Bisq — A P2P Exchange

Bisq is a decentralised exchange which allows Bitcoin traders to trade in and out of government money as well as other alternative crypto coins.

You may be interested in using Bisq if you are comfortable with more risk — (ha that rhymes!)

But on a more serious note, trading Bitcoins peer to peer is not for the faint hearted. The developers have set transaction limits on new accounts to minimise losses in case there is a transaction dispute.

Here are some pros of the Bisq exchange:

• Lower trading fees (0.2%)
• Much better privacy — all Internet traffic is routed through TOR, you send money directly to an individuals bank account (when buying bitcoins)
• No need to submit identity documents
• No need to wait for verification of identity

But there a few catches.

You should set up a new bank account

It’s strongly recommended to open a separate bank account exclusively for Bisq trades as there is a real risk the bank account can be closed. This can be done entirely online at some Australian banks websites.

To get bitcoins you first need to have bitcoins

To use Bisq at all you need to first have at least a little over 0.01 bitcoins as a security deposit. To have this amount in your Bisq wallet you need to buy a bit more to cover paying a mining/transaction fee which is currently around 0.000045 BTC (or 21 Australian cents).

A brief explanation of how to work out the cost of mining transaction fees:

You can see what the mining fees cost now by going here, change the Fees drop down box to BTC, scrolling down to the section titled “Which fee should I use?”, look at this text “For the median transaction size of 225 bytes, this results in a fee of X” and multiply X by the current BTC/AUD price (you can see this on Independent reserve in the header section)

Chargeback/fraud risk

There’s a chance you might have your bank account suspended, closed or investigated in case of a disputed transaction.

Dirty bitcoins risk

Using an exchange that doesn’t have identity checks means when buying bitcoins, there’s a chance you may receive bitcoins that were fraudulently acquired. If an investigation leads authorities to your name you may be required to return the stolen bitcoin to the original owner.

If you’re interested in learning more about Bisq, check out their FAQ!