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Guide: How to Safely Buy Bitcoins in 2021 without Losing Your Funds

The Bitcoin exchange rate reaching a new maximum of $ 35 thousand, the crisis and quarantine caused by the pandemic attracted new users to the cryptocurrency market. But the problems remain old – a beginner and an experienced investor can easily lose money when buying digital assets. The reason for this may be their own mistakes or scammers. To mitigate such risks, RBC Crypto published a guide and learned advice from industry representatives.

Exchanges

The easiest and most convenient way to buy cryptocurrency is to do it directly on the exchange. Today, many trading platforms allow you to deposit funds through electronic payment systems or directly from bank cards. Thus, the user can replenish the balance on his exchange wallet in rubles or another currency, and then buy digital assets with these funds.

Or, you can buy cryptocurrency immediately, in one action. To do this, the user needs to select the “buy cryptocurrency” option on the exchange, choose which asset he wants to buy, and place an application. Then you need to transfer funds to the account offered by the trading platform. When the money is transferred, digital coins will appear on the user’s exchange wallet.

Exchanges charge commissions for their services. On each site, their size may be different, but, as a rule, it is 2-5%. It depends on the deposit method and the platform itself. Therefore, before replenishing an exchange wallet, you can check the amount of commissions on several exchanges and choose the most profitable option. This will save 1-2% of the amount that will later be invested in bitcoin or other coins.

How not to lose money when buying cryptocurrency through exchanges

Not all exchanges can be trusted. There is always a risk of using the services of a dubious site that was created by scammers. To avoid this and not lose money, Maria Stankevich, director of business development and communications at the EXMO exchange, named a number of indicators that can help you make the right and safe choice.

Exchange publicity… The opportunity to get acquainted with the owners of the platform and its team is one of the indicators that the company has nothing to hide. This also includes the presence of additional interaction with users through social networks, which is constantly supported. Exit scams – when a team abandoned a project and hid with clients’ funds – happened primarily with exchanges that adhered to complete anonymity.

Registration and license of the exchange… This is another element of the company’s transparency. In addition, the country of registration itself can say a lot, since the site’s activities must comply with the relevant legislation.

Site life… The availability of fresh news, updates and new products indicates that the company is determined to develop its business in the long term.

Users support… The work of technical support, the speed of responses and real problem solving are also important, and sometimes play an important role in preventing fraud.

Experience… The likelihood of a scam from an exchange that has been operating for several years is significantly reduced. In addition, over the years, experience has been accumulating, including practices in combating fraud.

Partners… Cooperation with large and well-known companies also testifies to the good faith of the exchange. For example, when connecting any payment system, the exchange undergoes a thorough legal check from the opposite side.

Anti-money laundering compliance… Although in the crypto community, identity verification (KYC) and anti-money laundering measures are often perceived ambiguously, their presence on the site speaks of the exchange’s desire to operate in a legal manner. They, in particular, help prevent hackers from withdrawing funds after being hacked on another exchange.

Ease of withdrawal… You shouldn’t bring the entire planned amount to the site at once. It is quite reasonable to first test the work on it, get acquainted with the functionality, security measures, as well as the possibilities of withdrawing funds and its implementation in practice.

Exchangers

Another way to purchase cryptocurrency is through special exchange services. Exchangers allow you to buy and sell many popular cryptocurrencies for rubles and other currencies. You can pay for the operation in various ways, for example, from electronic payment systems, bank cards, cash through ATMs.

Exchangers are a less convenient and riskier way to buy cryptocurrency. There is a risk of using the services of scammers or making a mistake when making an operation that will cost all the invested funds. But there is also a significant plus: among the exchangers you can find a service that offers the most favorable rate or the lowest commissions. Their size, as a rule, starts from 2% and can reach 10%.

You can choose the most profitable rate using services for monitoring exchangers. They collect data from many exchange platforms and allow you to rank them according to the most favorable rate, reviews and other parameters.

Before using the exchanger, you should decide where you will transfer the purchased cryptocurrency. This can be an account on an exchange or an over-the-counter wallet. Accordingly, they need to be created before moving on to buying digital coins.

Exchangers work as follows:

On the exchanger’s website, you select the asset you want to purchase and the payment method
Indicate the amount for which you want to buy cryptocurrency. Better to specify round values, for example. 10 thousand rubles, so as not to make a mistake when sending funds to the exchanger, otherwise you can lose money.
Indicate the address of the wallet where the cryptocurrency will go. You can view it in your personal account on the exchange or in the OTC wallet menu
Confirm purchase request
You transfer funds to the account offered by the exchanger. On many services, after transferring money, you need to click the “I paid” button. It is important not to forget to do this, otherwise the service will not understand that funds have been transferred to it and, accordingly, will not send you cryptocurrency.

When your funds reach the exchanger, it will transfer the cryptocurrency to the address you specified. This operation usually takes 10-15 minutes, but in some cases it can take up to an hour.

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT… When you use the exchanger, it is important to indicate the exchange address of the exact cryptocurrency you are buying. If, for example, you purchase Bitcoin, and indicate the address of the Ethereum wallet in the application, the funds will be irretrievably lost, it is impossible to cancel such an operation after it has been processed.

How not to lose money when buying cryptocurrency through exchanges

The risk of losing funds using exchangers is high. You may mistakenly buy assets at a price significantly higher than the market price, or pay an extremely high commission. The most dangerous thing is to use the services of a service launched by scammers. With great faith this will lead to the loss of all funds.

Nikita Zuborev, senior analyst at Bestchange.ru, a service for monitoring exchangers, has prepared a few tips to help you avoid losing money when using exchangers.

Do not use the first available exchanger… If you carry out an exchange through the first exchange office that comes across in a search engine, the risk of losing funds is high. But there are especially many fake services in the Telegram messenger, which attract with their convenience. Try to use only websites of trusted services with a long-standing reputation.

Check all data before confirming the operation… When making transactions, it is important to remember that in many payment systems they are non-refundable. If you send funds to the wrong address, they are likely to be lost.

Check reviews… If you are exchanging for the first time, be sure to check the reviews about the exchanger where you decided to buy or sell cryptocurrencies. For this, popular thematic forums (mmgp, bitsmedia, etc.), large otzoviki (trustpilot, mywot, etc.) and monitoring of exchange offices are suitable. If the exchanger offers rates significantly higher than the market rates, then these are most likely scammers.

“When choosing an exchange office, please be sure to pay attention to the reviews of other users, the status of the online support operator, the size of reserves, as well as the regulations of the exchange office,” Zuborev recommended.

He warned that sometimes delays and errors occur, even at large exchange offices with a good reputation. The first thing to do in this case is to write to the support of the service, usually there is an online chat and e-mail for this. If you do not receive a prompt response to your request or refuse to go to a meeting, you should find an exchange office in the catalog of any major monitoring and open a claim there, the analyst advised.

If the service is conscientious and there really is some misunderstanding, the funds will be promptly paid or returned in accordance with the regulations, Zuborev continued. Services value their reputation on large monitors, and administrators, having received notification of a user’s complaint, are interested in its early resolution.

Zuborev stressed that if there is no exchange office in any major monitoring, and you have already given them your money, it will be very difficult to return it. In this case, the analyst advised to contact the law enforcement agencies. On the website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, you should find the section “Online Services”, then select the item “Reception of applications from citizens and organizations.” Next, you need to select the division “Office” K “of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia” and describe in detail what happened. Your appeal will automatically be forwarded to the correct police station, summed up Zuborev.

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