Looking for a trading platform to buy and sell your bitcoin? In this guide, I’m going to show you how to safely and quickly trade your bitcoin on Paxful through its escrow service.
Note: You can perform BTC trade on Paxful in Nigeria, USA, India, Russia, China and others…plus get free Paxful bitcoin wallet which you can fund within the platform and send or receive btc
Step 1: Sign up for an account on paxful.com
Step 2: Confirm your email address by clicking on the link sent to your inbox.
Step 3: Set up the security wall of your account; if you like, upload your photo on your account, you can achieve this by clicking on your account profile.
Choose account username, your account preferred currency and a short bio about you, if you like. Make sure you confirm your phone number as well by entering the code in a space provided on the page.
It’s advisable to set up Two-factor authentication preferably using your phone number and Google authenticator (See guide here).
Step 4: In your account dashboard, select the action you want to perform: sell or buy. To sell it’s better to create an offer. So, for the purpose of this guide, I’m selecting “buy bitcoin”
Step 5: Enter the amount (in any currency, the preferred currency in your account set up goes a long way in determining in what currency you’d be debited) of bitcoin you want to buy. Select Nigerian Naira if that’s what you’re paying with in the next column.
Step 6: Click on search to see the available sellers. Or click on give me the best offer.
If no seller is available (on a rare case) for your search you’d see a message like this, “No offers found for ANY Credit/Debit Card”, it means you’ll have to search again by selecting another means of payment to get your rightful seller.
If a seller is found, proceed to buy.
Step 7: Mode and confirmation of payment depend on the Paxful BTC seller. Some will instruct you to contact him via call or WhatsApp before making payment, while some would post the bank account details to pay into in the chatbox.
Chatbox comes up immediately you open a trade on Paxful.
Step 8: If you successfully make a payment, click on “PAID” for your bitcoin to be released to your BTC wallet.
See a sample of one of the Paxful BTC sellers’ instructions below:
- Open a trade and message me, you can also call me on +23481…….2. Before trading, send full details of your bank you’re sending from and your phone number.3. Simply pay with a Nigerian bank account with your real name.PLS write “Bitcoin Payment” as the Remarks.4. DON’T upload any screenshot of payment. I will confirm personally (Take note)5. Wait for me to confirm the payment before click “PAID”. However, you can click “PAID” if you’re sure you truly paid. On the other hand, if you did not pay and you click “PAID”, I’ll report you and your account will be banned because of that.6. Once I see payment reflect in my account, I’ll release your coins instantly.7. Post a positive feedback for me while I do so for you!That’s all.
Bottom line:
After making payment, some sellers will instruct you to upload the receipt for quick release of BTC, or screenshot transaction SMS from your bank.
Make sure to read the terms and condition of vendor’s before making payment so that your wallet will be funded as fast as possible.
Before making payment (when you open a trade) you could cancel the trade if you noticed you entered the wrong amount.
However, if you cancel your buy option it means bitcoins are not in escrow anymore. It is NOT safe to pay to the seller any more unless you reopen the trade which is secured via Paxful escrow service. You’ll have to re-open the trade again for your transaction be safe in escrow.
What are the transaction fees on paxful?
Two major factors determine transaction fees on paxful:
- Network
- Escrow service (which is one of the safest ways to transact with a stranger. This way both parties are protected: seller and buyer)
For instance, I noticed different charges while trading on paxful, see below:
- In my first trade (while buying btc) I wanted to buy bitcoin worth N30,000, however, my wallet would be funded with N26051.61 worth of bitcoin (that is 0.00612511 BTC) via GTBank (Guaranty Trust Bank) Nigeria.
Charge fee for the above is N3,948.39
- In my second trade, buying the same N30,000 of bitcoin, my btc wallet was funded with N26290.08 NGN worth of bitcoin (0.00617351 BTC) via GTBank (Guaranty Trust Bank) Nigeria.
Charge fee for the second trade is N3,709.92
My personal experience with Paxful
Two things I love about Paxful are:
- Multiple payment methods that include Debit/credit card payment option, online bank transfer, USSD code bank transfer, MoneyGram, Western Union, Paxum, Paypal, Amazon, OkPay, Payza, Walmart, Reloadit, Perfect Money, WebMoney, Google Wallet, BlueBird, Serve, Square Cash, NetSpend, Chase QuickPay, Skrill, Vanilla, MyVanilla, OneVanilla, Neteller, Venmo (more than 300 payment methods).
- Secured escrow
