How to Buy Bitcoin Cash (BCH) - Beginner's Guide 2024

How to Buy Bitcoin Cash

You can purchase Bitcoin Cash online using a cryptocurrency exchange. This is the easiest way to buy and sell cryptocurrencies—all you need is a computer or mobile device. See below for our top picks of platforms that offer Bitcoin Cash and simple steps to buy Bitcoin Cash.

1. Choose a platform

If you want to purchase Bitcoin Cash, you will first need to find a platform that supports it. Fee structure and ease of navigation are useful factors to bear in mind when making your selection. You will find a comparison of the top BCH platforms below and sign up right now with some of our top choices.

2. Create and fund your account

Enter your name and contact information in the registration form to create your account. Regulated platforms need to comply with Know Your Customer rules, which could require you to provide a photo ID to verify your identity. Then you can make your first deposit by choosing one of the payment options available in your country.

3. Buy Bitcoin Cash

You will need to find the trading pair for BCH and your local currency. If there isn’t one, you will first need to purchase another currency such as BTC or USDT which can be used to buy BCH. Create a market order if you want to buy BCH immediately, or a limit order if you want to specify a price at which BCH will be automatically bought for you in the future.

How to Buy Bitcoin Cash - Step-by-Step Guide

If you want to buy Bitcoin Cash and hold it on your own, then you will want to go and do it on a crypto exchange. As mentioned, there are brokers that will let you buy it while using their services, but exchanges are typically where people go to buy and trade coins, so you are likely to get BCH much easier and faster there.

Once again, choosing an exchange platform is the most important step, where you will have to consider fees, security, whether or not it is regulated, and alike. Also, make sure that the cryptocurrency exchange supports your preferred payment method, and that it services your area.

Given that we are discussing Bitcoin Cash, you likely won’t have a problem finding an exchange that offers this coin, since it is rather popular and listed pretty much everywhere.

With that out of the way, let’s see how you can use it and what you need to do to get your hands on some BCH coins as quickly as possible.

1. Set up a Bitcoin Cash Wallet

The first step is to prepare safe storage for your BCH coins. This is one of the downsides of owning your own coins — you are also the one who needs to secure them. On the upside, once you do — no one can take them away from you, freeze your account, and alike.

So, before you start buying coins, you should first set up a wallet that supports Bitcoin Cash, and then you can proceed to the exchange.

2. Choose and Join an Exchange That Sells Bitcoin Cash

Naturally, before you go to the exchange, you will first have to select the one you wish to use. As always, we advise selecting a reputable platform that has been around for years, rather than a shady-looking exchange that did not exist two days before, and that hides all the information about its owners and team.

There are plenty of trustworthy platforms to choose from, such as Binance, Coinbase, Coinmama, CEX, and more. Just figure out which ones serve your region, which one is the best in terms of fees and alike, and make your account.

3. Choose Your Payment Methods to Buy Bitcoin Cash

At this point, you should choose a payment method that you wish to use for buying coins. Most exchanges support multiple different payment methods, such as cards, bank transfers, and alike.

You should find one that you are satisfied with but also keep in mind things such as time, cost, and convenience. For example, credit cards offer fast transfers, but they come with high fees. Also, they allow you to buy coins even if you don’t have money at hand, but you will have to pay back the money you used later on.

Debit cards only let you use the money that you do already own, so you won’t have to fear going overboard with your investments. Like credit cards, they are fast but can be expensive. Bank transfers are much cheaper, but also take a longer time for your money to get to the exchange and complete the purchase.

4. Place an Order to Buy BCH

After figuring out your payment method, you will be ready to start buying coins. Simply look for the ‘Buy Coins’ button, or some version of it, depending on how your exchange of choice has decided to name it. Click on it, and you will be transferred to the buy screen.

Here, you need to select the coin you wish to buy, the amount, and enter your payment details. That’s all there is to it, and after you click the ‘Buy’ button, your coins will be yours.

5. Safely Storing Your Bitcoin Cash in a Wallet

As mentioned, in order for your coins to truly be yours, you should withdraw them from the exchange into your personal crypto wallet. This is the safest way to handle cryptos, as exchanges can be hacked, they can freeze your funds, suddenly shut down, or have their site crash. If any of this happens, your coins will be out of your hands.

You don’t have to transfer your BCH away from the exchange if you don’t want to, but it is recommended that you do. Only keep the small amounts that you plan on trading within the exchange’s own wallet.

What Is Bitcoin Cash?

Bitcoin Cash is a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that enables money to be sent directly from one person to another in the form of the cryptocurrency BCH. It can be used to make payments of any size quickly and cheaply anywhere in the world.

Unlike traditional currencies, Bitcoin Cash doesn’t require intermediaries such as banks and payment processors as the network is decentralised and permissionless. This means there are no borders, chargebacks, or overdrafts, and no one to charge high fees or freeze or seize users’ funds.

Bitcoin Cash was created when Bitcoin underwent a hard fork, that is, the blockchain diverged into two separate blockchains. A major difference between the two resultant chains is that Bitcoin Cash has a larger block size than Bitcoin.

This means that Bitcoin Cash can handle more transactions per second and scale to serve a larger number of users while transactions remain fast and low cost. Consequently, Bitcoin Cash is better for making payments than Bitcoin, with its slow transactions and high fees. In fact, Bitcoin Cash is already accepted by various merchants around the world.

Ways to Invest in Bitcoin Cash

Some people want to turn a quick profit and sell their BCH as soon as possible, while others prefer to hold onto their coins for the long term. It is possible to generate returns through both of these methods, so which you choose will depend on your own skills and aims.

Buy and hold Bitcoin Cash

This strategy’s popularity stems from its simplicity. It doesn’t take much skill to buy BCH and hold it for a period of time. It also doesn’t take much time as there is no need to constantly monitor and analyse the market to make a profit.

BCH cannot be staked as the network is secured by mining, just like Bitcoin. However, BCH can be exchanged for goods and services from a number of merchants that accept it.

Best Bitcoin Cash wallets

Private wallets are a popular place to keep coins that you intend to hold onto for a while. This is because they can provide strong security and don’t put you at the mercy of a centralised service.

The most secure option is a hardware wallet such as Trezor, BitBox, or Ledger, but they can be a bit costly and aren’t necessarily very user intuitive. Software wallets provide a free and user-friendly alternative that can be downloaded to your computer or mobile device.

Trade Bitcoin Cash

Buying and selling BCH over shorter timeframes can also be profitable by generating returns more often. This is what traders do but it takes more time and effort, and they often use skills such as technical analysis to find the best times to buy and sell.

Transferring coins out of a private wallet every time you want to sell them can be laborious, which is why traders often opt instead to store their coins in the less secure but more convenient web wallet provided for free by their exchange.

For a breakdown of some of the best Bitcoin Cash Exchanges check our top list.

Long vs Short Term Investment

Long-term investments are a good way for you to invest in the future. They revolve around buying a certain amount of coin — provided that you expect that it has the potential to see price growth in the future — storing them somewhere safe, and forgetting about them for a while. If you do this, you should expect to keep them locked up for a long time, maybe even years.

The downside here is that you are responsible for their security and management.

Short-term investing may involve using CFDs and futures, as described earlier, or buying coins with the intention of profiting off of smaller price fluctuations.

Pros and Cons of Buying Bitcoin Cash

Pros

• Peer-to-Peer Exchange: Bitcoin Cash is among the few cryptocurrencies that have dedicated peer-to-peer exchange. LocalBitcoins allows you to quickly sell or buy Bitcoin Cash from other users using fiat currency. All you need is to deposit your money, place an order or select an order you can afford.
• Fast transactions: Though Bitcoin increased its block size to 2MB, it still lags BCH’s 8MB transactions speeds. In essence, Bitcoin Cash process transactions four times faster than Bitcoin.
• Market capitalisation: Investing in an established cryptocurrency is more secure than in new ones. It gets better if the currency is among the top altcoins in the world. Bitcoin Cash is not one of the oldest cryptocurrencies, but its adoption and value show that it is a valuable digital asset.
• Miner’s choice: Mining cryptocurrencies is difficult, and so miners are always looking for coins that can make money in a shorter time or with fewer resources. Bitcoin Cash allows miners to make profits faster than Bitcoin due to its block size. For this reason, most miners have moved from BTC to BCH.

Cons

• Possible monopolisation: Bitcoin Cash is supposed to be a decentralised network with no specific entity having sufficient power to control other miners or the coin’s future. However, this has been an elusive dream. Three mining pools contributed to about 51% of the total BCH coins in 2019. Such a scenario is scary as it limits the future of the altcoin to these mega pools.

What Fees Are Involved in Buying Bitcoin Cash?

There are different types of fees that you’re likely to encounter when trying to buy Bitcoin Cash. We’ve listed the main fees below;

• Transaction fees: Every transaction on your chosen Bitcoin Cash platform will require a transaction fee. This is actually the same in the fiat currency world also, but the fees are normally passed to the business, rather than the customer. In the cryptocurrency world, there are no businesses, and all of the transaction fees are shared amongst every single customer.
• Deposit fees: This is the cost you pay for depositing money into an exchange or brokerage. Not all exchanges charge deposit fees and the ones that do vary it based on the payment method.
• Withdrawal fees: Nearly all platforms charge withdrawals from their wallet to a private coin wallet or a bank account. The charges also vary from one exchange to another.
• Spreads and commissions: Spread is the extra value a trading platform adds on the coin’s actual value. The trading exchange also acts as a broker and therefore charges a commission on every profit you earn from your trading activities.

3 Tips to Buy Bitcoin Cash

As we near the end of this guide, allow us to present you with some additional tips regarding Bitcoin Cash investing and trading. You are, of course, free to follow them or ignore them completely. But, with the crypto industry already being as chaotic and complex as it is, we choose to share them anyway, in the hope that they will be useful to you.

Choose the Right Time and Do Your Own Research

You will often see claims that Bitcoin Cash is a great cryptocurrency investment, and most people will agree with that. However, you shouldn’t invest in BCH based on other people’s recommendations. Do your own research, and make sure that you believe that it is the right call before doing it. Then, all that remains is to wait the right time to buy, meaning that you should buy when the price is low, and wait for it to surge again before selling.

Comparing Costs

Another thing worth noting is that different exchanges offer different exchange rates. So, make a comparison of different platforms before buying coins. That way, you can buy more for less, once you find the right place to do so.

Safety and Security

We cannot stress enough how important it is to make sure that you use all the necessary precautions before buying or selling coins. Ensure that you are using the safest platforms, that you have secured your crypto wallet adequately, and that you have set up all the security measures, such as Two-Factor Authentication, to ensure that no one will steal your coins from you.

What Is the Best Payment Method for Buying Bitcoin Cash

As mentioned before, there are many payment methods, and the one you will use depends on how fast you want the money deposited, and how much you are willing to pay in fees. With that in mind, you can:

• Buy Bitcoin Cash with cash: Unless a friend, family member, or a trusted acquaintance is the one selling BCH for cash, it’s not advisable to purchase any cryptocurrency upfront with cash. However, there are reputable peer-to-peer platforms that facilitate the purchasing of Bitcoin Cash with cash.
• Buy Bitcoin Cash with credit card: Although banks can block cryptocurrency transactions, there are quite a few exchanges and brokers out there that allow you to use credit cards as a payment option. It’s far easier to do so on broker platforms, as these are regulated by financial bodies and banks will have no issue in your investing in cryptocurrency on these platforms.
• Buy Bitcoin Cash with bank transfer
• Buy BCH with Bitcoin
• Buy Bitcoin Cash with PayPal: PayPal and cryptocurrencies do not go hand in hand, which makes it hard to buy Bitcoin Cash with an exchange using your PayPal account. However, the BCH peer-to-peer exchange offers a way to circumvent this obstacle. You can find a seller on the platform who accepts PayPal payments. Nonetheless, you can only do this offline, which has its security issues. Besides, the sellers who accept PayPal charge premium fees because of the high risk of buybacks.

Other Ways to Buy Bitcoin Cash

Apart from the methods mentioned above, you can also get your hands on Bitcoin Cash through other means. Some methods include:

• Using P2P platforms
• Mining BCH
• Running Masternodes within the BCH network
• Buying BCH on ATMs
• Staking BCH and getting rewards
• Lending BCH and earning it through interest
• and more.

Should I Buy Bitcoin Cash Now?

It is important to read up on Bitcoin Cash but ultimately you will have to make investment decisions for yourself. Like Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash has a capped maximum supply of 21 million coins. This scarcity could make BCH a good long-term store of value.

The ability to make fast, cheap transactions with a smartphone or computer makes Bitcoin Cash beneficial for a range of use cases, including paying online retailers, remittances, cross-border trade, private payments, and facilitating micro-payments such as tips and rewards.

BCH will likely become more valuable as more people adopt it in everyday life. The cryptocurrency is already accepted by many merchants around the world, and if that number grows and the community continues to develop new and better use cases, Bitcoin Cash would appear to be a project with a lot of potential.