Options to Purchase Bitcoin in the U.S. and transfer to a wallet

[tanbrig]

I want to purchase Bitcoin with U.S. dollars from my bank account and then transfer them to my own wallet, so that they are not held by an exchange. I have already set up an Electrum wallet (both cold and watch-only).
It looks like I can do this with Coinbase, although they are currently charging 0.5% in spread and 1.5% to transfer to a wallet.
I looked at eToro, but it seems that they do not allow U.S. users to transfer funds from their trading platform to their eToro Money wallet.
Are there any other options I could consider?

[1714040598]

1714040598

[Bitfort]

I want to purchase Bitcoin with U.S. dollars from my bank account and then transfer them to my own wallet, so that they are not held by an exchange. I have already set up an Electrum wallet (both cold and watch-only).
...

Great plan, go for it.
Try to avoid "instant buy", "direct purchase" and similar features. These are very simple, one click ways to buy BTC for average Joe. (thus you need to pay a hefty fee)

Check other major exchanges like kraken, binance or bitfinex and use "fiat deposit" instead of "direct buy".
Fund your exchange fiat wallet and place buy orders yourself.
Then you will pay like 0.1% (trading fee) and fixed BTC fee for withdrawal ( not a percentage from the amount ).
I think binance is the most fee friendly exchange ( but I'm in EU  )

As another option try buying from other forum member (lurk around currency exchange section )

[mk4]

If you want to take personal privacy into play, go with peer-to-peer services such as LocalCryptos[1] and HodlHodl[2]. Just make sure to transact with people with a good amount of reputation and feedback, and probably don't go all in on 1 transaction.

[1] https://localcryptos.com/
[2] https://hodlhodl.com/

[hugeblack]

Is this the first time you want to buy it? If it is the first, I advise you to do it in small amounts because a lot of unexpected things may happen. Low fees is the trick that many platforms use to scam you. Either they steal your money or they have a lot of hidden fees.

Any way my advice is any well known platform that has a good support team is better even if its fees are high.

[NeuroticFish]

It all depends on the amounts you want to buy and withdraw to your own wallet. The centralized exchanges usually ask for fixed and rather big fee at withdrawal.
If you already give up your identity by using bank transfer, I'd suggest a centralized exchange, since there's smaller chance for bad surprises and they should offer support (maybe a slow one, but still more than nothing).

As already said, it is advised to start with a rather small amount of money to be transferred, converted, withdrawn, so you see that the things work well. Afterwards you can look for optimizing the costs, like DCA (buy smaller amounts in different days) and less often (bigger) withdrawals.

Since I'm not from the States I cannot suggest exact platforms, but Coinbase, Binance.us, Kraken seem to be some of the options for US. Check for the fees though and keep in mind that you'll probably have to pass KYC procedures.

[o_e_l_e_o]

It looks like I can do this with Coinbase, although they are currently charging 0.5% in spread and 1.5% to transfer to a wallet.

You need to look in to using Coinbase Pro, rather rather plain old Coinbase.

Here are the fees for Coinbase: https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbase/trading-and-funding/pricing-and-fees/fees. As you can see, they charge a spread of 0.5% and an additional fee of 1.49% for transactions over $200. For lower values, they charge flat fees which work out to an even higher percentage. The pros of Coinbase is that it is incredibly simple to just hit the "buy bitcoin" button.

If you swap to Coinbase Pro, then you instead use the fee structure here: https://help.coinbase.com/en/pro/trading-and-funding/trading-rules-and-fees/fees. You are charged only 0.5% for all trades. The downside to this is it is a little more complicated to place a market or limit order than it is to use Coinbase.

You can move fiat and bitcoin freely between Coinbase and Coinbase Pro, since they are just different front ends to the same exchange.

[tanbrig]

Thank you all for the great information and helpful suggestions. I have decided to go with Coinbase Pro for now, and may look at kraken and crypto.com in the future for better rates.
By the way, I found out that eToro does in fact let US users transfer Bitcoin from the trading platform to the eToro Money wallet. Customer Service told me that it is an error on their web page that the US is left out of the list of eligible countries for their Crypto Coin Transfer Service.

[kxwhalexk]

Before you buy, learn some basic knowledge of Bitcoin,

I would recommend you a website that has very detailed Bitcoin information (even from novice knowledge to complex technology)

GETTING STARTED WITH BITCOIN

I saved this website in bitcointalk, but I forgot who shared it，Thanks again to the original sharer

There is also a very detailed purchase method, just select your country, the website will list the method of buying btc

BUYING & EARNING BITCOIN

Choose your country

[NeuroticFish]

I would recommend you a website

For the part of answering OP's question, your website doesn't seem to bring almost anything new to the discussion, it diverts it to an external website whose entire purpose is to make users click ref links.
I personally don't like this approach.

[kxwhalexk]

Thank you for your reminder, I really shouldn’t paste so many links.I recommend three websites, the first two are helpful for novices, but three answers OP’s questions.]

For the part of answering OP's question, your website doesn't seem to bring almost anything new to the discussion.
I personally don't like this approach.

Because op looks like someone new to btc, so I want to provide more help.

Op visits that link is not profitable for me, I have nothing to do with that website.

it diverts it to an external website whose entire purpose is to make users click ref links.

I didn’t want to lead him to this external website by other links, I even attached that website directly below the picture.

If there is anything I did not do well, I apologize. What should I do next? Should I delete these links? Or delete the entire reply？

I just realized that doing so is likely to lead OP to phishing websites or scams.

[Porfirii]

If you want to take personal privacy into play, go with peer-to-peer services such as LocalCryptos[1] and HodlHodl[2]. Just make sure to transact with people with a good amount of reputation and feedback, and probably don't go all in on 1 transaction.

[1] https://localcryptos.com/
[2] https://hodlhodl.com/

Really, go for this option and use any of the P2P services stated above, or whichever else you prefer. Bisq seems to be another good alternative, and historically Localbitcoins but avoid this last one as it seems like mk4 is not mentioning it on purpose.

[mk4]

Really, go for this option and use any of the P2P services stated above, or whichever else you prefer. Bisq seems to be another good alternative, and historically Localbitcoins but avoid this last one as it seems like mk4 is not mentioning it on purpose.

Bisq is also good, but it's just not as user friendly as the two I've mentioned.

As for LocalBitcoins, it has been a really good exchange in the past but the sole reason why I didn't recommend it is because they now requires KYC.

[NeuroticFish]

Thank you for your reminder, I really shouldn’t paste so many links.

1. Please don't "quote" things I've never written. Please edit your post and correct that.

2. I just noticed that the first site belongs to Jameson Lopp; then it's okay (he has a good reputation to keep so he has probably checked the links his page points to) and I overreacted (sorry). So what I'll ask you to do is:
   * add a disclaimer that the website is not yours and the user must be careful what he clicks
   * keep only the links to lopp

[kxwhalexk]

Thank you for your reminder, I really shouldn’t paste so many links.

1. Please don't "quote" things I've never written. Please edit your post and correct that.

2. I just noticed that the first site belongs to Jameson Lopp; then it's okay (he has a good reputation to keep so he has probably checked the links his page points to) and I overreacted (sorry). So what I'll ask you to do is:
   * add a disclaimer that the website is not yours and the user must be careful what he clicks
   * keep only the links to lopp

I usually use my computer and mobile phone to log in to my bitcointalk account, and usually only use my mobile phone to read posts instead of replying, but because of the emergency this time, I used my mobile phone to reply. Unfortunately, I quoted it incorrectly.

Now corrected

[o_e_l_e_o]

Bisq seems to be another good alternative

Bisq is great, and it is my preferred P2P exchange for a couple of reasons. First of all, it does not depend on a centralized website, but rather you run the open source software yourself and connect to other users directly over Tor, which keeps privacy to a maximum. Secondly, I really like the multi-sig 2-of-2 escrow they use between buyer and seller.

However, it does have some downsides which make it not as newbie friendly as mk4 has pointed out. Downloading and running software is completely different to every other exchange, and so has more of a learning curve. Setting up and accepting trades becomes more difficult since your software must remain online at all times. Further, to fund the safety deposit for each trade, you must already own some bitcoin, which makes Bisq impossible to use for brand new users.

It's a great exchange to aspire to using eventually, but I would also suggest most new users looking to trade in a decentralized manner to look first at LocalCryptos and Hodl Hodl.

[tanbrig]

I successfully purchased Bitcoin in Coinbase Pro and sent it to my Electrum cold wallet.
Thanks to o_e_l_e_o's #6 post, it only cost 0.5% instead of 2%.
If someone else wants to do this, you should be aware that Coinbase blocks you from sending Bitcoin for at least a week.
I was blocked even though my Settings show that I had: 1) verified my ID, 2) been verified to "Send and receive cryptocurrency" and that "Send cryptocurrency" was "Enabled".
I was able to perform the "Withdraw>BTC>Crypto Address" action, and it looked like it had succeeded. But a few minutes later, I got an email from Coinbase stating "Your transfer was canceled". The message said unhelpfully that the transfer "… has been canceled for the following reason: You are currently unable to send Bitcoin. Please contact support."
Contacting support turned out to be difficult, but I eventually got this answer: "Your account is temporarily suspended from sending cryptocurrency off the Coinbase platform - this is to protect against loss, because once funds are sent off our platform, we have no way to reverse those transactions."

[o_e_l_e_o]

I successfully purchased Bitcoin in Coinbase Pro and sent it to my Electrum cold wallet.
Thanks to o_e_l_e_o's #6 post, it only cost 0.5% instead of 2%.

Glad to hear you were successful with minimal fees. Enjoy holding your bitcoin in your own wallet!

If someone else wants to do this, you should be aware that Coinbase blocks you from sending Bitcoin for at least a week.

I don't use Coinbase, but can anyone confirm - is this standard practice for Coinbase for all withdrawals, or was it because OP's account was brand new? Surely Coinbase don't put a 7 day hold on all withdrawals!?

Contacting support turned out to be difficult

Unfortunately most crypto exchanges have terrible customer support, but Coinbase in particularly is ranked as one of the worst. Often people have only been able to get a response or even access to their coins by causing a public display on social media or other similar platforms. They just don't seem to care unless they are worried it might affect their reputation.

[NeuroticFish]

I successfully purchased Bitcoin in Coinbase Pro and sent it to my Electrum cold wallet.
Thanks to o_e_l_e_o's #6 post, it only cost 0.5% instead of 2%.
If someone else wants to do this, you should be aware that Coinbase blocks you from sending Bitcoin for at least a week.
I was blocked even though my Settings show that I had: 1) verified my ID, 2) been verified to "Send and receive cryptocurrency" and that "Send cryptocurrency" was "Enabled".
I was able to perform the "Withdraw>BTC>Crypto Address" action, and it looked like it had succeeded. But a few minutes later, I got an email from Coinbase stating "Your transfer was canceled". The message said unhelpfully that the transfer "… has been canceled for the following reason: You are currently unable to send Bitcoin. Please contact support."
Contacting support turned out to be difficult, but I eventually got this answer: "Your account is temporarily suspended from sending cryptocurrency off the Coinbase platform - this is to protect against loss, because once funds are sent off our platform, we have no way to reverse those transactions."

Thank you for the feedback, this should be of use for others too from US.

This is especially great because you've done it right:
* did some research/asked around first
* had the patience to discuss with support (instead of crying "this is a scam")
* withdrew to own wallet (instead of keeping the funds in others' hands)
* came back to tell us