As cryptocurrencies gain more ground and are more widely talked about now due to their unrealistic gains, people may be thinking that you’d need a huge chunk of money to start with. That, my friend, is where you’re wrong. And here’s how to start trading cryptocurrencies with a minimum amount of PhP 1000.00 (~USD 20.00).
So there are 3 things we need to be mindful of:
- Exchange rate
- Transaction fee/transferring fee
- Minimum trade orders (in the trading platform) (most important)
I say that the 3rd one is the most important because if we are to successfully start trading, we need to be able to trade. And what I meant by that is that we need to have money MORE than the minimum order of the trading platform. With that in mind, let’s get started! I’ll be including sample computations of rough estimates of how much BTC you’d have by the end of this method.
1) Exchange rate
Exchange rates vary widely among apps as this is their primary source of income. The most common way to buy Bitcoin is coins.ph, although other companies offer this service such as Abra, buy bitcoin. ph, etc. Another way to get your hands on BTC is through peer-to-peer, however, you might have a hard time looking for someone willing to sell at such a low price (this however is the simplest and most efficient way).
| Rates (Php = 1BTC) | Cash-in fees | Your PhP1,000 after fees | |
| 655,791 | 0.00152488 BTC | ||
| Coins. ph | 709,029 | PHP 20.00 (thru 7-eleven) | 0.0014103795 BTC |
| Buybitcoin.ph | 782,749 | PhP 30.00 (thru cebuana lhuiller) | 0.0012392223 BTC |
| Abra | 666,244 | PhP 15.00 (1.5%, thru tambunting) | 0.0014784373 BTC |
With this, Abra has the cheapest, however looking for a team bunting pawnshop to cash in might be challenging.
2) Transaction Fees
It is known that transaction fees vary based on the pending transactions for the miners to place in the blockchain. The fewer the pending transactions, the cheaper sending your money to the exchange will be!
| Balance | Transaction Fees | Your PhP1,000 after fees | |
| 0.00152488 BTC | |||
| Coins. ph | 0.0014103795 BTC | 0.00044747 BTC (~ Php 300)
This varies from 200 – 2,000 |
0.0009629095 |
| Buy bitcoin. ph | 0.0012392223 BTC | none | 0.0012392223 BTC |
| Abra | 0.0014784373 BTC | 0.00044747 BTC (~ Php 300)
This varies from 200 – 2,000 |
0.0010309673 BTC |
I have set the transaction fee the same for coins. ph and Abra since both of them have no control over this. NOTE: if you’re going to send using coins.ph/abra, try and look for a time when the fees are this low.
Buy bitcoin. ph, however, has no transaction fee as the money you buy will be directly sent to the address you placed (which should be your wallet in your trading account). So whatever you have agreed upon on the payment, should be the amount to appear in your wallet.
I’d like to discuss convenience at this point. Among the three options, coins. ph is the easiest way to fund your account, however, it is also the most expensive (relatively in this example, might vary as exchange rates differ).
When buying through buy bitcoin.ph, you’d get the most of your money, but keep in mind that what I have experienced is that the time it takes from paying to receiving your BTC is around 36 hours. If you have time, you can choose this option.
3) Minimum trade orders
You now have money in your wallets to buy other cryptocurrencies with. In this section of the post, I’ll be showing you the minimum order required by the exchange to place an order. Should your money be below this order, you can’t buy or sell anything.
| Exchange | Minimum order (BTC) |
| Bittrex | 0.0005 BTC |
| Binance | 0.0001 BTC |
| Poloniex | 0.0001 BTC |
Since any of the ways shown above exceeded any of the minimum orders, you can start trading with your chosen platform!
Peer-to-Peer
I also want to share the P2P way of starting. This is the cheapest however tricky as you need to find someone willing to sell. I advise you to meet up with the seller to avoid being scammed.
So here, you’ll be buying cryptocurrencies from people, and the good thing here is that you’re not limited to bitcoins. You can buy Dogecoins which has low transaction fees when sending to your wallet.