Did you know only 8% of the world’s currency is physical coins and paper money?
The world is moving away from actual, hold-it-in-your-hand cash to a cashless society.
Of course, this varies from continent to continent and country to country.
But the trend is clear.
So, really…
It’s no surprise that Bitcoin, a neutral, borderless, secure digital currency has gained widespread popularity over the last decade, despite its price volatility.
In my previous post, I talked about some of best crypto exchanges to buy and sell Bitcoin internationally, but today I’d like to focus on different ways you can buy your first Bitcoin in Australia.
Here I’ll share comprehensive details on where you canbuy Bitcoins in Australia.
Here’s a list of best cryptocurrency exchanges to buy Bitcoin in Australia:
- Coinstash – Australian crypto exchange to buy, sell and earn crypto
- Coinbase – safest and easiest route to Bitcoin
- Luno – beginner-friendly exchange. Get your Free AU$20 worth of Bitcoin (new users)
- Independent Reserve
- Binance
- CoinSpot
- ChangeNOW – Instant crypto exchange
- Coinmama – buy Bitcoin instantly with credit cards.
- CoinJar
- LocalCoinSwap – Peer-to-peer exchange
- Bitcoin ATMs
Important: Before you buy your first Bitcoin, you’ll need to have a Bitcoin wallet.
Don’t have a wallet? Check out our guide on Bitcoin wallets.
Coinstash is the fastest, most trusted way to buy, sell, trade, store and earn cryptocurrencies in Australia.
Coinstash is a fully-regulated, Australian-based crypto exchange that makesinvesting in cryptocurrency easy and accessible.
With its intuitive and simple to use interface, you can quickly buy, sell and trade over 340+ top cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin with AUD.
Simply sign up for Coinstash with your email ID, verify your identity and you can start trading in minutes.
Coinstash is not just another crypto exchange. It has incredibly useful tool called “Bundles” that automatically helps you to diversify your holdings.
There are few bundles to choose from, namely Big Two, DeFi and Exchange Token. Each bundle together popular cryptocurrencies, altcoins and tokens. This way, you can get exposure to different types of crypto assets without having to do much research or analyze trends all by yourself.
What’s more, you can also earn up to 8% interest on your crypto assets. Just keep your crypto on the Coinstash platform, do nothing, and you’ll earn a rate of return on your cryptocurrency.
Coinstash currently supports Osko, PayID, Bpay and bank transfers.
Sign up for Coinstash
Coinbase is the easiest way to buy, sell and trade Bitcoin and other top cryptocurrencies. If you’ve never dabbled with cryptocurrency exchanges before,you do so within minutes on Coinbase.
Simply sign up for a free Coinbase account, verify your identity, fund your account and you can start buying Bitcoin instantly.
What’s particularly great about Coinbase is that it offers a risk-free, fun and easy way to earn cryptocurrency. With Coinbase Earn, you can earn up to $40 worth of crypto by learning about top and emerging crypto. To start earning free cryptocurrency, all you need to do is login to your Coinbase account, browse through the list of educational videos you want to take, watch a short video, and complete a quiz.
Coinbase charge different deposit fees depending on your preferred payment method:
- Instant buys via Credit/Debit Card: 3.99%
- Bank transfer: Free
Sign up for Coinbase
Or read my full Coinbase review here
Headquartered in London, Luno is a leading global cryptocurrency exchange that supports Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP) and Litecoin (LTC). It’s widely used in South Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Nigeria, United States, United Kingdom. And they’ve recently launched in Australia.
It’s available on the web as well as mobile app (iOS or Android), allowing you to buy, send and manage your coins on the go.
Adding money to your Luno account as well as withdrawing AUD to your bank account is completely free of charge.
Start buying a small amount of Bitcoin(as low as AUD10.00). Once you feel confident with it, you can allocate a sizeable amount.
A step-by-step guide to buying bitcoin with Luno:
1.Sign up a free account with your email ID andreceive AU$20 worth of Bitcoin when you start using Luno. You’ll need to submit your Photo ID, address and personal details to verify your identity.
2.Setup Two-Factor Verification (2FA) for your exchange account(see my guide onhow to setup 2FA with Google Authenticator.)
3.Once your account is verified, transfer AUD dollar to the exchange via Interbank GIRO / IBFT
4. Buy bitcoin.When you receive money in your exchange account, you can start buying bitcoin.
5.Keep your bitcoin.That’s it. Now you’ve successfully purchase bitcoins with Luno, remember to transfer your bitcoins to your own hardware wallet likeTrezor. Don’t use Luno wallet to store your bitcoins for long-term, it’sprone to hack, fraud and other types of cyber attacks.
Earn AU$20 when you buy/ sell AU$199 with Luno here.
Or
Use codeXJR5W to redeem AU$20worth of Bitcoin
4. Independent Reserve
Independent Reserve is a Sydney-based Australian exchange operating in the crypto space since 2013. The good news is that it supports more 45 countries including Australia.
At present, you can buy and sell 13 top cryptocurrencies ( BTC, ETH, XRP etc) with three fiat currencies, namely USD, NZD and AUD.
Not only that, Independent Reserve offers a unique in-house OTC (Over The Counter) service for traders who are looking to buy/sell large amounts of crypto (>$200,000).
If you’re an Australian, you can buy Bitcoin via Electronic Funds Transfer, POLi or PayID/Osko. While international customers can deposit funds in USD or NZD via SWIFT transfer.
Getting started with Independent Reserve is pretty easy and straightforward:
Create a free account with your email ID, provide your phone number, verify your identity. Once your account is approved, deposit funds into your account to buy/sell Bitcoin.
Trading fees are based on transaction volume, as low as 0.05%to 0.50%.
- Buy Bitcoin with Independent Reserve
5. Binance
Perhaps you’ve already heard of Binance, the leading global cryptocurrency exchange, that has gone from nothing to billion dollar exchange site in the space of 12 months!
Just recently, they announced the launch of Binance Lite Australia, offering a new, secure and reliable way to buy Bitcoin with AUD.
Here’s how you can buy Bitcoin in Australia with Binance:
- Create an account with Binance – verify your ID.
- Place an order online- enter transaction details.
- Deposit cash (AUD) at the nearest (1300+) Newsagent store.
- Receive your Bitcoin straight to your wallet within minutes.
However, convenience comes at a higher price, as Binance charges a 5% transaction fee for bitcoin purchased via Lite Australia.
Also, you can use Binance exchange to buy, sell and swap 140+ different cryptocurrencies, all in one single dashboard.
Founded in 2013, CoinSpot is an Australian-based crypto exchange that allows you to easily buy/sell more than 100 cryptocurrencies.
Generally, you can get your account approved fairly quickly by verifying your email, phone number, and upload an ID photo such passport or driving license.
The platform is so simple to use, making it best for beginner users.
You can buy bitcoin with cash deposit, BPAY, POLi and PayID.
Three things great about CoinSpot:
- Unlike many other cryptocurrency exchanges, you can buy, sell or trade any coin instantly without the need to purchase Bitcoin first and then exchange it for altcoins.
- They’re constantly adding new cryptocurrencies to its platform. This is particularly great for those who’re looking to get hold of some new, emerging crypto coins.
- They offer comparatively low (zero) deposit and trading fee as shown in the screenshot below.
ChangeNOW is my favorite site for exchanging between different cryptocurrencies, quickly.
Unlike other exchanges in this list, ChangeNOW is a crypto-to-crypto exchange that allows you to switch 250+ cryptocurrencies for Bitcoin.
It works for almost every country but you need to have some other coins to buy bitcoins.
What’s even better, registration is not required for you to start swapping between cryptocurrencies instantly.
If you don’t already have other altcoins, you can still buy bitcoins using VISA/MasterCard credit or debit card. But this service is limited to a few countries such as US, UK, Russia, Japan, Canada, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia.
Another thing I like about ChangNOW is its low, flat fee of 0.0-0.5% for each transaction. There’s no additional withdrawal fees or commissions.
- Check out ChangeNOW
Launched in 2013, Coinmama is a Slovakian website that allows customers to buy Bitcoin directly from them using credit or debit cards.
It’s available to almost every country in the world, and Australia is one of them.
With Coinmama, you can easily buy Bitcoin in Australia with credit or debit cardissued by either VISA or MasterCard.
As of writing now, Coinmama offers buy-only service to Australians. You cannot sell Bitcoin with Coinmama.
You may be able to sell bitcoin for cash in the near future. As Coinmama just introduced this service for European markets.
Getting started with Coinmama is pretty easy and straightforward. Go toCoinMama.com,create an account with your email address, and provide some documents to verify your identity.
They have three different levels of verification. The more info you provide them, the more they will let you buy.
Check out this CoinMama Walkthrough Guide for Beginners
CoinJar is a well-established Australian Bitcoin brokerage that offers two main services to users, namely a cryptocurrency exchange and a multi-currency digital wallet.
If you’re an Australian, you can purchase bitcoin via BPAY (no fee).
However, only few coins are available on this exchange site, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Zcash, Ripple, Litecoin.
All in All, CoinJar is simple to use and quick to set up, providing you a hassle-free way to sell, buy and store Bitcoin.
They charge a flat fee of 1% on all transactions.
LocalCoinSwap is different from all the other cryptocurrency exchanges in this post.
First, they facilitate direct trading between potential buyers and sellers.
Secondly, they don’t provide a fixed market price.
Rather, LocalCoinSwap is a peer-to-peer escrow service that allows you to buy, sell and trade Bitcoin directly with other people, safer and faster.
This service is available in 200+ countries, including Australia.
Using LocalCoinSwap, you get access to a global marketplace. Simply enter your country in the built-in filter option to see all the available sellers.
You can also choose the type of payment methods under “All online offers”.
Based on my search, some of the popular payment methods in Australia are:
- Cash
- Bank transfer
- Paypal
Cash is one of the top choices of payment used on LocalCoinSwap, regardless of the country. So, if you’re going to meet a seller, you’ve to be extra careful and educate yourself on cybersecurity.
For fees, LocalCoinSwap charge 1% fees for sellers who create advertisem*nts and successfully complete the trade.
While registering, buying and selling Bitcoin is completely free.
11. Bitcoin ATMs
Bitcoin ATMs is one of the fastest and easiest ways to buy/sell Bitcoin in Australia.
One unique thing about Bitcoin ATMs is that one doesn’t require bank accounts to use it.
But you do need a reliable Bitcoin wallet to receive your Bitcoin.
Once you’re ready, use Coin ATM Radar to locate all the closest Bitcoin ATMs near you.
There are many different types of Bitcoin ATMs out there, each comes with slightly different buying process and level of verification.
To make help you safely buy Bitcoin with ATMs, check out this comprehensive guide.
There has never been a better time to buy bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
I hope this guide helps you start investing in Bitcoin safely.
- Pick one Bitcoin exchanges
- Exchange your local currency AUD to Bitcoin
- Move bitcoins to your own wallet like Ledger Nano S.
If I had to give you one piece of advice, it would bedon’t store your money on crypto exchanges any longer than you need to.
It’s very risky to keep your Bitcoin using on exchange sites (even though the wallet is free) because exchanges are highly vulnerable to hacks, attacks and thefts.
Here are some helpful articles that you can read next:
- How to Buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies
- How to Set Up 2FA for Cryptocurrency Exchanges (with Pictures)
- How to Secure your Cryptocurrency: Cold Wallet vs. Hot Wallet
- How to Setup a Ledger Nano S Hardware Wallet
- Crypto 101: The Ultimate List of Cryptocurrency Resource
- 7 Best Web Hosting Services that accept Bitcoin and Altcoins
- 7 Best Cryptocurrencies with High Potential
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