- Low transaction fees
- Safe – Escrow protects your money
- Offers crypto wallet
- Easy to use
If you are considering your options for the most reliable platform to buy and sell Bitcoin, Paxful is your answer. Created in 2015, this platform has grown in leaps and bounds, and it now has over 200 employees serving in Estonia, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the US.
The platform was founded by two businessmen and tech-savvy software developers, Schaback Artur and Youssef Ray. It is used globally, and it boasts over three million subscribers, with over 12,000 registered vendors.
In this Paxful review, we’ll discuss how to open a Paxful account, how to buy Bitcoin through this platform, among others.
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Paxful Review – Summary
- Reputable exchange
- Low and transparent pricing
- High security
- Great user-experience
- Good support
- High fees on gift cards
- You need to find reputable sellers
Paxful: A Reputable Crypto Exchange
Paxful is a time-tested platform with over 800,000 contended customers from all over the world. Since its inception, it has transacted over 950,000 Bitcoin, equivalent to about $9.5 billion.
It is a peer to peer platform, meaning the subscribers here deal directly with one another. Paxful was created to offer a secure, safe, and easy way of buying or selling Bitcoin. It is a user-friendly platform that suits both hardcore and novel cryptocurrency traders.
To transact in Paxful, you don’t have to be tech-savvy. It was designed with new users in mind. The platform has all the tools you’ll need in all your financial transactions.
One outstanding feature of Paxful is the instant live chat. With this feature, you’ll be able to chat with the vendor so you can ask questions before you transact.
Millions of trading exchanges are available online today. All the websites dealing with these trading exchanges have different platforms. Most of these sites have complex interfaces with order book histories, pie charts, widgets, graphs, etc. All these make it difficult for newbies to use these platforms.
On the other hand, Paxful has a clean interface to ensure speed and simplicity when executing transactions.
How to Open a Paxful Account
Your journey with Paxful begins by creating an account where you’ll perform your transactions. If you want to plunge into financial freedom through crypto trading, you need a crypto wallet offered by Paxful.
Creating an account with Paxful is user-friendly, straightforward, and easy. And once you’re done with registration, you’ll get a free crypto wallet where you can store your cryptocurrency.
This wallet will give you an enabling environment for crypto trading so you can earn from Paxful.
Creating a Paxful account – Step-by-step guide
- On your web browser, visit the Paxful website paxful.com. You’ll find a button labeled “Create Account“; click on it. This button should be at the top of the home page on the right. Once you click on that button, a page you can use to create your account will appear.
- Fill the required information on the account creation page. These include your email address and a password. You have to create a unique, strong password for your Paxful account. The password must have six characters or more and must include a lower and uppercase character, a number, and a special character, like *, #, or @. Remember that you’ll be allowed to change your email address within seven days after registration, but only if it has a typographical error.
- Before you sign up, ensure you read the Privacy Notice, the Affiliate Program service terms, and the general Terms and Conditions. By continuing with your sign-up process, you’ll automatically agree to Paxful’s Terms and Conditions.
- Confirm that all the information you’ve provided is correct, then hit the “Create Account” button. You’ll be presented with a captcha verification that you’ll have to complete, and then a confirmation email will be sent to your email address. So, head to your inbox, you’ll get a message from noreply@paxful.com with a link to verify your account. Click on that link, and you are done. If the link isn’t clickable, follow the instruction on account verification as provided in the email. After account verification, you’re now a registered user of Paxful.
- You can now go ahead and verify your identity and phone number so you can enjoy more features offered by the platform, including trading opportunities.
On the Paxful website, there’s a video tutorial on the account creation process. You can view it so you can see the account creation procedure step by step. For any questions, you can use the Contact Us section of the website or send them a message via Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.
Once your registration is successful, the platform will automatically create a username for you. You can change this name later and create a customized username.
Paxful offers five levels of verification. It’s up to you to change your verification level to suit your transaction needs. These levels include:
- Level 0 – Requires no verification.
- Level 1 – Requires phone number and email verification; allow you to trade a maximum of $1,500
- Level 2 – Requires ID verification; allows you to trade a maximum of $10,000
- Level 3 – Requires address verification; allows you to trade a maximum of $50,000
- Level 4 – In addition to the above verifications, this level also requires increased due diligence; it allows you to trade over $50,000
As you are moving from level 0 to level 4, your transaction limit will be increasing. So, if you want to trade higher amounts of Bitcoin, be ready with your verification documents.
How To Buy Bitcoin Through Paxful
Paxful strives to make all financial transactions easy and accessible to as many people as possible globally. They are offering a platform where people can send and receive money from wherever they are.
This is a peer-to-peer finance platform where you’ll be dealing directly with other Bitcoin buyers and sellers without necessarily going through third parties like corporations, banks, or intermediaries/brokers.
This means that, once you are a Paxful subscriber, you’ll join a community of independent people where each person decides on how to manage their finances.
When you want to buy bitcoin through this platform, follow the procedure below: (We assume that you already have an account and a Bitcoin wallet).
- Find a Bitcoin seller (offer) – Your account allows you to choose your preferred payment mode, your currency of choice, and the amount you want to spend. Find the button labeled “Search for Offers and click on it. You’ll see a list of offers from which you can choose on. Make sure you choose an offer that “matches what you want. You can then review the terms of the offer before you move to the next step.
- Start trading – Once you identify the best offer that matches your requirements, and you’re satisfied with the terms of sale, go ahead and enter the value of Bitcoin to purchase. A live chat will open where you can communicate with the seller. The seller will give you instructions on how to pay for the Bitcoin and confirm the payment.
- Receiving the Bitcoin – Once you make payment and confirm the same, the seller will release the Bitcoin to you, and it will be deposited into your Bitcoin wallet. With the Bitcoin safe in your wallet, you can spend it as you wish. You can also send the Bitcoin to another person’s wallet or use it for any online transactions that accept cryptocurrency.
Paxful offers more than 300 payment methods, making dealing with Bitcoin quite easy. The most popular payment methods on this platform include Western Union, wire transfers, Amazon gift cards, PayPal, and credit cards.
These payment methods have different exchange rates. For example, bank transfers and other non-refundable payment methods have low exchange rates, while PayPal, credit cards, and other payment methods that accept chargebacks have higher exchange rates.
If your preferred payment method is not listed, you can contact Paxful, and they’ll give you the way forward.
There’s a video on how to buy Bitcoin through Paxful on their website. If you have time, you can watch it.
How to Deposit Money
When you subscribe to Paxful, you’ll get a Bitcoin wallet and a Bitcoin address. This default address is long, just like a password with letters (both lowercase and uppercase) and numbers is a random order.
Your Bitcoin address won’t expire, so it’s advisable to copy it and keep it safe. It is the address you’ll use for your transactions. It is possible to generate new Bitcoin addresses. So you can create as many addresses as you want and use them as you wish for security/privacy.
These Bitcoin addresses are what people will use to send you Bitcoin, and the Bitcoin sent will be deposited into your wallet. This transaction doesn’t take place instantly. The Bitcoin network must take time to confirm the authenticity of the transaction before executing it.
Once the network confirms the transaction (the confirmation is done three times), the system will execute it, and the Bitcoin will be released. A notification will be sent to you saying “Unconfirmed” or “incoming Bitcoin at 0 confirmations.”
When the confirmation count reaches three, Bitcoin will appear in your wallet. So you need to be patient for about 20 or so minutes before you see Bitcoin in your wallet. Sometimes the transaction can take hours depending on how the network is congested.
Let’s now look at the steps you can use to deposit money into your Bitcoin wallet. But remember that Bitcoin wallet, or any other cryptocurrency wallet for that matter, doesn’t deal or hold fiduciary currencies.
So if you have some cash you want to deposit into your Paxful Bitcoin wallet, you have to convert the cash to Bitcoin before you can deposit it into your wallet. You can either buy Bitcoin from a seller or use your ATM to buy Bitcoin.
You can also use any app or website that sells Bitcoin. Use the below steps:
- Click Wallet in your Paxful account. Your wallet page will appear.
- Click Copy Address or copy your wallet address and keep it. Alternatively, check if the ATM, app, or website you are using has an option where you can scan a QR-code. There’s also a QR-code in your wallet that you can scan.
- After scanning, the ATM will download your wallet address, so if you scanned an incorrect address, you’d have an opportunity to cancel the trade.
- The ATM, website, or app has a place where you will be required to enter your wallet address. If you scanned a QR-code, the wallet address would automatically appear on the ATM, website, or app.
- Confirm if the address is correct before you hit send. You also have to confirm that you are sending Bitcoin and not Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, or any other cryptocurrency. If you make a mistake at this level, you may lose your money.
Since you are the sender, in this case, you’ll be charged for the transaction. So you need to send an amount that will give you the amount of Bitcoin that you want and also cover the transaction cost.
Luckily, the amount you spend, the transaction cost, and the amount of Bitcoin you’ll send will be shown on the screen before you send it.
The Bitcoin will take some time before reflecting in your Paxful wallet. Once it reflects in your wallet, you’ll now be able to use it for whatever transaction you want.
Paxful Exchange Fees
In any review of Paxful, you’ll be told it is the best platform to handle all Bitcoin transactions, particularly because they charge friendly fees for all users. If you are buying Bitcoin, you won’t pay anything.
The seller will pay the transaction fee. Paxful is comparable to eBay in the sense that sellers set their own prices. The platform charges sellers an amount that depends on the payment method they choose. For example, sellers will pay 0.5% of the transacted amount if they choose bank transfer.
This percentage increases to 5% when they choose gift cards. So, sellers must include these costs in the prices they show. Otherwise, they can sell at a loss. When you are the one selling Bitcoin, you must also take care of the transaction fees.
The table below shows the charges for various payment methods:
| Payment group | Buy Bitcoin | Sell Bitcoin |
|---|---|---|
| Gift cards | No fee | 5% for Google Play and iTunes; 3% for all other gift cards |
| Goods and services | No fee | 1% |
| Cash | No fee | 1% |
| Online wallets | No fee | 1% |
| Digital currencies | No fee | 1% |
| Debit/Credit cards | No fee | 1% |
| Bank transfers | No fee | 0.5% |
Paxful charges withdrawal fees, an amount that will depend on how much you withdraw. If you like transacting large amounts, this platform will be the best for you because you’ll only be charged 0.0005 BTC.
Compared to other Bitcoin trading platforms, Paxful charges the lowest for withdrawal. On average, other cryptocurrencies charge about 0.0008 BTC for withdrawals.
However, the amount you’ll be charged for withdrawals will vary from one transaction to another because the sellers set prices.
Paxful Security
A review of Paxful can never be complete without a discussion about security issues. Cryptocurrency is a relatively new technology, and if you are concerned about how secure your transactions or investments are, you are not alone.
However, many people who have used Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have testified that the technology behind them, blockchain technology, is very secure.
Paxful itself is a very secure platform that’s trusted by over 3 million subscribers. What you have to bear in mind is that Paxful is an open marketplace, so you need to choose your seller carefully.
The integrity and trustworthiness of Paxful don’t guarantee that all sellers here are genuine. If you deal will a dishonest seller and lose your money, that doesn’t mean Plaxful is also dishonest. Paxful only provides a platform to buy and sell Bitcoin.
Paxful Risks
The risks you can face as a buyer
-
A seller asking you to cancel a transaction after you’ve made the payment for the Bitcoin.
Many scammers use this trick on new traders who aren’t sure about what they are doing. If you made payment and the seller asks you to cancel the trade, click the button labeled “I have paid,” then open a dispute.
The moderators can help you get your funds back after they investigate the matter. Also, be careful when using gift cards. A scammer can ask you to cancel a trade after collecting your gift card details, which they can use for their benefit.
-
Trading Bitcoin outside Paxful
A scammer can lure you with good deals, so you agree to trade outside the platform. Remember that once you move outside Paxful, you’ll be out of the platform’s escrow protection. In this case, the moderators won’t even help because you’ll not be trading within Paxful.
The risks you can face as a seller
-
Using reversible methods of payment
Scammers are fond of using reversible payment methods such as credit cards or PayPal, then later ask for a chargeback. Unfortunately, PayPal tends to side with buyers. So the scammer can claim you never delivered the goods.
If you face this situation, you can try to follow up with PayPal and see if they can help. Also, be wary about a buyer who claims to be very busy when you’ve released your Bitcoin.
-
Using gift cards
Some scammers use gift cards that have been redeemed. They will upload the image and details of these gift cards for you to release your Bitcoin.
To be safe, check the balance on the gift card before releasing your cryptocurrency. A scammer may claim he’s in a hurry so you can release your Bitcoin quickly. Never fall for this trick.
-
Use of stolen credit cards or fake IDs
Some scammers use fake or stolen documents. The best way around this is to insist on identity verification before the transaction. Ask the buyer to send you clear images of their documents plus their selfie for verification. Blurry images are a red flag in this case.
Be very careful when trading online. Whether you are a buyer or a seller, scammers have devised ways in which they can defraud you. Agree to trade only after all the conditions agreed upon have been met. It is also good to choose buyers or sellers with good reviews and those who have accomplished many transactions.
Customer Experience
From this Paxful review, one thing that stands out is that this platform is user-friendly. They offer 24/7 customer support in addition to a comprehensive FAQ.
If your question isn’t answered in the FAQ section, you can directly contact the customer service department. There’s also a chat box you can use if you have any support requests to put across. The customer support representatives will respond to your query immediately, or they’ll send you an email.
Though cryptocurrency transactions are unregulated, the subscribers undergo a stringent verification process. This means all users must be compliant with KYC requirements to ensure no money laundering can occur on this platform. Paxful has a reasonable level of trust compared to other online exchanges. No wonder there’s no history of hacking on this platform. By using this platform, you’ll have peace of mind that your funds are safe.
Paxful Pros & Cons
Pros
- The platform offers over 300 payment methods
- Buyers aren’t charged any transaction fees
- Low transaction fees for sellers (between 0.5% to 5%)
- Paxful is safe – the platform uses escrow to protect your money
- Instant and live chat with sellers
- 24/7 customer support
- Secure free Bitcoin wallet
- Great user experience
- Awesome support forum
- Trade with escrow
Cons
- Peer-to-peer Marketplace for Bitcoin only
- High exchange rates on gift cards
- You can be scammed if you don’t choose a reliable seller.
Conclusion
Hopefully, the above Paxful review has answered all your questions about this platform. However, if you still have some gray areas, feel free to contact Paxful for clarification. This platform is easy to use, and you won’t have any issues when trading here.
Remember that Paxful itself is secured via escrow, but that doesn’t rule out the fact that some dishonest individuals may find their way into the platform. That’s why you have to be careful about who you deal with on this platform. All in all, Paxful is the best Bitcoin trading site in the world in terms of trading fees, customer service, and friendlessness of the user interface.
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