Are you one of those who thinks that Bitcoin is the currency of the future? If yes, then you are certainly on the right track, and you are not alone. Such sentiments are shared by billions of people around the world, a lot of which actually hold great positions in some really big firms and institutions. It, therefore, comes as no surprise that the Bitcoin today is one of the most powerful currencies of the world. While it was earlier proving to be a failure, it did manage to pull a phoenix on the world at large and literally rose from its own ashes to reach up to some pretty impressive and game-changing values. There was a time when a single Bitcoin valued close to twenty thousand dollars. Such a feat has never been seen before and it was quite enough to shake the financial sector and make huge international and local firms sit up and take notice.

Today, the Bitcoin commands a good majority of the market share and is literally able to spawn multi-million dollar industries completely on its own. For example, you can say that the cryptocurrency domain received the push it did and propelled itself to this sudden popularity only because the Bitcoin managed to gain such heights of fame. Even the cryptocurrency mining industry is now flourishing, as an increasing number of people are now ready to invest in Bitcoin miners and mine crypto-coins for themselves.

In this article, however, we will look at the best way to buy Bitcoin with AMEX. Let’s jump right into it!

American Express: The Options You Have

Generally speaking, buying Bitcoins with a credit or a debit card can get pretty confusing. However, if done in the right manner, it can actually prove to be quite fast and one of the best methods around. To begin with, you must first choose a decent exchange service that actually allows the user to make payments using their cards. Furthermore, you need to look for some much-desired characteristics in the concerned exchange, such as affordable exchange fees, quick service and a good record when it comes to handling Bitcoin transfers. To give you a little background, while buying coins with credit or debit cards used to be a complicated process in the past, technological modifications along with sincere efforts from companies like Coinbase and CoinMama have ensured that the entire process is now much more streamlined and functions pretty smoothly. The article below presents to you a few exchange services worthy of your attention and proven to be effective when it comes to paying for Bitcoins with credit cards, especially the American Express card. Before you start buying Bitcoins or even log on to any of these services, it might do you well to actually sign up for a wallet service which is good enough to hold all your coins with ease and makes no compromises for their security. Once you have done that, you are good to go on choosing a cryptocurrency exchange service.

Top 4 Best Ways to Buy Bitcoin with American Express

1. Coinbase

Coinbase is one of the largest and most well-functioning cryptocurrency exchange services around the world. It extends its operations up to a good number of countries and is generally regarded as a fine service for carrying out cryptocurrency transactions, irrespective of the type of currency you are interested in. For Bitcoins especially, Coinbase will let you buy up to $150 worth of coins per week, using an American Express credit card. Now as with any other service, the very first thing you need to consider is the fee. Unfortunately, for all consumers, transacting with Bitcoins at any of these exchanges comes at a price. There is often a price involved which is roughly around 0-5% of your total transaction value. For credit cards specifically, such as the American Express card we are currently interested in, this fee has been set at 3.99% by Coinbase. A primary reason why this is so great is that for American or European users, out of all the services they can opt for, the fee for Coinbase happens to be one of the very least.

Step-by-Step Guide

Signing up on Coinbase and making purchases with your Amex credit card isn’t much of a complicated process. For starters, you simply need to log on to the website and create an account. Once you do that, you need to make sure that your credit card is connected to your account. The only way to do this is by supplying some of your credit card details. Once you give away the information, your card will be listed and added on to your Coinbase profile. The next step involves you verifying the account you have just created by clicking on the verification link. Finally, all you need to do is begin your purchase, and you will find that buying Bitcoins with Amex cards is easier than ever.

Pros & Cons

While Coinbase offers high liquidity and buying limits, it does restrict you in the sense that all purchases made with bank transfers can take as long as five days to complete. Since the Bitcoin has been inherently designed to be quick and seamless, it does come across as a hiccup to most users that the service can take that long to process a single transaction. As for newcomers or people who have just joined the platform or even those who are new to the cryptocurrency domain altogether, Coinbase works great since it allows for them to easily gain Bitcoins. This further encourages newcomers to use more of Bitcoins and actually facilitates the overall development of the domain. On the other hand, since Bitcoins have been created for the purpose of keeping financial dealings private and helping certain individuals and interested parties keep their transactions to themselves, it in a way defeats the very purpose of these coins if an organization keeps track of these transactions or even remotely monitors them. As far as Coinbase is concerned, there have been reports that the service actually monitors the coins you buy and may track your expenditures and purchases that you make with the concerned coins. There is, however, another big advantage for Amex users which is that they get to make use of the Instant Buy option, which lets them easily and swiftly buy coins.

2. CEX.io

As one of the oldest operating Bitcoin exchange services ever, CEX.io deserves a place in this list simply because of the sheer amount of experience associated with it. It works in the United States, Europe and even some countries in South America. With a service that has been around for that long, you can be sure to get the best of services. The one problem with CEX however, is that it comes with a pretty lengthy verification process, which could take up as much as half an hour to complete.

Pros & Cons

First of all, you have got to commend the sheer reach of the platform, since it is available in so many countries and regions. Secondly, the fee charged by CEX.io, which is priced at just 0.2%, is one of the lowest in the cryptocurrency trading business. Finally, as detailed earlier, CEX.io has been around for quite long and is thus quite established and trusted. Now to talk about the cons, the verification process is definitely a bit of a pain, since no one wants to sit around for half an hour just to get verified. Also, it asks for a lot of personal information such as photographs. Also, the GBP market for the platform lacks liquidity.

3. BitPanda

BitPanda operates from Austria, as the central headquarters for the service is stationed there. It is available currently only for the residents of the European continent, although they do have plans of expanding it further in the future. The very first thing that comes to mind about the service is the amount of fee they are willing to charge, and BitPanda charges you anywhere between 3-4% of your total transaction fee. A certain anomaly when it comes to the services of BItPanda is that the fee is not actually displayed publically on their website but rather appears in your final buy price when you go on to complete the purchase.

Pros & Cons

As far as Amex payments are concerned, BitPanda offers one of the lowest transaction fees in the business and just like CoinMama, they too have the reliability and trust factor going for them. The only con we could find though is as mentioned before, the buyer is somewhat kept in the dark when it comes to the fee since they can only see it when the purchase is being completed.

4. Abra.com

Abra is a new age app which lets you store, buy and invest in various cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies all in one place. It is a bitcoin wallet app that can be used by both, Android and iOS users. It even lets users exchange up to 50 fiat currencies and 28 cryptocurrencies through 100% peer-to-peer technology and prides itself on this feature. It ensures that you are the one who would be in complete control of your money.

Abra also offers you a choice of funding your account using bank transfer, credit or debit card, litecoin bitcoin or bitcoin cash and then you can start investing in cryptocurrencies.

Abra makes the entire process quick and easy to invest bypassing the complexity of managing multiple services. It has a user-friendly interface and lets you check current prices, track progress, as well as access your cryptocurrency investments in just one place. You can exchange cryptocurrencies at any time, and the process is completed almost instantly.

Abra allows you to trade bitcoin for any other cryptocurrencies on their platform. Abra uses a decentralized approach, which means that Abra does not have any custody of its customers’ assets – thus making customers’ money less vulnerable to hacking and also exempts Abra from money-transfer regulations.

Unlike most cryptocurrency exchanges, Abra is fully integrated with the US and Philippines banking systems, as this is where Abra first started out. American Express lets US cardholders pay for deposits via the Abra app.

However, t the way Abra stores currency in a Litecoin wallet and earns revenue on currency trades confuses first-time users, as they are unfamiliar financial concepts like Forex spreads or exchange-traded funds.

Pros and Cons

Abra offers direct bank transfers although this service is available in the US and Philippines only. It also lets you fund deposits with American Express in the US.

Abra offers a wide variety of fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies to choose from, leaving you quite literally spoilt for choice. The mobile apps are also quite easy to use, and they have ensured a reduction in the costs of remittances.

Abra does have some setbacks too. It does not offer cross-platform access, and there are no advanced tools available for high-frequency trading. The synthetic currency system is quite difficult to understand, and last but not the least the remittance system is only available completely in the Philippines.

Conclusion

For anything to do with Bitcoins, and to actually make something worthwhile, such as a business opportunity, the very first step is for you to go ahead and get these coins. Now, as mentioned before, you can do that by cryptocurrency mining, which is an emerging field these days. However, there are a few shortcomings associated with the trade that you must be aware of. First of all, cryptocurrency mining is not always profitable. In fact, it actually takes a good deal of careful planning and execution to get things just right and earn substantial profits with Bitcoin mining. For starters, these mining rigs essential for mining often consume a good deal of electricity, which means a good amount of whatever profits you make will go into compensating for your heightened energy bills. What this means for your business is that you will be spending more than you earn, which is obviously not a very smart choice. The other safer and more commonly used option is that of directly buying coins. The only problem is that people often tend to get confused and lost on how they can go about purchasing these coins when there are literally hundreds of options and hundreds of ways for them to actually do so. It can get really difficult to tell which payment method to choose and which service to go for, especially for people who are new to the trade and are not overly familiar with what the standards are.

But to pull you out of such problems, we believe it is best to tackle the problem one method at a time, that is, we take our time and take a good look at each of these payment methods individually, while also listing the best services that can be used for the purpose. And that is exactly what this article aims to do. We hope our guide for you on buying Bitcoins and will help you make an informed decision when it comes to buying Bitcoins with American Express.