most of my cryptocurrency to giftcards on Bitrefill, since I happen to spend a lot of money on Amazon and at various other retailers anyway.

Beyond that, I invest in gold from European Mint, and keep the rest in crypto savings accounts. Whatever I generate from the savings accounts is converted into gold.

If Bitcoin ever reaches a stupidly high value very quickly, then I may be tempted to cash out my whole stash, in which case I'll probably arrange a local meet and sell for cash.

Not exactly sure how to do that securely yet, but hopefully this thread will give me some ideas.

Selling for cash can be dangerous. Criminals may use the good old $20 wrench method to force you to give them your private keys for example. Or just give you counterfeit money. 

Cash's days are numbered depending on where you are and that was before the viral fun. If it's under the radar it's also a monster pain up the arse. You can't actually do anything significant with it in many a country any more. You can only buy so much food and fuel per week.

I can't see the point of securing a large amount of profit and spending the rest of your days hiding it. A wodge of play money would be useful though.

If we speak about Europe, there's a huge difference between, say Sweden and Germany for example. In Sweden cash is used very rarely, while in Germany cash is still king  ;D

Possible solution in such case is to travel to some Eastern European country (Ukraine?) open a conventional bank account there and cash out at a branch. I'm not sure how safe this trip is going to be though...

I'm sure most of the members of this forum already know how to cash out properly. In my opinion a good cash out strategy is through
local exchanges, because thus available fiat pairing of our respective countries. Because local exchanges in my country already working
with banks, it will be easier to cash out. The results of the cash out go directly to my bank account.

Just make sure your stash is not too big, as any exchange you hold coins on, you're not the owner of said coins by definition. Yeah they can say the coins are tied to your name and email, but the reality is, if they decide to screw you, they basically can. I personally never keep over $1k on exchanges.

ANY bank may start to ask questions sooner or later. Everything depends on the amount of money going into your account. If you're receiving, say $10k monthly and then all of a sudden you receive $500k you will be charged with money laundering.  :(  Numbers may differ but you got the idea...

No way would I deposit mountains of money out of nowhere. All you need to do is attempt to find a live human at the bank and tell them before time. I have a complete paper trail so I'd supply that if necessary. As long as they're made aware there shouldn't be any problems. Millions of people send millions of dollars through bank accounts every year.

they can screw you only if the exchange is not trusted enough or you have done something that isnt right like not following thier rules  but its okay to to depo only smaller amount depending on your capacity  . i like the tip above and ive been doing that all the time , advance withdrawal using small fee  . this is sometimes beneficial too because the price can rise more before your coins arrived on your wallet resulting for you to earn more . if you think the price is already high enough and willl prolly decline , you should use high fee for faster transfer

The key to having an effective cashout when the time is right is actually knowing what you want and how much profits you want to achieve before even getting into the trade, that's the only way you will be able to cashout without emotions and greed not clouding your decision. I think every trader knows how difficult it is to hit that sell button when the market is greening but the bitter fact still remains, the green movements won't always last forever and as such, knowing when to cashout is paramount

Wow, sons of men are planning to cash out. Lols. This is good though, what is the essence of seeing your money grow and never take action only to see it dump badly again like in 2017, only to keep asking when Lambo in a hopeful wish! I decided that any time we experience an unusual price growth, I will take profit and when there is a correction, I buy low with some percentage of my profit, I never sell all my position to fiat and will never do that in the future. Got verified account for this purpose. 

     Setting a goal is always important, because it helps people know when to stop and avoid regrets. The price of a coin will not increase indefinitely, but if you have reached your price target, you can withdraw them without regrets. Of course, the price target must be realistic, otherwise you will never enjoy profit.
I set a price cap for each currency I own at which to sell, depending on the history and potential of the currency.

I'd like to ask you to keep this thread spam free. Only post if you have any tips or other valuable info on how to cash out. Thank you very much!

To me I think any time I feel like cashing out whatever I have, binance has made it very easy for us, meaning I can easily cash out straight into my local bank account, so the days of using third party services to cash out is behind me, although some people may not find it important because they are not interested in kyc but to me it is great and less stressful,  so cashing out process can be different for everyone because we are all from different locations.

Binance is a well-known crypto to crypto exchange. Do they also allow FIAT withdrawals? Btw, is there any link where it's possible to compare the withdrawal limits of all major exchanges?

From my experience, the local context matters a lot. If one uses a crypto exchange, one might sell BTC for EUR or USD, but these are not the currencies people mainly use. So apart from the fees associated with this transaction, there will also be the losses due to the USD-local fiat exchange rate. So I prefer to use websites that allow me to sell BTC and receive my local currency directly. In Ukraine, the best exchanges seem to be those suggested by bestchange.com. I've calculated that on average I lose around 4% on the fees. And while my bank account and name de-anonymize me, no proper KYC is required.

Yes they do, recently Binance is supporting many African countries to be able to buy, sell and withdraw directly using fiat to the local banks of the supported countries, so yes Binance support fiat deposits and withdrawal to some countries bank accounts, I myself did a deposit transaction on Binance yesterday from my bank,

As for comparing withdrawal limit link,  It will be difficult to get such link, maybe you search to see what you can find.
Before I use luno, but now I don't use them anymore because Binance support fiat deposit and withdrawal in my country now.

Just found this:


Could someone suggest where it's possible to find such info for other exchanges?

https://support.gemini.com/hc/en-us/articles/205823016-Are-my-funds-insured-

https://www.itbit.com/exchange

And anywhere else with a proper dollar option should have money in proper dollar accounts which means it's insured too. I wouldn't be too sure of places that used third party payment processors like Kraken have for USD in the past. They might be in shitty far off lands.

Sometimes we are lucky and there are also times that we are not. There are times you will invest and instead of prices to go up as you have planned, you can stay for like months and the price will still be declining and you will be confused as to whether you should continue to hold the coins or not.

You're going to be seeing a lot of analysis by some experts that the price would go up, but instead of the increase they have predicted, the price will only be crashing. That's why you're being told at first to always make sure that you're investing an amount that you can afford to risk and not what you can't risk. If you're looking to make money quickly, it might not work for you, although it did work for some people like that. You just need patience.

If we will make investment, I think it is better if we will not just rely on luck because our expectation could always turned against us. That is why it is really better if we are aware on what we are doing.

Investing are not actually risky, the actual risk is being uneducated about the market. There are a lot of experiences that we should we gain first for us to have consistent earning in trading or investing. The best way to increase our money is by increasing our knowledge and experience in the market.

I checked Binance exchange rate and it seems to be at 1.49% which is kind of steep (same as CB btw). I will do more research on the rates but so far Binance and Kraken look attractive. What about Bitstamp and Bitfinex? These two have been around for years so should be pretty reliable?

No way would I touch Bitfinex for fiat withdrawals. You'll never know what cocaine bank they're signed up with that week on some obscure island. I can only assume their big clients have their own banking arrangements and personal service.

Bitstamp is solid but if the amounts are large expect your funds to be held hostage and them to make outrageous demands like your entire tax history.

This is apparently more common than it seems. People giving you sham money for Bitcoin hoping on the fact that you won't check. They might even mix in real bills with fakes and hope you won't check each one.

I'd say just go to a Bitcoin ATM. It's KYC, but at least you know you'll get clean cash.

I'm opening up a service for small amounts of cash to your Venmo/Paypal shortly. I'm assuming this is for large amounts?

Aren't there really any safe ways for you to exchange like physical exchanges od trusted traders who you can meet up with?
Scared of being forced to give it away? Get a room in a hotel and trade at the lobby. They have cameras there and can call the police or their own security within seconds. When you're done with the trade you can safely go back to your room and then call a cab that will drive you to your home or to your friends if you want to have even more security.
Afraid of the wrench and have trade somewhere in the park or other public place with no security? Get some friends to go with you. A typical mugger won't risk attacking 3 people even if he's with his mates. Too much risk that one of you will have a weapon.

I recently also started thinking about using p2p services. The situation in the country is heating up and it seems to me that over time problems with the tax system may begin.I always cash out through 2-3 trusted services. So far, there have been no problems. If we are talking about a large amount, I think it is best to meet with the dealer from the exchange service in person.

Perhaps you could share with the community?  8)

You definitely could, but the problem is finding people that are trustworthy traders in your area. If you live in a big city in a developed country, I'm sure it'd be easy to find someone to meet up with. But if you live in a rural area, you're out of luck. Always meet in a public area with cameras. Preferably, near a police station. Scammers won't ever set foot near a place that has police. Some stations have areas that are designed for online sale meet ups with 24 hour camera surveillance.

Again, all of this is predicated if you can find a trustworthy trader to deal with IRL.

Normally i only cash out 5% of my stash if the price goes higher so i wont miss a bigger move in the future. I think long term HODLING is the safest and the best bet while cashing some little percentage of your BTC to have a return of investment whenever a bullrun happens.
Then cashout to your local wallet provider that supports Bitcoin to fiat conversion.

Based on my own experience, I have a plan before I do cash out my money, we should expect that things could happen, bitcoin can go high or low so always remember they we should cash out when the price of the bitcoin is high enough for us. There are times that if you are going to wait for so long because you are thinking that bitcoin can reach so high but the next another day it goes down, we lost the opportunity to cash out our money when the price of the bitcoin reaches ao high. So do not be so greedy, always remember that bitcoin could still go down if you know that the price of the bitcoin is enough for you to earn money that you need then make a cash out now.

Not trying to discourage you or something but not many people would be ready to send you BTC and get Paypal from you simply because Paypal can be reversed.

Coinbase to Revolut. Kraken doesn't seem to want to play ball with Revolut, but Coinbase is cool with it.

Exactly. Used it myself and it works fine. Not sure about large amounts though.

Binance rates seem ok. They also advertise ACH withdrawals I wonder is anybody tried it and what are the limits? I'm unable to verify atm as their system seems broken (server overload or similar error). As to FIAT withdrawals, they offer some shady payment systems... no wire option?

It all depends on your amount and your country. In majority of cases localbitcoin or others p2p sites is enough

Cashing out tips and strategies are very difficult in a volatile environment. In reality, you have to play a game against robots and software, and I find it very difficult to declare victory over them. That said, my strategy is very simple. It is simple, because simple ideas work best. I am not trying to take advantage of price changes in the short term, thus, I m trying to buy my coins at very specific price ranges and then holding them until the price goes to a range where I want to sell.
So my effort is to find these buying/selling ranges and then have the strength in me to implement my strategy because strength is needed. So how do I find these price ranges? I will not speak about past results, but I will speak about the present situation.
I believe it is not possible to use value investing, technical analysis, or Elliot wave theory the way we use them in the stock markets. What we can use, is a technical analysis of the long term. I am not sure if this term is correct or not, maybe it is not. But what I mean here, is use technical analysis to find supports and resist lines, and when we get near them, buy or sell respectively.
So in the current situation, I will show a very well-identified triangle that gives very nice entry and cash-out points. You can find this triangle and the strategy I use here: https://arbusers.com/index.php?topic=7174.msg76745#msg76745
So when we go to the lower side of the triangle, we buy. When we go to the upper side of the triangle, we sell. It is that simple.
But here, as we are closing at the corner of the triangle, it is evident that we are nearing a make or break point. This is a very difficult position because it is a decision point.
At this point, I believe that most odds are for keeping my coins, waiting for the upper side of the triangle to break. The risk-reward ratio is very good. The resist line was tested twice, and the more is tested, the more possibilities it breaks.
Sorry for the long post.