Bitcoin or PayPal?

[Kate4441]

What is better for you ? Personally i prefer BTC because it has lower fees, more options ,there is no chargeback and high level of security. What about you ?

[lucyjaxon881]

No one wants to accept PayPal payments for Bitcoin because they can easily be reversed.

[Franco_T]

Bitcoin, the transfers are fast and low cost.

[squadus]

They are both very different and used for different purposes. PayPal lets you create invoices which you can send to people to bill them on their own time. Bitcoin can be used as a personal bank to store value and/or exchange with any other type of cryptocurrency or fiat. They both have their pros and cons, so overall I would just use PayPal to buy bitcoins or vice-versa.

See this great guide for more: https://www.smartbitcoininvestments.com/buy-bitcoin-with-paypal/

[ChristopherFisher]

Both payment options have a claim to fame: PayPal is a behemoth in the online payments market, and bitcoin is often billed as the currency of the future. Naturally, they’ve attracted a lot of attention as options for international money transfers.

Let’s go over the bare-bones processes of transferring money through bitcoin platforms and PayPal.

Bitcoin
Very simply, transferring money through bitcoin involves:

Using your local currency to purchase bitcoin, then
Selling your bitcoin for the international currency you want.
Your recipient receives your bitcoin transfer in a bitcoin wallet. They need to sell the bitcoin for their local currency. Finally, they need to withdraw the currency to their bank account.


PayPal
Here’s how to transfer money through PayPal:

Fund your transfer with your PayPal balance, bank account, credit or debit card, or PayPal Credit, then
Send money to your recipient’s PayPal account.
After your recipient receives the money, they can either keep the funds in their PayPal account or withdraw the money to their bank account.

Which offers lower fees?

Bitcoin
To get a feel for the fees you might pay when transferring bitcoin, take a look at what you’ll pay at Coinbase, one of the world’s largest bitcoin platforms.

Depositing money
ACH transfer – Free
Wire transfer – $10 ($25 outgoing)
Buying bitcoin
US bank account – 1.49% ($0.15 minimum)
Coinbase USD wallet – 1.49%
Credit or debit card – 3.99%
Payout after selling bitcoin
US bank account – 1.49% ($0.15 minimum)
Coinbase USD wallet – 1.49%
Credit or debit card – 3.99%
In other countries, there may be a small fee to withdraw money from Coinbase to a bank account. However, this fee is usually small — 0.15 euros, for example.

PayPal
These are the fees for sending money to another PayPal account.

Pay entirely with your PayPal balance or linked bank account
US and Canada – No fee
Other countries – $2.99 to $4.99 depending on country
Pay with credit or debit card or PayPal Credit
US and Canada – 2.9% + fixed fee of about $0.30
Other countries – 2.9% + flat fee depending on country + fixed fee based on currency


Winner: Paypal
For initial transfer fees, you’ll pay about the same amount for both PayPal and bitcoin (assuming we use Coinbase as an example).

But PayPal has a slight edge. When you sell your bitcoin for fiat currency (or government-issued currency, like dollars and euros), you’ll pay another fee. Meanwhile, on PayPal you only pay a fee when you initiate the transfer

Which offers better exchange rates?
To understand who offers better exchange rates, you’ll need to first look at the mid-market rate. This is the true exchange rate that averages the buying and selling rate of a global currency — and the rate banks and transfer services use when they trade among themselves.Say you’re sending $1,000 to the UK:
If the mid-market rateis 1 USD = 0.95 EUR,
A bank may instead offer a rate of 1 SD = 0.93 EUR.
By exchanging your money at a lower rate, the bank makes money on the difference — to the tune of 20 more euros.

Bitcoin
Because bitcoin isn’t distributed by one provider, exchange rates will vary depending on which service you use. You might find exchange rates of a fraction of percent to a few percentage points above the mid-market rate.

The best way to find a good exchange rate is to compare multiple bitcoin platforms against the mid-market rate.

PayPal
To calculate the exchange rate it offers to customers, PayPal takes the wholesale rate it gets from its bank and adds a 2.5% margin. PayPal updates this rate twice a day.

Since you can’t know what PayPal’s wholesale rate is, it’s difficult to determine on your own what exchange rate you’ll get.

The best way to find accurate exchange rates is by using PayPal’s currency exchange calculator, which you can find after you log in to your account.


Winner: Tie
It’s hard to pick a winner here because you’ll find a variety of bitcoin providers. You’ll find providers with worse exchange rates than PayPal, as well as providers with better rates.

Which is faster?

Bitcoin (Coinbase)
Payment method and buying bitcoin
Bank account transfer – 3–5 days
Credit or debit card or USD wallet – Instant
Selling bitcoin (US)
Sell order or withdraw to US bank account – Instant
Withdraw to bank account via SEPA transfer – 1–2 business days
Withdraw by wire – Next business day
Selling bitcoin (Europe)
Sell order – Instant
Withdraw to bank account via SEPA transfer – 1–2 business days
Withdraw by wire – Next business day

PayPal
Transferring money to another PayPal account
Transferring between PayPal accounts – Instant
Withdrawing money from PayPal
Withdrawing from PayPal to bank account – Next business day
Payment method
Bank account transfer – 3–5 days
Linking bank account – 2–3 business days or instant, if you enter bank account details
PayPal balance – Instant
Credit or debit card or PayPal Credit – Instant

Winner: Tie
Transferring through PayPal or bitcoin takes about the same time. You can fund your transfer through your bank account (which is a little slower) or through instant methods like credit card payment.

Bottom line
The main reason you’ll probably lose less money through PayPal is because your funds are only converted once. For example, dollars are immediately converted to euros.

With bitcoins, your funds are converted twice. In other words, you have to convert dollars to bitcoins and then convert bitcoins to euros. If you want to use bitcoins, take a good look at the exchange rate you’re getting — it could make a bitcoin transfer cheaper than using PayPal.