Bitcoin (BTC) has witnessed a meteoric rise in its value over the past decade and has become a popular investment for many institutional buyers. You can easily buy Bitcoin in Peru from online crypto exchanges, crypto brokers and a few Bitcoin ATMs as well. BTC purchases can be made via bank transfers, credit/debit cards, cash and third-party facilitators such as Paypal, Neteller, Skrill and Astropay.
This guide on buying Bitcoin in Peru will familiarise you with all possible aspects of purchasing BTC in the country.
As mentioned, if you want to start buying Bitcoin in Peru, you can do it on exchanges or broker platforms. Your choice here will depend on what you wish to do. For example, if you wish to invest in Bitcoin long-term and hold it safely in your possession, you should go to an exchange and buy actual coins. However, in this scenario, you will also have to prepare your private Bitcoin wallet, to which you will transfer your coins immediately after purchase. The wallet needs to be reputable and safe, and preferably not an online one, but either a hardware, mobile or desktop wallet.
Brokers, on the other hand, are the best place to go if you want to trade BTC and make a profit based on its price volatility. Brokers offer crypto derivatives such as CFDs. In this case, you wouldn’t trade actual coins, but derivatives that use the price of the coin as their underlying asset. That means that you will never buy an actual coin, so there is nothing to store and secure. Instead, CFDs are used for betting on the future movement of the price. So, you make a prediction, and trade accordingly. A good thing about them is that you can bet that the price will go up or down, and if you are right, you can earn money either way. If you were to buy coins, you can only earn money if the price goes up. If it drops, you will be suffering losses. This is why CFDs are much better for short-term trading.
We have prepared several platforms that we can recommend, so check them out and see if one of them seems interesting to you.
Cryptocurrency brokers work as intermediaries between Bitcoin buyers and the rest of the market. There are a good number of local and international brokerage services operating in Peru, including the widely popular eToro platform. Most of these businesses are run by experienced teams that have many years of experience in serving the Latin American market. Read on to learn how you can use such brokers for Bitcoin trading in Peru.
In order to be able to trade BTC with a reputable broker in Peru, you must pick one based on your specific needs, after having factored in its regulatory status, customer care, payment methods, user interface and charges. You will need to sign up by submitting details like your full name, contact number, address and email address.
In this step, you’ll be asked by the brokerage website to verify your identity through a government-approved photo identity card such as your passport, national ID card or driving license. Some may even ask for a copy of a utility bill that can be used as valid proof of address. All these formalities are meant to comply with the platform’s KYC (Know Your Customer) procedures and are usually mandatory.
Depending upon the payment methods offered by the broker, you’ll need to deposit funds into your newly-opened account. Regulated brokers in Peru are generally open to a wide variety of payment methods including credit/debit cards, bank transfers, prepaid cards, Paypal, Neteller, Skrill and AstroPay. Funds can be deposited in local Soles as well as USD.
Trading Bitcoin with a broker usually involves opening long or short positions depending upon your market assessment and in which direction you expect BTC’s price to move. A long position is opened to profit from an increase in Bitcoin’s price, whereas a short position is opened to benefit from a dip in its value.
When you use a platform like eToro to open a long position on Bitcoin, with no leverage, you’ll be buying the actual BTC. In this case, you’ll hope for the BTC price to go up, so that the long position can be closed at an appropriate time, generating some profit for you.
Alternatively, if you open a short position on Bitcoin, on eToro, you’ll be using a derivative like a CFD to simply bet on a drop in BTC’s price. There will be no actual BTC transfer involved. In this scenario, the difference between the opening and closing price of the CFD trade will determine the extent of your profit/loss from the short position.
You can use different order types like stop-loss, market order, limit order and trailing stop-loss, to manually/automatically enter and exit your trades at appropriate times, thereby limiting your losses and guarding your profits.
You can close your long/short positions on Bitcoin either manually or automatically. Anytime you feel that BTC’s price has reached a desired level, you can manually close your trade by placing a corresponding ‘Buy’ or ‘Sell’ order with the broker. You can even automate this process by predefining certain price points at which your position should be closed. For instance, in case of a long position on BTC, you can specify take-profit and stop-loss price points at which the trade will be closed automatically to secure your profit and prevent further losses respectively.
Besides a good number of reputed global cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance, Peru has a handful of local Bitcoin exchanges too. Most of these platforms are actually concentrated in the Latin American region, serving primarily its constituent countries, including Peru. Let’s learn how you can effectively use these portals to buy Bitcoin in the country, in the easiest manner possible.
You will require a good cryptocurrency wallet to safely store your purchased Bitcoin. While crypto exchanges normally have inbuilt wallets that can be used to store and readily use crypto coins, it is always recommended to move your crypto holdings to an external Bitcoin wallet, for better security. Crypto wallets can be of two major types:
Software wallets – These are software applications meant for mobile phones/laptop/desktop computers, compatible with all major operating systems including Android/iOS/Windows. They stay connected to the Internet and hence are exposed to hacking attempts.
Hardware wallets – Sold as tiny physical devices, hardware wallets are highly portable. They store crypto funds in an offline environment and are therefore considered more secure than software wallets.
As mentioned earlier, there are both local and global crypto exchanges available in Peru. Whereas the local ones normally offer BTC trading pairs involving PEN, enabling easy purchase of Bitcoin with the Peruvian Sole, the international platforms pair BTC with all prominent crypto and fiat currencies including USD, GBP, EUR, ETH, XRP, LTC and ADA. Regulated exchanges that make KYC formalities mandatory for using their platforms are considered safer than unregulated platforms. You must select an exchange only after comparing multiple trading platforms on criteria like their security features, fees, regulation, ease-of-usage and customer service.
Crypto exchanges in Peru are open to a wide variety of payment methods, including bank transfers and credit/debit cards. Some even accept prepaid cards and payments through third-party platforms like AstroPay, Neteller and Paypal. You must choose an appropriate payment method based on the level of convenience, speed and your budget. While buying Bitcoin with a credit card offers a higher level of convenience, they are costlier than other modes of payment, for instance, a bank transfer. Paypal on the other hand offers a good mix of convenience and cost.
Placing an order to buy BTC with a crypto exchange in Peru is a rather simple process. Select a trading pair that meets your needs, for example, BTC/PEN, BTC/USD, BTC/ETH or BTC/XRP, specify how much Bitcoin you’d like to purchase, followed by clicking on the ‘Buy’ button. You can either buy BTC instantly at the prevailing market rate, through a ‘Market Order’, or place a limit order for the ‘Buy’ trade to be executed later, once your specified target BTC price is met.
While frequent Bitcoin traders prefer maintaining a certain amount of BTC in their exchange wallets, long-term and occasional investors mostly transfer their purchased BTC to an external wallet. A hardware wallet offers the best security but is an expensive option. If you too would like to transfer BTC from the exchange wallet to your own, you can do so by using the withdrawal option on the exchange portal. Simply enter the amount of BTC you’d like to move, followed by your wallet address and you’re good to go.
It’s fairly common to buy Bitcoin with cash in Peru. Bitcoin ATMs are considered the easiest means to make BTC purchases with cash, but there are only 3 Bitcoin ATMs in the whole of Peru, and they are all installed in Lima, the country’s capital. You can buy Bitcoin with cash through some peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges that normally accept cash deposits and can hold your funds in an escrow account, before releasing them to the seller, upon successful receipt of BTC. Please ensure that you carry out cash purchases of BTC via reliable platforms, else you may face a major risk of losing your funds.
Peru is one of the many countries that have a neutral attitude towards cryptocurrencies. Although the country’s position with respect to cryptocurrency still remains undecided and there are no specific laws regulating the industry at the time of writing, it is completely legal to buy and sell Bitcoin in Peru.
We mentioned it already, but it is important to keep in mind that there are different payment methods available on different platforms, and so it is important to make sure that the platform supports a payment method that you prefer in advance. With that said, there are different options available, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, such as:
Buy Bitcoin with Cash — You can only buy BTC with cash if you have access to a Bitcoin ATM. While their number around the world is growing, they are typically only available in major cities.
Buy Bitcoin with a Credit Card — Credit cards are one of the fastest ways to deposit money, although they are also one of the most expensive ones.
Buy Bitcoin with bank transfer — Bank transfers are slow and can take up to several business days to deposit the money, but they are among the cheapest methods.
Buy Bitcoin with crypto — You can always buy BTC with some other cryptocurrency if you already have it, as BTC is paired against many different coins throughout the industry.
There are 3 essential tips which if followed diligently can help you make a secure, timely and cost-efficient purchase of Bitcoin in Peru. Let’s go over them below.
It’s extremely important to buy Bitcoin at the right time to make sure that you pay the least possible price for its purchase. A good way to do this is by studying the past price movements of BTC and accounting for the technical and fundamental factors that may potentially impact its value in future.
There will be certain costs like deposit fees, transaction fees, withdrawal fees, spreads and commissions attached to the platform used for buying Bitcoin in Peru. You must compare different exchanges and brokers based on such fees before signing up. Doing so can help minimise your overall cost of purchasing Bitcoin.
Regulated platforms are known to take all possible safety and security measures to safeguard the interests of investors/traders. In fact, it’s mandatory for them to do so, in order to retain their licenses. Hence, you should ideally use only regulated platforms to ensure complete security of your transactions and funds.
It’s normal for brokers and exchanges in Peru to accept all popular crypto and fiat currencies for Bitcoin purchase. However, some portals may also facilitate easy purchase of Bitcoin with Peruvian Sole (PEN). Please keep in mind, these platforms may still convert your PEN to a well-known fiat currency like USD or a stablecoin such as USDT, before making your funds available for trading purposes. Such conversion will bring the existing exchange rates into application. These charges are negligible, but they must nevertheless be accounted for before you begin your trading/investment journey.
Use a Bitcoin ATM to Buy BTC: There are 3 Bitcoin ATMs installed in Lima, the capital of Peru, from where you can easily buy BTC with cash.
Other Ways to Get Bitcoin: Bitcoin mining is an excellent alternative way to acquire Bitcoin in Peru but individual mining may not be so easy. Peruvians can also make indirect Bitcoin investments through Bitcoin ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) that are traded on the Lima Stock Exchange.
There are many reputed South American and international crypto platforms operating in Peru that make buying Bitcoin extremely easy for investors and traders.
Bitcoin is completely legal to buy in Peru, although the authorities there do have concerns about its uses in criminal activities. But, even so, the adoption and trading of BTC in Peru has been a growing trend over the years, and you can own it without the fear of doing something against the law, as long as you don’t purposefully use it for tax evasion, money laundering, and other similar criminal activities.
While Bitcoin adoption is advancing in Peru, there are still no places that accept it directly. Your best bet at this point in time would be to use it with online merchants that clearly specify that they accept BTC, or to simply use it for trading or investing. New use cases will likely come in time, but the adoption needs to take a few more steps to make that happen, so in this case, being patient and waiting while gradually accumulating coins, and through them — wealth, might be the best thing to do. There are 3 Bitcoin ATMs in Peru, and all 3 are installed in Lima, the country’s capital.