How to Buy Bitcoin with PayPal

There are not many options for buying bitcoins with PayPal.

eToro is the best way to use PayPal to gain exposure to virtual currency. It allows you to speculate on the price but access the coins.

eToro is a trading platform, offering financial services and lets you deposit via PayPal. As mentioned earlier, buying bitcoin directly from PayPal doesn't allow you to take ownership of the purchased bitcoins but you still gain exposure to its price moves.

eToro is available in most countries, but is NOT available in the following countries:

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Bahamas, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium,Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brunei, Burundi, Cambodia, Canada, Chad, China, Congo Republic, Crimea Region, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guyana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Honduras, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Japan, Laos, Libya, Mali, Myanmar, Namibia, Nicaragua, North Korea, Palau, Portugal, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, Uganda, Yemen

eToro is available in the United States, but does not accept PayPal for US customers. If you're in the USA, the easiest way to buy Bitcoin with PayPal is through PayPal itself.

Coinbase is perhaps the simplest to use crypto exchange on the planet.

And with PayPal added to allow customers to buy using connected debit cards and bank accounts, buying on Coinbase just got even easier.

Coinbase is available in over 100 countries, so the odds are good you can use PayPal to buy Bitcoin in yours

And most importantly...

Coinbase is the only US exchange that supports PayPal buys for US citizens.

1. Login to PayPal and Select Cryptocurrency

You should see the option for cryptocurrency in the top right of the dashboard, next to 'Send' and 'Request'.

2. Select 'Bitcoin'

Or choose any of the other coins listed.

3. Select 'Buy'

4. Choose How Much You Want to Buy

Enter an amount of dollars you want to spend on Bitcoin or choose a pre-set amount below.

5. Select Payment Method

You likely already have you bank account linked to you PayPal account, but you can also hook up another method if you don't want to use your bank account.

6. Hit the 'Buy' button

After finalizing your purchase, you will be taken to a confirmation screen and you should see your coins reflected in your PayPal account dashboard.

1. Login to Venmo and Select Crypto from the hamburger menu

You should see the option for crypto near the top.

Note that you mut verify your identity with the settings of the app, and you still may not see a crypto option, as it is being rolled out slowly.

2. Select 'Bitcoin'

Or choose any of the other coins listed.

3. Select 'Buy'

4. Choose How Much You Want to Buy and hit 'Buy Bitcoin' to finalize the sale.

For Venmo, you can use your existing Venmo balance to pay for the bitcoins or add funds to you venmo account.

And that's basically all there is to it!

If you get one thing from this article let it be this:

Don't store your bitcoins on exchanges!!!

I've been buying bitcoins for more than three years. I've never lost any money to scams or thefts. Follow the guidelines in this article and you'll be able to do the same.

Jordan Tuwiner Founder, Buy Bitcoin Worldwide

Here are two examples where users got screwed by leaving bitcoins on exchanges:

• Bitfinex hack where users lost $70 million
• Mt Gox where users lost $450 million or more

And there are many more I could list.

Make sure you get yourself a Bitcoin wallet that will securely store your bitcoins.

Besides storage, there are many scam exchanges out to steal your credit card information and/or bitcoins.

Following these two basic principles should help you avoid theft, scams, and any other loss of funds:

1. Do research before buying on any exchange. Check reviews, ratings, and regulation information.
2. Don't store coins on the exchange. Already mentioned above but worth repeating.

Secure Bitcoin Hardware Wallets:

Ledger Nano X

TREZOR One

We don't recommend buying bitcoins with PayPal on LocalBitcoins. the fees are horrible as the premium is about 20% compared to the global Bitcoin exchange rate. Plus another 1% charged by LocalBitcoins!

Another con of using LocalBitcoins is you are dealing with an individual seller rather than a marketplace. You will also need a verified phone number connected to your LocalBitcoins account.

If you are still sure this is how you want to get your Bitcoins, here is how to do it.

To start, login to LocalBitcoins and then enter your buy amount and PayPal as the payment method:

You should now see a list of sellers willing to accept PayPal. Note that when I wrote this guide, the price of Bitcoin was $1,000 so the prices are mostly even more than 20% above the market rate!

Click on one of the sellers and you'll see a page like this:

In the example above, you can see the buyer's limits on the left side (25-100 USD). On the right, the buyer has laid a number of rules and requirements for your PayPal account. This buyer, for example, requires that you send a picture of your photo ID, have a verified PayPal account, and also send a selfie holding your ID.

Note, you can also check a seller's feedback and history. Click on the username on the right side and a new tab will show that looks like this:

This seller has 3,000+ confirmed trades so your transaction would likely go through smoothly. If a seller has no feedback/history, this is a huge red flag!

If you had a verified account then on the left side you would be able to enter how much you want to buy and go through with your trade!

PayPal Now Sells Bitcoin on its Platform!

Two years ago, PayPal announced it would begin selling Bitcoin and 3 other common cryptos on its platform, directly to its 346 million users.

Hardcore Bitcoiners will be sad to know that the buying functionality is really limited for now.

Users can only buy and sell their Bitcoins within PayPal. That means that users cannot withdraw the coins or even transfer them to other paypal users. Because of this, there is no way for a buyer to take custody of the coins himself. He must trust PayPal to custody them for him.

This may be ideal for older, less technically abled investors who merely want price action from Bitcoin. Still, for now, PayPal is basically offering users a way to speculate on the price of Bitcoin and nothing else.

There is one exception to this. Users can spend the Bitcoin with merchants who accept Bitcoin via PayPal. This is because PayPal is not sending the merchant Bitcoin anyway. They are paying the merchant in fiat currency - USD - and accepting the Bitcoin on their behalf. So when you spend your PayPal Bitcoins at one of these merchants, they are just selling your Bitcoin for you in order to pay the merchant.

What has PayPal said about Bitcoin in the past?

Back in April 2018, the founding CEO of PayPal said that Bitcoin was the biggest scam in history. Bill Harris used the words ‘speculative’, ‘gamble’, ‘scam’ and ‘bubble’ to describe the cryptocurrency. He warned people about Bitcoin volatility and to be careful against what he termed as a “pump and dump scheme” with risks that the world had never witnessed.

This announcement seemed to negate an earlier suggestion by a top executive at PayPal that Bitcoin would become a popular payment option. In February of 2018, Chief Financial Officer John Rainey was interviewed by Wall Street Journal. In a part of the interview titled “Crypto Factor”, he maintained that there was a likelihood of Bitcoin becoming a popular payment option.

However, Rainey indicated that it would take years before this would ever become a reality. This is a position that PayPal’s co-founder shares. Max Levchin was quoted in December 2017 saying that the digital asset technology was revolutionary. Even so, Levchin did not think that PayPal was ready to embrace the technology yet.

PayPal changing its tune on Bitcoin

In early 2020, it emerged that PayPal had begun something called the "Blockchain Research Group" and posted job openings for eight engineering positions in San Jose, California and Singapore.

[PayPal wants its own] perspective and view on [blockchain] technology itself to see how it can help us contribute to the concept of creating an open digital payments platform that can serve everyone....We are a strong believer in the potential of blockchain. The digitization of currency is only a matter of when not if.

Sri Shivananda CTO, PayPal

Then, in July 2020, Coindesk broke the story that PayPal would be adding Bitcoin and other crypto purchasing through its platform soon. As of now, we do not know when PayPal intends on launching this service or even what coins it will support, though it's almost certain Bitcoin will among the coins offered.

What we do know is that the service will be provided via Paxos Crypto Borkerage API. Paxos will handle all custody, KYC, and compliance. PayPal will merely allow you to use your PayPal balance to or connected cards to buy and sell Bitcoin through its own user interface.

PayPal has already partnered with Coinbase, BitPay and GoCoin for transactions of digital goods. This allowed merchants using PayPal to also accept cryptocurrencies with minimal effort. John Donahoe, the Chief Executive Officer at eBay, said he believed such a partnership would hugely benefit his company in the future.

It's important to note, though, that this story comes from an anonymous source, and has not been confirmed by PayPal at this time. However, the source suggested that an announcement would be mader later this week. We'll update this page accordingly as we find out more.