How to Buy Bitcoin with PayPal
10 Stars
First, you need to decide if you want to own real Bitcoin or if you want to bet on Bitcoin's price fluctuations. This is important because you only need a Bitcoin wallet if you want to buy real Bitcoin. If you want to bet on the exchange rate, a Bitcoin broker is the faster and better alternative.
Buy Bitcoins with PayPal: Buy & Hold or Trading?
Buy Bitcoin
Buy Bitcoin and other cryptos to hold for the long term. The goal is the prospect of a price increase.
Bitcoin Trading
If you are looking for quick and short-term profits, then Bitcoin trading is probably the way to go.
Alternatives to eToro: Comparison of stock exchange brokers that accept PayPal
| Trade real cryptos and crypto CFDs |
| Broker fully regulated |
| Many tradable assets |
| Many tradable assets |
Instructions: Buy real Bitcoin with PayPal in a few minutes
First step: opening an account
Before you can buy Bitcoins with PayPal, you first have to create an account with a crypto exchange that supports the currency. Our choice falls on eToro.
Here, opening an account is particularly easy and does not even require verification for a trade of up to €2,000. In addition, the provider is state-regulated and therefore subject to deposit protection.
To open an account, first enter your details in the registration form on the homepage.
Second step: Deposit with PayPal
Now you will receive an e-mail from eToro with a link that you have to confirm. Then you can start trading.
In order to load the trading account with real money, you have to click on the "Deposit money" button at the bottom left. This opens a window in which you can select the desired payment method - in our case PayPal.
Then click on the button "Send" and you will be redirected to the PayPal website. Here you have to confirm your payment. Afterwards you will be redirected back to eToro where the money is now in your account.
Third step: Buy Bitcoins with PayPal
Now you can buy the desired currency, in this case real Bitcoins. The easiest way is to enter "Bitcoin" or "BTC" in the search field and thus find it:
Now the desired adjustments can be made in the purchase field, including for what amount one would like to buy Bitcoins with PayPal.
In addition, stop losses and take profits can be set, i.e. the prices at which the coins should be automatically sold again. These fields are optional and if you want to buy and hold Bitcoin for a longer period of time, you should simply leave them empty.
Important: The "Leverage" field must be set to "X1", as this is the only way to buy real Bitcons. With all other settings, you buy Bitcoin CFDs. The purchase of Bitcoins with PayPal is now complete, the coins are now in your portfolio.
Selling Bitcoin with PayPal
After you have bought Bitcoins with PayPal and hopefully earned money with them, you will of course have to sell them again at some point. As an example, we show how to do this with our test winner.
If you own physical Bitcoins, you first have to send them to the free eToro Wallet. You can download this from the usual platforms. After you have sent these Bitcoins to the software wallet, they will appear in your trading account.
Once here, you can easily sell your Bitcoin. To do this, you open your portfolio.
Then the menu opens and you set the amount you want to sell.
If you do not want to sell an amount of money but a physical Bitcoin, select the "Units" field on the right and set how many Bitcoins you want to sell.
Sell Bitcoin Open tradeAfter you have set everything correctly, click on Open trade.
Now the sale value has arrived in your account. You can now have this paid out to you without any hassle. To do this, click on "Withdraw money" at the bottom left of the page. Then select the amount you want to withdraw. This way you can sell Bitcoin via Paypal.
Fees when buying and selling Bitcoin with Paypal
Many providers do not offer the possibility to deposit money with Paypal. This is certainly due to the fact that Paypal charges a very high fee for transferring money. Since these costs should not be passed on to the end customer, most of them do not even offer this service.
For example, Paypal charges 2.49% on the transfer amount by default. However, there are a handful of brokers who nevertheless offer Paypal for the purchase of Bitcoins and other shares & cryptocurrencies.
One of the cheapest and most popular exchanges is our test winner eToro - this was one of the reasons for the victory in our test.
The ingenious thing here is that eToro does not charge a cent for Paypal as a payment option. The only fees eToro charges are spreads and a $5 withdrawal fee.
In the following we present a fee calculation of the test winner in terms of price/performance.
Type of fee | Amount of the fee |
|---|---|
Deposit fees | 0 € (instead of 2.49%) |
Purchase fees | € 7.50 (0.75% spread) |
Sales charges | € 7.45 (0.75% spread) |
Withdrawal Fees | € 4.45 |
Total fees | = € 19.40 |
Bitcoin Trading: Buying Instructions for Buying Bitcoin with Paypal
If you want to make short-term profits with Bitcoin, it is better to do this with a Bitcoin broker as opposed to buying on an exchange. A Bitcoin broker is a state-licensed provider that offers Bitcoin as a CFD (contract for difference). You can trade a falling and a rising price with a CFD. You don't need a Bitcoin wallet and can start immediately.
Another advantage: With brokers, you can trade Bitcoin with leverage, i.e. you can also make larger profits (but also losses!) on smaller price movements.
Instructions: Buy Bitcoin at libertex
Step 1: Open an account
The first step to buying Bitcoins with PayPal is to open an account at libertex. Follow the link below, enter your details and confirm the registration email.
Step 2: Deposit money with PayPal
After registering and verifying your account, you can fund it.
Click on the "Deposit" button in the top left corner of the main window.
Libertex PayPal DepositA window will open where you can make your deposit.
Besides PayPal there are other deposit methods available such as credit card, SOFORT, Paysafecard, bank transfer and more.
Select "PayPal" in the window, then the amount you want to deposit and click on "Deposit". You will then be redirected to PayPal, where you have to log in and confirm the payment.
Step 3: Buy Bitcoin with PayPal at libertex
After the deposit, the money will appear in your account. To buy Bitcoin, click on "Bitcoin" on the left side and then on "Open trade" above the chart.
A window opens again in which you can select the amount and the leverage.
You can also select further options in the "At price" tab. In addition, you can use the "Profit and loss limit" dropdown to specify when the position should be closed and a profit-taking or risk limitation should take place.
That's it, after clicking the "Buy" button, the Bitcoin CFDs are in your portfolio.
After the Purchase: Store Bitcoin Safely
You should never store your Bitcoins with an exchange or currency exchange, not even VirWoX! In 2018 alone, up to USD 1.4 billion is stolen from Bitcoin exchanges. You can find a report about this in this SPIEGEL-ONLINE article. Transfer the Bitcoin you just bought to your own Bitcoin wallet.
For the safest storage, we recommend a hardware wallet for your Bitcoins. Alternatively, you can also use a software wallet. Our test winner also offers a wallet function in this regard.
Buy Bitcoin via Paypal: eToro
If you want to buy Bitcoin quickly and easily with Paypal, we recommend the broker eToro to start with. Besides a clear user interface, government regulation and the copy trading function, the big advantage of the platform is that eToro offers Bitcoin CFDs as well as real Bitcoin.
Broker and wallet in one
Regulated broker
Deposit with PayPal, credit card, SOFORT transfer and more
Over 14 other cryptos tradable
67% of private investors' accounts lose money when trading CFDs from this provider.
FAQ
No. PayPal does not yet accept cryptocurrency for topping up your account.
No. Unfortunately, PayPal does not have an integrated Bitcoin wallet and so far there are no known plans for PayPal to implement Bitcoin.
In order to trade Bitcoins or Bitcoin CFDs, you need to open an account with an exchange or broker. This almost always requires verification of your account details. You also have to provide your data when you open an account with PayPal. Therefore, a completely anonymous purchase of Bitcoin with PayPal is unfortunately not possible.
Yes, you can trade your Bitcoin CFDs at Plus500 in Euros (see above) and then withdraw your Euro amount to your PayPal account.
Basically yes, it always depends on the broker's offer. Plus500 and libertex both offer the purchase of Bitcoin Cash with PayPal.
