- 8/4/2026
Petko AleksandrovHow to buy Bitcoin with a credit card
There are different payment methods that you can use to purchase Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency. The most popular one is to buy Bitcoin using your credit card or debit card. And the good thing is that usually the purchase is instant and you buy the assets at the current price.
The downside of buying Bitcoins with your credit card is the fact that most of the exchanges will charge you relatively higher fees. Now, by the time I’m recording this lecture, the fees are somewhere between 1.5% and 5%. So 5% as a fee is not small when you buy Bitcoins.
But there are times when I prefer to buy with my credit card. Because I want to catch a nice movement from the Bitcoin and I will tell you why.
How to buy Bitcoin with cash
The second option is to buy Bitcoin with cash via a wire transfer. With the wire transfer, usually, we pay much a lower fee, but it takes a few days for the money to arrive and it could take up to a week.
Depends on where you live, from which crypto exchange you purchase, and so on.
And now keep in mind the following. The price for the Bitcoin went from $20,000 to $30,000 very quickly for a few days and after that from $30,000 to $40,000. When I was buying Bitcoins at that moment, I decided to use my credit card and I paid on some of the exchanges 2%, 3%, up to 5% as a fee.
But if I used a wire transfer to buy Bitcoin with cash at that moment and the money would arrive in a few days, then the price could be much higher than 5%. If the Bitcoin rises by 10% until your wire transfer arrives, then you would be buying it at a much more expensive price. You’d better pay the 5% fee and buy Bitcoin with a credit card. When the money arrives, this is when they will lock the rate.
Whether you are purchasing a huge or small amount
You sent your money with a wire transfer, which is the cheapest option, but it could turn out that it’s not cheaper if the price goes $5,000, $10,000 in a few days. And we saw already that this is possible with Bitcoin. But at the same time, there are some exchanges like Coinbase where you can send the wire transfer to your EUR wallet or USD wallet, for example.
This means that I will be sending money into my Coinbase account. I will not be purchasing any cryptocurrencies. The money will arrive there. And then from there, I have my EUR wallet, for example, personally because I’m in Europe and with these EUR, I will be purchasing Bitcoins or other cryptos whenever I decide.
Now, to summarize it, if you are buying a small amount of cryptocurrency, it’s better to use a credit card or a debit card. If you are purchasing a huge amount, the wire transfer would work. But there you take the risk that you don’t know where the price will be in a few days.
And how I do it personally? If I see the Bitcoin is very aggressive, for example, going from $20,000 to $30,000, from $30,000 to $40,000, and I want to buy it immediately, I use my debit card.
But if I just want to put money into my Coinbase wallet to have capital that I will be using in the future to buy and sell, then I would prefer to use the wire transfer. And I’m not immediately buying, I’m just funding my account, which I will be using in the future.
The PayPal option to buy Bitcoin
Now, the last option that comes very popular recently is PayPal. They announced in 2020 that they will provide cryptocurrencies. For the moment the option to buy Bitcoin with PayPal is only for U.S. customers.
But as soon as it becomes available in Bulgaria, for sure, I will take advantage of that. Because it would be really awesome for me to be able to buy cryptocurrencies using my PayPal account. Because currently, the exchanges are not very friendly when it comes to PayPal.
Check the payment methods before when choosing from where to buy
With Coinbase, I have the option to withdraw via PayPal. But I don’t have the option to purchase Bitcoins with my PayPal account. And this changes all the time. I’m just giving you the PROs and CONs when you are using your credit card to buy Bitcoin. This means higher fees, while wire transfer fees are lower but it takes a few days.
Buying cryptocurrency with PayPal will become popular in the near future. Actually, when they announced in 2020 that they are offering cryptocurrencies and this pushed Bitcoin higher.
So before you decide which exchange you want to use, make sure that you check the different payment methods they offer.
And, of course, with time the exchanges try to provide more and more options to their clients. Because obviously, they profit when we use the exchanges. They want to offer the clients a variety of different payment methods.
Check of your bank allows you to buy Bitcoin
So it will be easier for people to purchase and invest in cryptocurrencies. Of course, if your bank blocks that, that’s a different story, you really cannot do a lot. And as I’ve said, I had a lot of hard times when actually my bank blocks the purchase. And I just failed to send the money and I cannot buy and cryptocurrencies. That was very hard back in 2017, but now it got a little bit easier in Bulgaria. So it really depends where you are.
It would be best if you first check if your bank allows you to buy Bitcoin, what are the methods that you can use. Or if you have a credit card, that would be the easiest way.
As I’ve said, the best thing is just to test with a small amount if it will work for you to purchase to withdraw back the money into your account. So you will feel comfortable and you won’t worry that you will not be able to withdraw your money.
Thank you for reading the lecture. If you have any questions regarding the buying of Bitcoin with a credit card, with cash or via PayPal, just leave a comment bellow. I will see you in another lecture.
