How to Buy Bitcoin With Venmo in 2024?

You can buy Bitcoin with Venmo directly from the Venmo platform. Alternatively, you can go to a P2P crypto marketplace and find a Bitcoin seller that accepts Venmo. However, you’re likely to get a much worse deal on a P2P marketplace compared to buying Bitcoin from Venmo directly.

As you may know, Venmo is owned by PayPal, which made waves in the cryptocurrency community in 2020 when it announced it would allow users to buy and sell cryptocurrency directly on its platform. In April 2021, PayPal announced that it would also offer cryptocurrency buying and selling on Venmo.

So, the easiest way to buy Bitcoin with Venmo is simply to buy it directly on the Venmo platform. This is a very safe way of purchasing cryptocurrency, as Venmo and PayPal’s crypto features are handled by Paxos, which is one of the most reputable companies in the cryptocurrency industry.

Buying Bitcoin on Venmo is easy

You can buy Bitcoin on Venmo using your Venmo balance, bank account or debit card. Currently, Venmo doesn’t support credit cards as a payment method for buying Bitcoin.

The process of buying Bitcoin on Venmo is very straightforward. In fact, you can do it in 5 simple steps:

1. In your Venmo app, select the “Crypto” tab located at the bottom at the menu.
2. A list of cryptocurrencies available for purchase on Venmo will appear. Select Bitcoin.
3. Tap “Buy”, and enter how much you want to spend on Bitcoin.
4. Review the current Bitcoin exchange rate and any applicable fees.
5. If you are satisfied with the conditions of the purchase, tap “Buy”.

After this, you should have Bitcoin in your Venmo account almost instantly.

Since April 2023, users can send cryptocurrencies bought on Venmo to external cryptocurrency wallets. Previously, users were only able to buy and sell crypto within the Venmo app itself, but there was no way to withdraw coins.

What are the fees to buy Bitcoin on Venmo?

If you’re using the Venmo platform to buy Bitcoin, you won’t be directly paying a transaction fee. However, Venmo does charge a spread of about 0.50%, which is, in practice, the same as a fee for the end user.

A 0.50% for purchasing cryptocurrency with fiat currency is certainly not an exorbitant fee, but there are cheaper alternatives available to investors if you want to be as efficient with your money as possible.

For example, if you deposit USD from your bank account to the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange and use it to buy BTC using the BTC/USD pair, the fee is only 0.16% if you use a limit order, or 0.26% if you use a market order.

Alternative ways of buying Bitcoin with Venmo

There are some reasons why you might not want to buy Bitcoin on the Venmo platform, even though you want to pay with Venmo.

For one, there are limits on how much cryptocurrency Venmo users can purchase. For one week, the limit is set at $20,000. However, there is a more restrictive limit on a yearly basis, as users are limited to purchasing $50,000 worth of crypto in a 12-month period. While this shouldn’t cause any issues for the average cryptocurrency investors, Venmo is not the best choice for those looking to invest large amounts of money.

Still, there are no great options for those who are looking to buy large amounts of Bitcoin using Venmo without using the Venmo platform. Your only choice for this are peer-to-peer cryptocurrency trading platforms, which are less convenient to use than standard cryptocurrency exchanges and usually end up being more expensive due to the premiums charged by Bitcoin sellers. 

If you’re still interested in buying Bitcoin with Venmo without using Venmo’s cryptocurrency buying and selling functionality, here are some examples of P2P crypto trading platforms where sellers can accept Venmo.

1. Paxful

Paxful is one of the most popular P2P cryptocurrency marketplaces, and users who sell Bitcoin on it can accept a very wide range of payment methods, including Venmo. On Paxful, you can arrange a deal to buy Bitcoin directly with another seller, as long as you agree on the price and payment method.

The first problem of buying Bitcoin with Venmo on Paxful is that there doesn’t appear to be a lot of sellers that are looking to accept Venmo. In fact, we haven’t been able to find a single active offers at the time of writing this article. The second problem of buying Bitcoin on Paxful are the premiums charged by Bitcoin sellers. 

When it comes to payment methods such as TransferWise, Payeer, AirTM and Neteller, deal we were able to find would still have you paying a hefty premium of just under 5% on your Bitcoin purchase. You can expect to pay a similar premium (or even higher) if you find a seller accepting Venmo.

To be fair, this is not meant as a slight against Paxos, as you’ll be paying a substantial premium on Bitcoin on all P2P cryptocurrency marketplaces if you’re looking to pay with Venmo or other digital wallets.

2. BitValve

BitValve is another P2P crypto marketplace where sellers can accept payments with Venmo. Practically speaking, BitValve functions similarly to Paxful, as users can directly arrange deals to buy or sell Bitcoin with each other.

However, the deals we have been able to find at the time of writing this article are frankly terrible. Premiums charged by sellers accepting Venmo on BitValve range from 24% to a staggering 65%, and the most a seller was willing to sell was $500 worth of BTC. We should reiterate that this is not meant as a criticism of BitValve as such, as the prices are determined by the sellers and not BitValve themselves.

3. LocalCoinSwap

The third option to buy Bitcoin with Venmo outside of the Venmo platform itself is to use LocalCoinSwap, a crypto P2P marketplace with a strong focus on suer privacy. 

On LocalCoinSwap, we have actually been able to find Bitcoin sellers that accept Venmo and actually charge a reasonable premium of about 1%. However, the users with such offers don’t have any completed trades on the platform, which increases the likelihood that they could be trying to run some kind of scam (this is always a risk with peer-to-peer crypto trading).

Meanwhile, the sellers on LocalCoinSwap who have a lot of positive feedback and a large number of completed trades are charging very significant premiums on Bitcoin purchases with Venmo, ranging from 15% to a whopping 68%.

The bottom line

If you want to use Venmo to buy Bitcoin, we recommend doing so through the Venmo platform itself. The alternative option is to use a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency marketplace and find a Bitcoin seller that accepts Venmo as a payment option. However, you will most likely be getting an extremely bad deal, as sellers accepting Venmo usually charge large premiums on the Bitcoin they are selling.

To learn more about the best ways to buy Bitcoin, make sure to check out our ultimate guide to investing in Bitcoin.