Want to buy Bitcoin in Austria? Smart investors are looking to buy the Bitcoin dip. The BTC price wicked to $17,600 in June 2022 then quickly recovered the $20,000 level, just under its 200 week moving average. How to buy Bitcoin in Austria is the question, with over 500 crypto exchanges vying for investors’ business.
Below we review 7 top vendors which offer Bitcoin. All are happy to hold Bitcoin on behalf of investors. So getting a crypto wallet is not a requirement of doing business. Our enquiry focuses on the three key factors of ease of use, fees and regulation. We also spell out the benefits of buying Bitcoin as well as the safety concerns that canny crypto enthusiasts should be mindful of.
But first, a quick summary of easy it is to get started for investors wanting to buy Bitcoin in Austria:
How to Buy Bitcoin in Austria – Quick Guide
The easiest way to buy Bitcoin in Austria is to sign up with an online vendor. The process is generally the same for all vendors and looks like this:
- ✅Step 1: Open an account with your chosen platform – Sign up by entering a few personal details.
- Step 2: Verify – For ‘Know Your Customer’ regulations, investors tend to need to upload scans of ID proving identity and address. The process should not take long.
- Step 3: Deposit – A great range of deposit methods is available for Austrian customers on the main crypto vendor sites.
- Step 4: Search for Bitcoin – Search by entering ‘BTC’ in the site’s search function.
- Step 5: Buy – Easch platform will have a different minimum Bitcoin purchase amount.
Where to Buy Bitcoin in Austria
How to buy Bitcoin in Austria in a way that suits the investor depends on which cryptocurrency exchange or broker is used. With a crypto exchange, Bitcoin is bought on the open market. With a broker, Bitcoin is bought direct from the platform. For the customer wanting to invest in Bitcoin in Austria, the distinction is not that important. What matter is the safety and ease of use of the platform and the fees involved.
1: Crypto.com — Beginner-Friendly Bitcoin Exchange
Crypto.com is a big US crypto exchange. Coinmarketcap.com ranks it 15th in size globally, with over $1bn of crypto business carried out every day.
This exchange stands out in the crypto world for the effort it has made to be accessible to beginners. The platform is very slick, with impressive security accreditation and $750m insurance.
Three tools are available free of charge:
The Crypto.com Exchange
Here Bitcoin and other crypto may be traded with a 0.4% maker/taker fee.
The Crypto.com App
Users can download the app to their smartphone and trade 250+ crypto. (Variable commission is charged). Bitcoin can be bought instantly with credit card, but a 2.99% fee applies.
Great staking opportunities are provided. For example, if an investor stakes $5,000 of BTC and also holds some in-house crypto CRO, a return of $120 per year can be realized.
The Crypto.com DeFi Wallet
Users can sign up for the Crypto.com DeFi wallet to send Bitcoin around the internet. The wallet can be funded by linking it up to the Crypto.com app, and transferring purchased Bitcoin across. A useful function is to set the priority of Bitcoin transfers over the blockchain, which means users can opt for lower ‘gas’ fees if required.
| Fee Structure | Spread + variable commission |
|---|---|
| Fee to Buy Bitcoin | Variable |
2: Bitstamp — European Bitcoin Platform
Registered in London, Luxembourg and the US, Bitstamp caters to 4m crypto enthusiasts in 100 countries.
Investors wanting to buy Bitcoin in Austria are welcome. An impressive range of 70+ crypto is available too, including key blockchain coins like Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Litecoin (LTC), DeFi coins like Sushiswap (SUSHI) and Curve (CRV), gaming tokens like Axie Infinity (AXS) and Gods Unchained (GODS), stablecoins and meme coins.
The process for getting started is the same as for Crypto.com: simply sign up, get verified and deposit funds. Investors can deposit EUR using SEPA. No deposit fee applies, but there is a withdrawal fee of €3. A fee of 0.05% commission applies to international wire deposits (minimum: €7.5).
The minimum Bitcoin trade is 0.0002 BTC (today that works out as roughly €6). On trades, Bitstamp charges a commission based on the investor’s previous 30-day trading volume. The maximum rate is 0.5%. Investors should watch out if they want to buy Bitcoin instantly with credit card: an eye-watering credit card fee of 5% applies.
| Fee Structure | Spread + Volume-based variable commission |
|---|---|
| Fee to Buy Bitcoin | Spread + Max commission of 0.5% |
3: Coinbase — Big US Exchange to Buy Bitcoin in Austria
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Coinbase is the third-largest crypto exchange in the world behind FTX and giant Binance. Coinbase handles over £2bn of crypto business every day.
This platform is famed for its tough security measures. Coinbase was the first Bitcoin exchange to store user funds in ‘cold’ storage ie. away from the internet. The platform also has a good reputation for helping beginners. Newbies can learn about crypto by completing online modules and earn modest amounts of crypto in return.
To deposit funds, European customers can use SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) bank transfer and Ideal/Sofort banking.
Coinbase currently does not accept credit card transactions from new customers (but watch this space). Apple Pay may be used to buy Bitcoin instantly. But European investors wanting to buy Bitcoin with PayPal will be disappointed: PayPal may only be used to withdraw cash from the investor’s Coinbase account.
The minimum Bitcoin trade with Coinbase is €2. 170+ other crypto are available. Coinbase charges a spread fee plus either a) a flat transaction fee if the transaction is under $200 USD or b) a variable commission depending on the payment method.
This lack of simplicity at the heart of Coinbase’s fee schedule has not stopped institutional investors trading $1.14 trillion of crypto with Coinbase over the course of 2021. Users wanting to benefit from a maker/taker fee schedule may sign up with Coinbase Pro.
| Fee Structure | Spread + transaction fee |
|---|---|
| Fee to Buy Bitcoin | Spread + $2.99 if transaction under $200 USD |
4: Binance — Giant Bitcoin Exchange with 600 Crypto to Trade
Binance is the largest crypto in the exchange. It handles $18bn of crypto business daily, with 80m+ customers. Binance offers an ever-growing range of 600+ crypto and supports investors wanting to buy Bitcoin in Austria with a variety of deposit and payment methods. In fact, when it comes to different ways to buy Bitcoin, Binance is unsurpassed.
A convenient way to buy Bitcoin instantly in Austria is to buy it directly from Binance with credit card — but this incurs a 2% fee. Otherwise users can use their cash balance to buy BTC, or go on the exchange and deploy advanced trading tools like market and limit orders. Binance offers the lowest maker/taker fees in the business (max: 0.1%) as well as a 25% reduction if in-house crypto BNB is owned.
Otherwise, Binance offers a P2P trading platform where third-parties advertise Bitcoin with literally hundreds of different ways to pay. Expect BTC prices here to differ substantially.
Crypto financing options are plentiful with Binance. A new BTC High-yield staking opportunity is available with Binance DeFi Staking. Users can stake a maximum of 0.01 BTC for 60 days and earn an annualised interest rate of 8.19%.
| Fee Structure | Spread + Maker/Taker + Reduction if own in-house crypto BNB |
|---|---|
| Fee to Buy Bitcoin | Max 0.1% on purchase |
5: Coinfinity — Dedicated Austrian Bitcoin Broker
Unlike the other vendors we have reviewed here, Coinfinity does not open an account and a custodial wallet for buyers. Rather, buyers pay for Bitcoin and have it sent to them. This means that if an investor wants to buy Bitcoin in Austria with Coinfinity, they will need a Bitcoin wallet. Coinfinity offers a ‘cold’ hardware wallet called the Coinfinity Card Wallet ( and we also recommend the Crypto.com DeFi wallet).
Bitcoin can be bought from Coinfinity via bank transfer, instant bank transfer and SEPA transfer. What makes Coinfinity stand out here is that Bitcoin is offered for sale offline too: via Coinfinity’s ATM as well as at various stores in Austria with a coupon from www.bitcoinbon.at. Investors can even pop into Coinfinity’s office in Graz and buy Bitcoin with cash.
| Fee Structure | Commission + Mining Fee |
|---|---|
| Fee to Buy Bitcoin | 1.5% buy + 1.5% sell |
6: Bitpanda — Established, Austria-based Bitcoin vendor
On offer is a really strong range of 170+ crypto including key blockchain coins, DeFi coins, metaverse and gaming tokens. Even football club tokens (minted via Chilliz) are available. What’s more, a range of stocks, ETFs and even commodities are available to be traded as CFDs (Contracts-For-Difference).
Investors from Austria can deposit as well as withdraw Euros free of charge via SEPA, which is a major bonus. Fees are neither intolerable nor outstanding at 2.99% commission on a round-trip Bitcoin transaction.
A useful way that Bitpanda offers to spread risk is in its 3 crypto indices: The Bitpanda Crypto Indices BCI 5, BCI 10 and BCI 25. These allow investment in the top 5, 10 and 25 crypto on one go.
| Fee Structure | Spread + Commission |
|---|---|
| Fee to Buy Bitcoin | 1.49% Buy + 1.49% Sell |
Should I Buy Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is one of the most stable crypto. That is because it is the biggest. Its market capitalisation of $582bn can absorb high trading activity without the price jumping dramatically. But that is only in comparison to other crypto.
In comparison to other types of financial assets, Bitcoin is high-risk, high-reward. This means that investors can make money fast as well as lose it fast. This has implications.
- Investors should commit only 1%-5% of their investment spend on Bitcoin and other crypto.
- 95% of an investor’s portfolio should comprise a mix of ETFs (low-risk), stocks (medium-risk), commodities (medium-risk) and cash (low-risk). This figure is just a rule of thumb. The important take-away is that diversification reduces risk. Investors would be well advised to spread their money around.
- Investment, though, is not the only reason to buy Bitcoin in Austria. Many Bitcoin owners use Bitcoin as a convenient way to send money to friends and family as well as buy things online. (Note that, if an investor wants to get into the NFT craze, Ethereum (ETH) is generally the favoured currency of purchase).
Benefits of Buying Bitcoin
1: Bitcoin — The Top Crypto
If an investor wants to benefit from an upswing in the crypto sector, then Bitcoin (BTC) is a solid choice.
Bitcoin was the first crypto to evolve back in 2013. It remains the leading crypto. Bitcoin’s market capitalisation of $582bn comprises 46% of the entire crypto sector.
By all means, investors should consider other crypto. But, with its giant market capitalisation, Bitcoin offers a safer, less volatile way to benefit from positive crypto sentiment than smaller crypto.
2: Buy the Dip
When to buy Bitcoin? Well, investors who want to buy Bitcoin in Austria right now will note that the Bitcoin price has not been this low since July 2021. And, within 4 months of hitting this level before, the BTC price doubled in value.
That is not to say that a repeat performance is inevitable.
But what is certain is that only investors holding Bitcoin can expect to gain from upwards price pressure this year.
Having broken through the $30,000 price support level and failed to crash further, Bitcoin supporters are hoping that we are seeing the development of stable price basis for future growth. The time to buy Bitcoin is arguably now.
3: Bitcoin Gains Momentum on Wall Street
April, 2022 saw Wall Street show that it wants to get involved in Bitcoin.
Fidelity Investments announced that savers could henceforth allocate some of their retirement savings to Bitcoin. (Dedicated Crypto IRAs from other providers have been available in the US for some time).
Top investment bank Goldman Sachs, which h
as over $2tn of assets under supervision, announced that it offered its first Bitcoin-collateralised loan.
4: Cheap to Send Bitcoin Online
Data from www.ycharts.com confirms that the average Bitcoin ‘gas’ fee is today just $1.262.
By comparison, this is slightly more than the average Ethereum gas fee today of $1.091.
Because of network congestion, the Ethereum gas fee has historically been far more volatile than that of Bitcoin. The rule of thumb (which could change) is that Bitcoin is generally cheaper to send than Ethereum.
Bitcoin users should bear in mind that the Lightning Network permits cheaper and faster transactions than the regular Bitcoin blockchain.
And, with over 50,000 Bitcoin ATMs in the US and 140 in Austria, investors can nowadays get hold of Bitcoin offline as well as online.
(5: Beat Inflation with Bitcoin
Austria is not alone in suffering eye-watering levels of price inflation. Inflation in Austria was up to 8% year-on-year in May 2022.
Bitcoin is not the perfect hedge against inflation. It is a volatile asset, so its value can drop unexpectedly. But, unlike cash, Bitcoin cannot lose its value to over-supply — which cash can. The supply of Bitcoin is capped at 21m coins, with 91% of them in circulation.
Ways of Buying Bitcoin
SEPA transfer, Skrill and Ideal/Sofort banking are popular payment methods for those wanting to buy BTC in Austria. But other investors are drawn to the convenience of PayPal and especially instant credit card purchases.
Buying Bitcoin with PayPal
- PayPal is a common accepted means of payment on Binance’s P2P platform.
- Coinbase allows investors to withdraw cash to PayPal.
Otherwise, if an investor wants to buy Bitcoin with PayPal, options are few. That is because PayPal users can now buy and sell crypto direct from their PayPal account (but not transfer that crypto elsewhere)
Buy Bitcoin with Credit Card or Debit Card
Investors can buy Bitcoin in Austria with credit card via some platforms — like Binance, Crypto.com, Bitstamp and Coinfinity. But commission fees are a problem; as high as 5% per transaction with Bitstamp, for example.
Bitcoin Price
The Bitcoin price currently stands at $30,272.
Newbies to crypto should remember that it is not necessary to buy a whole Bitcoin at once! All the vendors we have reviewed offer fractionalised shares in crypto.
Bitcoin’s price movements determine the direction of all other crypto prices. For the last month, the price has been hovering in a channel around the $30k mark. Bearish analysts said this breaking the $30k support level would trigger a price spiral, but it did not.
This was despite, in early June 2022, unfavourable legislation against Bitcoin mining being approved in New York State as well as negative comments about the US economy from JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon.
Bitcoin Price Prediction
Only the most optimistic analysts would expect the BTC price in 2022 to reach its 2021 highs of over $65k.
A number of macro-economic factors are troubling the global economy: price inflation, quantitative tightening from the US Federal Exchange and the Ukraine Crisis. As a high-risk investment, Bitcoin gets to feel the general lack of investor certainty first.
But, as a volatile asset, Bitcoin bounces back fast. If the prospects for the global economy begin to clear over the course of 2022, a reasonable price prediction for Bitcoin would be $40k by the end of the year.
If Bitcoin take-up on Wall Street continues, we could see Bitcoin hitting its 2022 highs again over the next few years too.
How to Buy Bitcoin Safely
- Use a regulated broker.
- Do not buy Bitcoin from third parties sending emails.
- Do not buy Bitcoin with anything other than discretionary income.
- If Bitcoin is stored in a non-custodial wallet, triple-check that recovery phrases are stored securely. An estimated $140bn of Bitcoin is locked up forever in wallets to which the user has lost access.
How to Buy Bitcoin in Austria
Investors wanting to buy Bitcoin in Austria can do so at some brick-and-mortar stores nowadays, provided they have a coupon from www.bitcoinbon.at of Coinfinity.
Otherwise, online vendors are the answer. Buying Bitcoin online is generally far cheaper than buying it via an ATM. And getting started online is getting quicker, now that automated verification software is getting better.
Here is how to buy Bitcoin in Austria with most crypto sites:
Sign up with a Site
Choose a platform that you want to use to buy Bitcoin and go to its site. On the homepage you’ll easily find the option to create an account.
You’ll be asked to provide some basic personal information like your name and date of birth. At this point, you’ll also need to create a username and password and the most secure Bitcoin sites will also ask you to set up two-factor authentication.
Verify
Investors will need to supply 2 forms of ID for a regulated site:
- Proof of Identity (passport works best).
- Proof of Address (letter from local authority, rent letter, utility bills).
Deposit
Once your crypto account is verified, you’ll probably receive a confirmation email.
From there, head back to the platform and follow its process to add money to your account. Your options to deposit funds will depend on the platform you have picked to use.
Note that you may need to pay a currency conversion fee depending on if your platform of choice uses EUR or USD.
Buy Bitcoin in Austria
First, find Bitcoin on the site you’re using. There will be a search bar or search icon near the top of any crypto trading site. Here, you should be able to search with either “BTC” or “bitcoin” to start the buying process.
To open an order for Bitcoin, follow the on-screen prompts to buy.
You can usually either choose the amount you want to buy in your own currency or select how Bitcoins or fractions of a Bitcoin you would like.
How to Sell Bitcoin
All the vendors we have reviewed allow the user to sell their Bitcoin back to the vendor when the time is right.
- Navigate to your crpyto wallet where you’re holding your Bitcoin.
- Look for the option to sell your Bitcoin.
- Before selling, be sure to confirm any sellers fees and that you’re happy with the exchange rate.
Conclusion
Above we have looked into the investment prospects for Bitcoin as well as reviewed how to buy Bitcoin in Austria.
Giant exchange Binance offers the best fees for Bitcoin, and Austrian investors may want to try out the native offerings of Bitpanda and Coinfinity.