Bitcoin Forum

Hi all, Happy New Year!

I need to transfer significant value from Mexico to Norway, and the banks in Mexico charge at least 3.6% fee on the transaction.

Any tactics I can deploy to get away with a lower fee by buying crypto and withdrawing it to a Norwegian bank account?

For example:
1. What is the lowest fee I can get away with by buying crypto with Mexican pesos? Do I first need to buy USD / USDT, and then crypto? How, and what exchange?
2. How do I withdraw the crypto to NOK/a Norwegian bank account? Do I need to transfer the value to another crypto wallet which is linked to a Norwegian account?

What total fees would I end up paying in total with the tactic you think is right?

Thanks a lot for any thoughts!

Before you worry about the transfer and how you can save the money, you should find out that the bank in Norway will just accept the money… or freeze it. This can also happen at the exchange if they ask for proof of origin and the check can take a while, but it doesn't have to. If you don't hold a stablecoin, then attention of the rates. 3.6% is not little on a significant value, but it could save a lot of trouble.

That is impossible to know. I believe there's 0% fee somewhere like Robosats. The problem is that this isn't for significant amounts.

You don't need to buy stablecoins. Just buy cryptocurrencies directly. I'd give you an exchange I prefer for privacy and custodian reasons (it's Bisq), but you're likely to be charged about 1%. If you don't have a problem with using a centralized exchange (e.g., KYC concern), I think Kraken is cheap on fees.

Well, the other individual has to open up an account to the exchange as well, yeah. You send them the bitcoin via exchange, and they withdraw fiat.

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Are you sure that's the only way you can accomplish avoiding that 3.6%? Why not just using some intermediary like Revolut and have the money sent that way?

You first need to focus on finding someone to convert the crypto that you are willing to transfer to the Norwegian bank. If there's a famous P2P platform, maybe you can check it out and adjust the fees accordingly. I believe that it is easier to buy crypto compared to selling crypto to fiat because a lot of people probably want to HODL depending on the crypto you are using. Make sure it's well-loved, like BTC.

In general, you'll face the following fees:

1) Deposit fee of the Mexican exchange: from 0 to 1,5%
2) Trading fee of the Mexican exchange: most exchanges are around 0,2-0,5%, depending on the amount.
3) Bitcoin transaction fees for the transfer from the Mexican to the Norwegian exchange: if you are not in a hurry, it's negligible (<US$0.50). I highly recommend to first withdraw the coins to an own wallet (e.g. Electrum) and then to the Norwegian exchange. In the case something goes wrong, in this case you know which side is the culprit, and can fix the issue with their support.
4) Trading fee of the Norwegian exchange: again 0,2%-0,5%
5) Withdrawal fee of the Norwegian exchange: 0,5-1,5%.

You don't need the intermediate step of buying first USDT. On this article (https://www.criptotendencias.com/actualidad/donde-comprar-bitcoin-en-mexico-9-opciones-en-el-2020-para-comprar-criptomonedas/), some options to buy BTC with Mexican pesos are listed. The cheapest seems to be Ripio with 0% deposit nor trading fee if you use a bank transfer (see their fees page (https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://help-mx.ripio.com/hc/es/articles/4409682188563-Comisiones*)), but be aware that they may have a hidden fee due to the difference of buy/sell price.

Binance unfortunately doesn't support NOK so you can't just use it for the whole process.
I'm wrong here, see the post of stompix below (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5433022.msg61553325#msg61553325). You can do a SEPA withdraw to a norwegian account. Taking this into account Binance seems to be the best option.

For this step you have two options:

1). Centralized exchanges do normally not allow withdrawing fiat to bank accounts which are not registered to your own name. So only if you have a bank account (and most also will need your address KYC) in Norway you can register at an exchange offering withdrawals to Norway. Otherwise, the person receiving the money must register, and you'll have to send them the BTC to their deposit address.

2) If you don't have an address or bank account in Norway and the receiver doesn't want to register at a Norwegian exchange, your only option is probably a P2P exchange. Some names are HodlHodl, Robosats, and Bisq. Be aware that these exchanges are not risk-free, mostly due to chargeback fraud (criminals operating with stolen bank accounts) so know the security measures (for example, at Bisq, trade only with "signed (https://bisq.wiki/Account_limits#Account_signing)" accounts with >1-2 months of age).

It should be difficult to stay below 2%, my estimation is 2-3%. However, as you write that the amount is quite high, it may be lower.

I suggest you should first confirm the legality of Crypto transactions in the various countries for which you want to do the transfer if there are no laws restricting Crypto transactions so as not to get your funds being trapped. If there are no laws restricting Crypto then I would opine you go for p2p via binance as this might be the easiest way without paying any fee for transaction and also a safe and secured transaction is certainly sure but do remember " not your keys,not your Coin"

Do well to do your own research as not to fall victim of scammers here who would want to recommend unpopular and unknown CEX for you to get registered and do transactions. Kindly check review of CEX mentioned here before you do anything transacting with such CEX.

If I am not wrong you can use p2p and get away with 1% fee and that's it, all you need to do is to buy BTC with Mexican fiat on any p2p then sell it for Norway money but you may need bank account in your name to avoid premium prices and wait for the best deals which really depends on how much the trading value is.

Which is basically the same as using the two exchange steps described by d5000
- you need a bank account to wire that money to the coin seller
- you need a Norwegian bank account in which the second person, the buyer will send you NOK

Not only will you have to deal with way higher margins than exchanges but you're not saving any time, you might need to do multiple trades if the sum is as OP stated quite large, plus the risks of dealing with strangers.


If OP is going to really use a CEX to save some %, he could simply go for Binance, if he has both Norwegian and Mexican accounts on his name obviously no problem, and if he has the Mexican account and his friends the Norwegian account he can simply do internal transactions between users and let the other person do a SEPA withdraw and the receiving bank will do the automatic eur-nok exchange.
So SPEI from Mexican account to Binance, internal transfer, SEPA to Norwegian bank, automatic exchange.
It's the cheapest and fastest way, but not really one I would favor!

I think that there are a lot of ways to send crypto from Mexico to Norway with Bitcoin with larger amount of volumes. First you should go to the Centralized exchange like Binance and than convert your money into Bitcoin or other crypto than ask your receiver to make account on the Exchange and than send them crypto and that's just so much simple in think.

Receiving a significant amount from Mexico will raise red flags already. If it's all legal, you can answer the bank's questions honestly and be done. If you add crypto to the story, you're going to raise even more red flags and have a much harder time explaining everything.