Paxful

Paxful.com Review – How To Buy Bitcoin at Paxful

Is Paxful legit? That’s a question that will be answered in this Paxful review.

Overview & Company Info

Paxful is a peer to peer exchange founded in 2015 and headquartered in Delaware, USA. Paxful operates as a site that connects bitcoin buyers with sellers in an open market.

How Does Paxful Work?

Paxful allows a user to buy bitcoin using an impressive variety of payment methods. The process for using Paxful is pretty straightforward: A user signs up, and then is able to either buy or sell bitcoin. All transactions are between users, with Paxful acting as a facilitator and escrow service.

Paxful also offers a bitcoin wallet feature.

How To Create Your Account (Is there an ID/Verification Process?)

As a buyer, a user needs only to submit a valid email address in order to purchase bitcoin on Paxful. In theory, the same is true for a seller.

However, to become a verified vendor on Paxful, it’s necessary to go through an identity verification process. This consists of sending Paxful a photo government ID, proof of address, and a video of the user making a statement indemnifying Paxful against liability in the event that a transaction goes bad. Becoming a vendor gives a seller a variety of benefits on the site.

How To Buy Bitcoin At Paxful

In order to buy bitcoin on Paxful, a user would need to create an account, and then enter their preferred payment method and check Paxful to see if anyone is willing to sell bitcoin for that method of payment. In the event that the user finds a willing seller, Paxful connects the two parties via live chat to discuss the transaction.

Once the buyer has delivered payment in whatever currency or payment type to the seller, the seller releases bitcoin into the Paxful bitcoin wallet of the buyer.

What Are The Deposit/Payment Options and Limits?

Paxful offers a comprehensive variety of payment options, over 300 in total. The list includes debit and credit cards, cash deposits like Western Union or Moneygram, online payment services like Paypal, Skrill, and similar services, and even gift cards like Amazon or iTunes gift cards.

In all cases, the seller is setting the exchange rate, and usually the buyer will not get a dollar to dollar exchange, especially for more exotic methods of payment. So for instance, the best a buyer might be able to do is get 70 cents of bitcoin for every dollar of an iTunes gift card.

Buyers on Paxful are not limited in terms of amounts.

Does Paxful Charge Service or Transaction Fees?

Paxful does not charge the buyer any kind of transaction fee. The seller is charged 1% of the amount of the transaction. Generally, what this means is that the sellers tend to add the fee (and sometimes more) into the price they set for their bitcoin.

What Are The Withdrawal Options, Fees, and Limits?

Paxful doesn’t accept money from buyers in the process, as the buyer is directly paying the seller. Therefore, sellers don’t need to withdraw money from Paxful. Bitcoin stored in Paxful’s bitcoin wallet can be transferred to a private wallet of the buyer’s choosing.

Does Paxful Have A Trading Platform?

Paxful’s exchange essentially functions as a trading platform, in the sense that it facilitates exchanges of bitcoin for other currencies. There aren’t any bells and whistles like some of the more elaborate bitcoin exchanges, however.

Customer Support Options

Paxful offers a system to deal with trades that don’t go according to plan in some way. If this occurs, either of the parties can file a dispute, and a Paxful employee will act as moderator. In addition to the dispute system, Paxful offers customer support via chat and email.

Pros and Cons of Paxful

PROS:

– Paxful allows users to exchange almost any kind of currency imaginable into bitcoin.
– On the buyer side, (and to some extent, the seller side) Paxful is a good choice if users are concerned with maintaining anonymity.
– Paxful is easy to join and quickly get buying or selling.

CONS:

– While the fees that Paxful charges are low, often times as a buyer one will be paying a high commission set by the seller.
– While Paxful itself has been demonstrated to be legit, some of its users are not. Anyone using Paxful needs to be mindful of scammers.

If the idea of relatively direct and unencumbered bitcoin exchange appeals to you, then Paxful might be the exchange you’re looking for. It’s a riskier option than exchanges like Coinmama or Coinbase where your purchase is directly with the exchange, but your identity is correspondingly less exposed than when using those types of exchange. And if you’re looking to turn something like gift cards into bitcoin, Paxful fits that niche nicely.

That concludes this Paxful.com review.