What is the Bitcoin exchange consideration?

A bitcoin to paypal

 is a digital marketplace where traders can buy and sell bitcoins using different fiat currencies or altcoins. A bitcoin currency exchange is an online platform that acts as an intermediary between buyers and sellers of the cryptocurrency.

Special Considerations

Fees

Making deposits and withdrawals comes at a price, depending on the payment method chosen to transfer funds. The higher the risk of a chargeback from a payment medium, the higher the fee. Making a bank draft or wiring money to the exchange has a lesser risk of a chargeback compared to funding your account with PayPal or a credit/debit card where the funds being transferred can be reversed and returned to the user upon his/her request to the bank.

In addition to transaction fees and funds transfer fees, traders may also be subject to currency conversion fees, depending on the currencies that are accepted by the bitcoin exchange. If a user transfers Canadian dollars to an exchange that only deals in U.S. dollars, the bank or the exchange will convert the CAD to USD for a fee. Transacting with an exchange that accepts your local currency is the best way to avoid the FX fee.

All bitcoin exchanges have transaction fees that are applied to each completed buy and sell order carried out within the exchange. The fee rate is dependent on the volume of bitcoin transactions that is conducted.

Bitcoin Wallets

Note that a bitcoin exchange is different from a bitcoin wallet. While the former offers a platform through which bitcoin buyers and sellers can transact with each other, the latter is simply a digital storage service for bitcoin holders to store their coins securely. To be more technical, bitcoin wallets store private keys which are used to authorize transactions and access the bitcoin address of a user. Most bitcoin exchanges provide bitcoin wallets for their users, but may charge a fee for this service.

Makers and Takers

Online bitcoin marketplaces usually designate bitcoin participants as either makers or takers. When a buyer or seller places a limit order, the exchange adds it to its order book until the price is matched by another trader on the opposite end of the transaction. When the price is matched, the buyer or seller who set the limit price is referred to as a maker. A taker is a trader who places a market order that immediately gets filled.

Example of a Bitcoin Exchange

For example, on a bitcoin exchange, three coin sellers are asking for BTC/USD 2265.75, BTC/USD 2269.55, and BTC/USD 2270.00. A trader who initiates a market order to buy bitcoins will have their order filled at the best ask price of $2265.75. If only five bitcoins are available for the best ask and 10 coins are available for $2269.55, and the trader wants to buy 10 at market price, the trader's order will be filled with 5 coins @ $2265.75 and the remaining 5 @ $2269.55.

However, a trader who thinks they can get bitcoins for a better price could set a limit order for, say, $2260.10. If a seller matches their ask price with this order or sets a price below this figure, the order will get filled. All of this is done by the exchange, which takes a percentage of each transaction for their business.