Why is it so damn expensive to buy cryptocurrencies in some places?
The difficulties for newbies buying cryptocurrencies
I am fairly new to the cryptocurrency world and only really got into it in June of this year when my brother setup a mining rig for me. He's been doing it for 2-3 years now so he's done well for himself so I wanted to get into it too. So in July, I decided to take the step of buying my first coins. I initially wanted to buy coins like Ether and Ripple but to my surprise, I found that there weren't many places that sell those in the country where I live - Brazil. In fact, most of the exchanges here only sell you bitcoin.
You don't need to understand the Portuguese to see that they only have Bitcoin(BTC) listed. What makes it worse is that if you go to a website like coinmarketcap.com, the price on the exchange is much more than the price on coinmarketcap.
Foxbit exchange - a large bitcoin exchange in Brazil
The price difference is over R$2300 (about $720, £560) between what's stated on both. R$14,400 on coinmarketcap and R$16,700 on Foxbit. I know that when you buy bitcoin, you don't usually get the price stated on the coinmarketcap site, but a difference that big is just too much. You would have to wait for some time to make your money back for just buying the bitcoin or any other coin. So buying bitcoin or other coins isn't really viable in Brazil.
Luckily for me, I come from London and have family there. So I was able to buy bitcoin there using a site like localbitcoins.com. In case you're wondering, the price isn't much cheaper for bitcoin in Brazil on that site either. It's R$300 cheaper on there.
The good news for me was that bitcoin was significantly cheaper for me buying in pounds(£) than in Brazil. If you're lucky enough to live in the USA, you get even better prices. In all, I was paying £60-£80 more on buying bitcoin (around R$400) than the price stated on coinmarketcap. The only issue using a site like that is the sellers require a lot of pictures to verify your identity and sometimes make you write out stuff to prove it's you, which can be a hassle.
The last thing you need to do before you can buy other coins is to put it on a decent exchange because localbitcoins doesn't deal with other coins like Ether or Ripple. There are a number of good ones but I prefer to use either Poloniex, Bitfinex (mainly for lending coins that I buy) or Bittrex. Once you've transferred it there, you can then finally start buying the other coins at decent prices.
It is quite an effort to get to the point of buying the coins you want and in places like Brazil, it is just too expensive to be worth it in the short term, but if you're lucky like me and know someone you trust in a place where the price of bitcoin is good, then you can buy the coins you want at a good price.
I hope you enjoyed reading this and let me know about your experiences buying cryptocurrencies! If you have time and enjoyed this, please up-vote.
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STOPWow. I had no idea the prices would vary so much from country to country! I want to start getting into crypto too! I'm in Chiang Mai Thailand so there's a huge community here that's into it. Steemit is my first step into the world of crypto at all but I'm now ready to dive in! Thanks for the great posts :)
Thanks for your comment @romanlillie. Hopefully it will get easier as time goes on to buy this stuff.
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STOP@andymann if you are unaware of it, its because there are a lot of greedy people in the world and when the opportunity comes where they can capitalized off people they will do it every chance they get. Also be carefull because not everyone is legit which means you can run the risk of losing it all if you select the wrong seller. Just be careful while trying to find a better price because cheaper doesnt always mean better.
#circleoffriends
Thanks for your comment @slickhustler007. My brother helped me to use some good sites to buy coins. He's been doing this stuff for a while.
Welcome andymann to the world of crypto. I am a bit new myself..to these currencies, not to trading or investing. This reminds me what stocks in the US cost. It was very expensive per trade...like 3% or more. It is the market demand, which up to this point has been rather limited when looking at the world. market.
I would say over the next few years those costs will come down as the institutions start getting into the game. They arent going to like those fees.
Thanks for the comment @taskmaster4450. Yeah I hope it does come down. It's a great opportunity if you can get into it at a good price point.