Hong Kong has always been a great market for buying and selling Bitcoin in every sense of the word. Next to a thriving Bitcoin community, Hong Kong now boasts a new cash in/out network across Cali-Mex restaurants, Bitcoin ATMS spread citywide, peer to peer platforms and a number of crypto exchanges that serve the local market.
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How To Buy Bitcoin Instantly In Hong Kong using FPS (Faster Payment System)
Steps on Buy Bitcoin In Hong Kong using FPS (Hong Kong Dollars):
Create XanPool Account + Verify Account.
Start by clicking the “Sign Up” button on the top right-hand corner to sign up for your XanPool account. And make sure you follow the process to verify your account with XanPool.
Start a Transaction
Navigate to the XanPool website where you can buy Bitcoins in Hong Kong and click on the Large “Xchange” button circled in Diagram 1.0
Next, click on the “Buy Crypto” tag displayed next to the red “1” displayed in diagram 2.0 to make sure you are buying cryptocurrency.
Select how much Bitcoin you want to buy in HKD, as displayed in diagram 2.0 next to the red “2”.
Verify again that you are selling in Hong Kong, as displayed in diagram 2.0 next to the red “3”. Take note that the code will be emailed to you shortly that you can use at any FPS accessible system or App;
You can also choose to use XLP to reduce the transaction fees as displayed in diagram 2.0 next to the red “4”.
Once you are satisfied with the details of the transaction click on the “Xchange” button on the right side of the page, as displayed in diagram 2.0 next to the red “5”.
Making Payment
Make sure you make the payment within three minutes in order to lock in the rate of the Bitcoins. If your payment gets sent after the three minutes are over, your HKD (Hong Kong Dollar) to Bitcoin (BTC) rate may change. Don’t worry it should not take longer than 3 minutes! All you have to do is:
Manually send the money to the address next to the red “1” by either entering it to the FPS ID as seen in the example above
Use Bitcoin ATMs
Another way to buy Bitcoin with cash in Hong Kong is by using Bitcoin ATMS. This too is a rather convenient way to buy BTC with HKD cash, but that convenience does come at a premium. Typically, buy rates have a 7% charge built into the exchange rate.
That said, it’s easy to find the nearest BTC ATM near you as they are all over Hong Kong, with most of them located in Central, Wan Chai and Causeway Bay for Island side, and Tsim Sha Tsui, Mong Kok for Kowloon side.
Before you go, you should have a BTC wallet address that’s ready for cash deposits. At the Bitcoin ATM, you can then scan the QR code of your BTC wallet address, which is where the machine will send the money to after you have inserted HKD cash. You can also do this without an existing Bitcoin wallet and have the machine print one for you, but this is less user-friendly.
Peer to Peer platforms
Still one of the more popular ways to buy and sell Bitcoin is through peer to peer platforms. There are many p2p platforms out there, but arguably the biggest one, in Hong Kong and around the world, is LocalBitcoin.
The LocalBitcoin acts as the custodian between peer to peer transactions. When you go to the platform, you’ll see other members “advertising” buy and sell rates, and deposit/withdrawal methods they are willing to support.
Cash trades used to be a big part of LocalBitcoins success, but they have had to cancel cash trades due to changing regulations in Finland – the home jurisdiction of the company. So most transactions are now done using bank transfers. For buying Bitcoin with cash in Hong Kong, you can still use the two methods as described above.
Crypto exchanges in Hong Kong
There a number of crypto exchanges that serve the local Hong Kong market with bigger names such as Binance – which accept credit card purchases – and HK specific crypto exchanges like Weever – which accept HKD bank transfers.
Most exchanges have KYC requirements which means you will need to send proof of ID before you can deposit or withdraw money to and from your account on the exchange. In a previous post, we made a list of all crypto exchanges that serve the Hong Kong market, excluding those that only accept credit cards (as this is the most expensive way to buy Bitcoin).