Have a Discover credit card and wondering if you can use it to buy bitcoin?
If so, you’ve come to the right place.
The short answer is: in 2023, there is basically no way to use Discover to buy bitcoin.
If you want to know why, read on.
And if you wanna know other cards you can use to buy bitcoin, I’ll cover that in the conclusion.
While exchanges tend to be the “go-to” of most people trying to buy bitcoin, there are unfortunately no exchanges in 2023 that accept Discover credit cards.
This wasn’t always the case, which is why you will find many other lists online telling you this or that exchange accepts Discover.
All of these are out of date.
We did find some exchanges that claim to accept credit cards, but chose not to list which cards they accept explicitly. You might think that means they accept Discover.
However, all of these exchanges explicitly do not service US residents. And, Discover only issues cards to US residents, which means none of these exchanges accept Discover either(1)(2).
Because peer-to-peer platforms allow users to sell bitcoin to other users of the platform, you might think you could use any credit card you have on hand.
But in order to accept a credit card, you need a merchant account with the card issuer.
Since most users of peer-to-peer platforms trade bitcoins for personal use and do not own a business that accepts credit cards, they do not have any reason to hold a merchant account with Discover (or any other card issuer for that matter), this is not even an option.
Bitcoin ATMs almost never accept any credit cards because of charge back issues.
So why do Online exchanges sometimes accept cards? Because they can hold the bitcoin you bought until the credit card charge settles.
The entire appeal of a Bitcoin ATM is that you can get the bitcoin NOW. That means the ATM owner cannot wait for the charge to settle.
For that reason, Bitcoin ATMs only accept cash and debit cards(3).
As far as we can tell, there is no OTC desk that accepts Discover card for purchases.
In fact, we could not find any OTC desk that accepts credit cards at all.
As far as we can tell, in 2023 there is no way to buy bitcoin with a Discover card.
That said, there is a way to buy bitcoin with a Visa and MasterCard at many exchanges.
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