Cryptocurrency has been an increasingly popular way to invest and to save money. If you’re new to cryptocurrency, buying your first coins can seem intimidating. Luckily buying crypto in Australia doesn’t have to be confusing. Below, we’ll go step by step and teach you how to purchase cryptocurrency in Australia.

While there are several options available to buy crypto online, we recommend Swyftx. Their site is easy to use, has excellent support, and offers the lowest transaction fees in Australia.

How to Buy Crypto in Australia

Here’s a quick rundown of the steps required to purchase cryptocurrency in Australia on Swyftx.

1. Signup for an account on Swyftx.
2. Enable 2-factor authentication (2FA) to secure your account.
3. Verify the account.
4. Deposit money through several transfer options.
5. Go to “Trade” in Swyftx.
6. Find the cryptocurrency you would like to buy.
7. Enter how much cryptocurrency you want to buy and at what price.
8. Click “Buy.”

Below, we’ll cover the entire process step-by-step from where to buy cryptocurrency in Australia and to how to purchase and store it.

Choose a Crypto Exchange

Similar to any other type of investment, you’ll need to find a place to purchase cryptocurrency. The best place to buy cryptocurrency is an exchange. Since the first bitcoins were traded, the number of exchanges has grown rapidly. These exchanges provide safe, secure, and reliable transactions.

Currently, there are over 400 active cryptocurrency exchanges worldwide. Unfortunately, not all exchanges are created equal. Many can only be used for certain cryptocurrencies while others may be country restricted. Using a locally-based exchange can also reduce transaction fees during buying and selling cryptocurrencies.

Your exchange choice also needs to be highly secure and reliable. I’m sure you’ve heard horror stories of investors losing bitcoin or another cryptocurrency to hackers online. The more secure your exchange is the safer your investments will be.

Finally, a user-friendly site will make buying and selling crypto much easier.

Our choice for the best cryptocurrency exchange in Australia is Swyftx. This exchange excels at all the above criteria. Swyftx is easy to use, highly secure and offers low fees for customers in Australia. You’ll find over 250 cryptocurrencies to trade including Bitcoin, Etherium, Dogecoin, and more.

Some other popular cryptocurrency exchanges include:

• Binance
• Coinspot Exchange
• Digital Surge Exchange
• Coinbase

Create and Verify your Account

For this exercise, we’ll demonstrate how to purchase cryptocurrency on Swyftx. To start, navigate to the Swyftx website or download their app to your iOS or Android phone.

You will be greeted by a “Create Account” page where you can fill out your name, country of residence, phone number, email, and password. Once completed, you are sent to a “Terms and Conditions” page to agree to the exchange’s terms.

Verify IdentityProcess

Once your account is created, it’s time to verify your identity. All cryptocurrency exchanges will require you to verify your identity. This security measure is vital to protect you from identity theft, scams, and to prevent money laundering through the use of cryptocurrency.

Don’t be intimidated by the process. While you will be required to provide personal information, photos, and bank details, your data is safe and secure. Swyftx makes ID verification easy and you can be verified within minutes of opening your account.

Connect Your Exchange to a Payment Option

Once your account is verified, you’ll need to deposit funds into the account. Luckily Swyftx offers a wide range of payment methods including bank transfers, POLi, PayID, and credit cards.

Credit card, POLi, and PayID deposits are normally instantly available for use. Some bank transfers can take between 2 and 6 hours. There is no fee to deposit money into your account unless you are sending less than $200 by credit card.

The addition of credit cards as a payment option makes Swyftx simple and easy to use especially to customers brand new to the world of cryptocurrency.

Place an Order

Now that your account is funded, it’s time to buy cryptocurrency. Since it’s the most popular coin on the market, we’ll use Bitcoin for this example.

Placing an order in Swyftx is straightforward. To instantly purchase bitcoin, navigate the site and locate bitcoin (BTC). Here, there are two purchasing options, market and limit order. You can think of market orders as an instant purchase for the specified price. While limit orders you set a price you are willing to buy bitcoin at, and if the coin reaches that price the sale will go through.

While simple, Swyftx also offers advanced trading features for more experienced traders. As you gain the knowledge you won’t have to upgrade to a new platform. Swyftx has all the tools you need for effective and advanced cryptocurrency trading in Australia.

Select a Storage Method and Store your Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency exists in the digital world. Once you’ve completed a purchase, you need a place to store it. You can easily store all your investments in the digital wallet at Swyftx, but there are many other options available as well. While secure, you are trusting the exchange with total control over your bitcoins and cryptocurrency.

Many crypto investors opt to store their currency in personal digital wallets. These wallets give you total control over your coins. They also provide unique security solutions that will prevent any type of theft of your investments.

Online Wallets

Online wallets are one of the most convenient ways to store your crypto. This removes the crypto from your exchange and places it in a personal wallet that only you have access to. Some of the most popular online wallets include Electrum and Exodus.

Using your online wallet gives you more control over your crypto but still involves some hacking risks since you need to be online to perform transactions.

Software Wallets

A software wallet is an application that you download to your computer or smartphone. All the important information including your private keys and passwords are stored inside the app on your device.

This makes a software wallet slightly more secure than an online wallet or keeping your crypto on an exchange. Unfortunately, advanced hackers can still hack software wallets.

Hardware Wallets

Hardware wallets are the most secure option if you want to prevent hackers and scammers from accessing your wallet. This cold storage formate is a device that plugs into your computer and transfers the data. A hardware wallet can range in price from $40 to $120 based on the technology inside the device.

Once your private key info is on the hardware wallet, there is no way for anyone to access your cryptocurrency. This is by far the safest way to hold any cryptocurrency.

Unfortunately, hardware wallets also have some drawbacks. Losing the device means you’ve lost the coins forever. A hardware wallet can also be damaged. Whether your home caught fire or you dropped the wallet in the pool, you may lose access to all the crypto on the device.

If you plan to use a hardware wallet you should keep it safe and secure. Fireproof safes and bank safety deposit boxes can ensure your wallet stays safe.

Before You Buy Cryptocurrency

If this is your first time investing in cryptocurrency, you’ll want to do plenty of research before deciding which coin is the best investment for you.

What Is Cryptocurrency?

A cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is simply a digitally signed computer code that exists on a blockchain. This record indicates that you own a specified amount of coins and cryptocurrency. The code is stored in a digital wallet and can only be accessed with its private and public keys.

The private key is used to prove you have ownership of the cryptocurrency. This key lets you sell the coins as well. Public keys are a way for you to share your wallet address with others. You can safely share your public key and this is how someone can send a cryptocurrency payment to you.

Pros and Cons of Cryptocurrency

Just like any new technology, many users will find ways to take advantage of the system or use it for nefarious purposes. From huge price fluctuation to questionable security practices, many newcomers to crypto should be aware of the pros and cons of investing in cryptocurrency.

The more popular coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum have proven themselves and can be seen as great long and short-term investments. They offer more stability than alt-coins and excellent security from data breaches and theft.

Newer “altcoins” offer a way for new investors that make great profits in a short period. Of course, these coins can be highly volatile. Other altcoins have been outed as scams where investors have lost large amounts of money.

While many naysayers will claim illegal activities are performed with cryptocurrency, the same can be said of cash or and other investment.

Scalability has become one of the biggest problems with crypto. For crypto to achieve the same level of transactions as Visa or Mastercard, more infrastructure needs to be in place.

There has been major pushback on the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies. Mining coins takes a massive amount of computing power. Some of the major mining centers can have up to 50,000 computers running nonstop producing bitcoins. This results in a huge amount of electricity consumed for every transaction performed on the blockchain.

While regulations on cryptocurrency are currently limited, many countries are attempting to ban or outlaw the use of crypto. Others are looking to add regulations that could involve federal oversight of the networks and transactions.

FAQ on How to Invest in Cryptocurrency in Australia

Still have questions on how to buy cryptocurrency in Australia. Here are some of the more popular questions we receive from interested visitors.

Can I Buy Less than 1 Bitcoin?

Now that the price of 1 Bitcoin is so high, many investors opt to purchase only a portion of a coin. The smallest amount of Bitcoin available is 0.00000001 BTC. This denomination of Bitcoin is called 1 Satoshi. However, most exchanges do set a lower limit on how much Bitcoin you can purchase in one transaction.

What’s the Fastest and Easiest Way to Buy Cryptocurrency?

The fastest and easiest way to buy cryptocurrency is to find an exchange that allows credit card purchases. Beginner exchanges like Swyftx offer low fees, credit card deposits, and excellent security for all your crypto purchases in AUD.

Selling cryptocurrency in Australia is also easy once you have experience with your exchange of choice.

What Determines the Price of Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies?

The price of any coin will be based on the supply of the coin versus the demand for it. Demand is determined by the public image of the coin and its usability, while supply rules can fluctuate between all the different types of cryptocurrency. For example, Bitcoin has a limit of 21 million coins, and currently, 19 million have been printed.

Bitcoin, Etherium, and other cryptocurrencies also consume electricity to produce the coin. This cost is consumed through gas fees on the blockchain, and the price can vary depending on the time of day and current usage of the blockchain.

How Is a Bitcoin Created?

Most cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin are created through a process called mining. This involves miners using their computing power to solve math puzzles that reward portions of bitcoin.

As more and more coins are minted, we close in on the supply limit of bitcoin. This reduces the reward given for each mining transaction. Over time, the computing power for each transaction has also grown exponentially. Today’s mining computers are extremely expensive and require state-of-the-art CPUs and GPUs to perform complex math problems. 

Most mining is done today by large teams or companies with massive servers and computing power.

Is Cryptocurrency Legal?

Cryptocurrencies are not regulated or controlled by banks and technically are not legal tender currently in any country. In Australia, bitcoin and several other coins have been legalized by the Reserve Bank of Australia and you are free to trade cryptocurrencies against AUD or other currencies.

Where Can I Find Price History Information for Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies?

Some of the best places online to find more info about crypto include CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko, and Statista.com.