How to Buy Bitcoin in Australia?

• What is Bitcoin?
• How to Buy Bitcoin in Australia?
• How to Trade Bitcoin in Australia in 4 Easy Steps
• Where can I Use Bitcoin in Australia?
• Bitcoin ATMs in Australia
• Conclusion

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a virtual currency that lives on the internet highways and does not have the physical characteristics of fiat money.

It was the brainchild of Satoshi Nakamoto, with Bitcoin being released in 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Satoshi’s intent was to eliminate the control of governments and central banks on currencies and payment systems, by creating a decentralized digital currency.

The independence of Bitcoin through its decentralization is evidenced by the need for each and every transaction within the Bitcoin world to be logged and then independently verified. The verification of transactions is a process called mining. Miners will use computer software and hardware to solve puzzles, which is essentially the verifying and placing in order of transactions, and once complete add the information through a new block onto Bitcoin’s blockchain.

The blockchain is the much talked about decentralized public ledger that sits on all of the computers linked to the Bitcoin network and each computer has a synchronized ledger, with no master ledger in existence.

The miners receive Bitcoins as a reward for the verification process and it’s quite a lucrative though somewhat monopolized business.

In addition to the decentralized nature of Bitcoin, anonymity for buyers, sellers, and holders of Bitcoin has also made it attractive, with investors clear of government agency access to public information held on centralized banking and investment platforms.

How to Buy Bitcoin in Australia?

There are a number of ways acquiring Bitcoin, the most common method to purchase Bitcoin being via a Bitcoin exchange. Purchasing Bitcoin via exchange might be difficult for some and restrict trading strategies. For that reason, one can choose brokers like FXTM as an alternative to exchanges as brokers provide a contract for differences (CFD’s) as a way to buy and sell bitcoin. Yet, if you wish to invest in Bitcoin and hold the currency as in an exchange, here is a list of Recommended Australian Bitcoin exchanges:

One of the top leading and reliable Bitcoin exchanges is CEX.IO. The exchange has a low trading fee of just 0.2% and allows customers to buy Bitcoins with credit cards, bank transfers, SEPA transfers, cash or AstroPay. Credit card purchases are immediate. Below is a complete guide to buying Bitcoin via CEX.IO in 4 easy steps.

Step 1 – Open a Digital Wallet

A digital wallet is where you hold your cryptocurrencies and interacts others via the blockchain technology. There are many providers of digital wallets, however, it is important to make a deep research before you decide which one is the best for you. Currently, the most popular digital wallets provider is Blockchain.info.

Step 2 – Register & Open an Account

Once you enter CEX.IO website, register and open an account that can provide you with their service.

Step 3 – Receive the 2FA Code

This is the authentication code as well as your password when you access CEX.IO.  The code will be generated by an application and will be delivered to you by SMS.

Step 4 – Purchase Bitcoin

Now you can easily purchase Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Note that you can always buy fractions of Bitcoin and CEX.IO allows you to choose fixed amounts with your own currency.

Choose the payment option that is most convenient for you.

In order to complete the purchase, the broker will ask you to verify your identity with documents and various details.

Apart from CEX.IO, there are other Bitcoin exchanges that provide their services in the US:

Coinbase – Supports 32 countries with more than 10m customers served and allows the purchase of Bitcoin for Australian Bitcoin buyers using credit and debit cards. The fees are 3.99% per purchase and the Bitcoins are delivered almost immediately. For purchases of more than A$130 via one of its links, Coinbase rewards buyers with A$13 worth of free Bitcoins. The only issue with using Coinbase is the length of time it takes to purchase Bitcoin with bank transfers.

Coinmama: For purchases of under $150, there is no requirement to verify identity, though there is a transaction fee of around 6% for customers buying Bitcoins with credit or debit cards, which is very high.

GDAX: Considered to be one of the larger U.S Bitcoin exchanges and customers can transfer funds via bank transfer, SEPA or bank wire. The exchange is also considered competitive from a fee perspective.

CoinCorner – Allows the use of 3D secure enabled credit to immediately purchase Bitcoins, debit cards to deposit funds into an account for the purchase of Bitcoins or currency deposits made by SEPA bank transfers.

There are others and it does require some amount of research to find the best exchange that addresses buy and seller requirements on fees, security, etc.

If the sound of a Bitcoin exchange is off-putting, the alternative is to buy and sell Bitcoins via a Bitcoin ATMs, though most will only accept cash for a purchase, or face-to-face.

Where can I Use Bitcoin in Australia?

The use of Bitcoin is relatively limited in Australia when considering the size of the country. Vast areas of the country are remote and made up of farmland, which will not be Bitcoin-friendly.

Merchants accepting Bitcoin range from bars and restaurants, hotels, with Subway Australia the largest merchant accepting Bitcoin, with 1,400 stores in Australia. Retailers that are currently accepting Bitcoin are located in the country’s biggest cities including Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. Melbourne and Sydney have been leading the Bitcoin evolution across the retail space.

How to Trade Bitcoin in Australia in 4 Easy Steps

As is the case in other asset classes, the digital characteristic of Bitcoin means that access to Bitcoin is global and can reach anyone with access to a computer and the internet.

Compared with the more advanced markets of the U.S, Asia, and Europe, Australia’s Bitcoin evolution has been slower but certainly not missing, with Bitcoin exchanges and Australian brokers provide investors and traders with the necessary platforms to buy, sell and trade Bitcoin.

For the Bitcoin trader, these are likely to be less sticking points than the fees, security, and liquidity of the exchange. Bitcoin traders can ill afford to wait days for proceeds from sales to reach their accounts or for it to take days for Bitcoins to be released into the trader’s Bitcoin wallet.

For traders looking to take advantage of an increased Bitcoin product offering, with Bitcoin CFDs and leverage on offer, FXTM provides cryptocurrency trading. Below is a complete guide to buying Bitcoin via FXTM in 3 steps:

Step 1 – Register and Open an Account

To open an account with FXTM is a simple process. Click here to proceed.

Step 2 – Download FXTM Trading Platform

Following your registration and funding the account, you can download FXTM’s trading platform (MT4) in order to start to buy and sell Bitcoin as well as other cryptocurrencies.

Step 3 – Fund Your Account

The next step is to fund your account. Following your registration, you will be able to insert the funds into your account. FXTM accepts various payment methods such credit card, wire transfer, Skrill, Bitcoin, Qiwi, etc..

Step 4 – Buy and Sell Bitcoin

Now you are ready to go. Choose Bitcoin as your preferred instrument and click on the trade button. You can choose the size of the position and the amount you wish to invest.

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Bitcoin ATMs in Australia

Bitcoin ATMs provide buyers and, on occasion, sellers of Bitcoin to buy and sell Bitcoin away from the Bitcoin exchanges. The ATMs are linked to the Bitcoin network via the internet and are not linked to the banking networks, as is the case with the more traditional ATM.

Fees for transactions tend to be on the higher side, whilst the limits on buying and selling Bitcoins are on the lower side. The process is particularly generic and with no need for verification of identity, provides anonymity to those looking to buy and sell Bitcoins.

There are a total of 23 Bitcoin ATMs in Australia. 7 are in Melbourne, 6 in Sydney, 5 in Perth and 4 in Brisbane.

In Australia, the buying fees are perhaps slightly more competitive than the global average, while the fees for the sale of Bitcoins, though few in number, are particularly competitive and as low as 1.5% of the value of Bitcoins being sold.

The average buy fee is 8.54% (based on 1,126 ATMs that support the purchase of Bitcoins), while the average sell fee is 7.03% (Based on 410 ATMs that support the sale of Bitcoins)

To find the nearest Bitcoin ATM, Coin ATM Radar is a good website to search for the nearest Bitcoin ATM. For many, the distances will certainly too great to travel in order to buy or sell Bitcoin, which would leave buying and selling via an exchange or on sites such as LocalBitcoin.

Conclusion

It’s perhaps unsurprising that the use of Bitcoin is less widespread in Australia, with the number of merchants accepting Bitcoin for purchases on the lower side. The country has vast expanses of farmland and desert, with the majority of the wealth concentrated in the largest and wealthiest cities located on the coasts.

When also considering the wealth demographics, Australia is likely to remain a smaller Bitcoin market when compared with the U.S, Europe, and Asia, though when only considering the big cities, we will expect the use of Bitcoin to widen, whilst not completely replacing the Aussie Dollar.