How To Buy Ripple (XRP) in Australia

Alright, so you want to buy and trade some Ripple (aka XRP). First things first, a quick crash course on buying crypto in Australia.

Cryptocurrencies are bought through exchanges. Once you’ve signed up with one, you can log in, deposit money (preferably AUD) into your account.

And then you can use that money to buy and trade cryptocurrencies like XRP on the crypto exchange. Our favourite Australian crypto exchange is Swyftx, it’s easy to sign up and they have 70+ coins available for you to purchase (including Ripple).

How To Buy Ripple in Australia

1. Register for an account with Swyftx.
2. Enable 2FA (2-factor authentication).
3. Verify your account.
4. Deposit AUD into your account
5. Click the “Trade” link
6. Search for “Ripple” and click on “Buy”.
7. Enter the amount AUD you want to trade for XRP, or how much XRP you want to buy.
8. Review the details.
9. Click “Buy XRP”

How To Get Started With Swyftx

1. Setup Your Account

As mentioned above, Swyftx is our go-to for trading cryptocurrencies in Australia, definitely if you’re starting out. It’s the most trustworthy exchange available and it makes trading buying, selling and switching coins incredibly easy.

After creating your account the first thing you’ll want to do is SETUP MFA (2-factor authentication, adds an extra step for logging in to your account, very easy to setup), you can find this on your Profile page under “Security”.

2. Verify Your Account

Before you do anything on Swyftx you’ll have to verify your account. It has the fastest verification process we’ve tested so it won’t take long.

Click in the left navigation bar on “Profile” then the “Verification” tab

You’ll have to verify your email, mobile number and identity to begin trading.

You will then have to fill in all of your personal information including documents, don’t be alarmed uploading this information, every exchange requires it. It’s to ensure your safety and make everyone on the platform accountable.

3. Deposit AUD

You’ll first need to deposit AUD on the platform so you can buy an sell cryptocurrency. You can also deposit Bitcoin straight into the platform if you already have some and would prefer trading with that.

Click the left navigation on Deposit AUD

You can then either choose BPAY or PayID to Deposit AUD on the platform.

4. Buy Coins

Once your account is verified and you’ve added AUD or BTC you can start buying and selling cryptocurrency.

Go to Trade

This page lists all the coins that Swyftx has available (which is a lot). You can simply click on any of the cryptocurrencies in the left section under “Assets” or search for your desired cryptocurrency.

Once you’ve decided what you want to buy you can indicate how much AUD you want to buy of each coin.

Easy as that! You now have bought some cryptocurrency. We highly recommend moving your cryptocurrency to a hardware wallet if you are planning on holding it for a while. If you are planning on day trading, or trading fairly regularly we suggest keeping it on the Swyftx platform.

Ripple Price AUD

Find the XRP AUD price below:

Where To Buy Ripple

We highly suggest using Swyftx to buy and sell Cryptocurrency. We’ve done a comparison of the top 10 exchanges in the world for Australians to use and Swyftx clearly deserves the top spot.

View our full review of the best crypto exchange in Australia.

Swyftx Exchange

Swyftx is by far our most recommended exchange for Australians. They have an easy to use platform and an online wallet that makes trading simple for new users. They have a strong sense of community and are constantly posting updates and adding new coins to their portfolio. On top of this they have low fees and are upfront about any transaction fees they do charge whereas some exchanges charge much more in spreads. This is the most trusted exchange in Australia and arguably one of the best exchanges globally.

What is Ripple?

The name “Ripple” serves two purposes: it is the name of the payment network and the name of the digital currency (XRP) that is transferred within the payment network. One of the major goals of Ripple is to create an open-source platform that can be easily distributed. It will primarily be focused on Ripple’s payment system, which is still in beta testing.

What Are Their Future Goals?

One of the major goals for the platform, according to the team at Ripple, is to give people the opportunity to break free from any walled garden, whatsoever. This is mainly in direct relation to financial institutions that typically control the value stores of society.

Institutions include banks, credit card companies, PayPal, and other similar branched organizations in the financial sector; any place that easily and commonly restricts fees, and charges for the exchange of currencies or has processing delays. Many of these institutions, like PayPal, will merely freeze accounts whenever they feel like it.

Ripple has a goal of building a platform based on a decentralized, digital currency approach. They already recognize the importance that Bitcoin brought to the world. Their next step is to do for money, what the Internet did for the world and information exchange.

Who Created Ripple?

OpenCoin is the company behind the massive cryptocurrency giant that is Ripple. Ripple is one of the top five cryptocurrencies in the world, falling just between Ethereum at second and Litecoin at fourth. The team at OpenCoin sees a significant issue with the current state of the industry. For example, they believe the industry as a whole needs to do a better job of keeping money flowing more freely.

There is a company blog written by the Ripple team, which gives a brief history of money and its transportability and talks about the overwhelming frustration that ensues because banks and other financial institutions control the flow of money. At any time, any of these organizations can easily halt a transfer or put it for review, extending the time that money is left sitting stagnate. These delays significantly affect the success of a company or individual. And in a world where seconds can cost millions, entities cannot afford to have their money tied up with a bank or other financial institution.

Brad Garlinghouse is the current CEO of Ripple, while David Schwartz is the CTO. Jed McCaleb was the primary guide for the company when it comes to cryptocurrency and all forms of digital currency. He worked on Mt. Gox, one of the first and most popular crypto exchanges. Later on, he left Ripple to focus on other crypto projects.

There are other programmers and developers on team Ripple as well, most of whom have a background in working Bitcoin. OpenCoin has received backing, funding as well as support from Andreessen Horowitz, FF Angel IV, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Vast Ventures, Santander, UBS, and the company Bitcoin Opportunity Fund.

It’s important to note as well, OpenCoin has no affiliation with OpenCoin.org. They are developing their open-source version of another electronic cash system previously developed by David Chaum.

Who Is It For?

Ripple is designed for anyone who is already in the crypto-space. Specifically, Ripple is being developed to benefit Bitcoin users. In no way does Ripple consider themselves a competitor to Bitcoin. Instead, they see themselves as a new platform that will complement the original digital currency. They even have a page dedicated to Bitcoin users called Ripple for Bitcoiners.

The Ripple network, RippleNet, gives the user a seamless transfer of any currency. It doesn’t matter if the currency is yen, euros, pounds, dollars, or Bitcoins – Ripple is a one-source system for exchanging and transferring these different currencies.

The platform is also designed for not only individuals but banks, businesses, and larger entities as well. They have created the platform to provide simple, reliable, and on-demand cross-border payments. Payment providers will also appreciate Ripple as it has a lower foreign exchange cost than any other organization and offers much faster payment settlements.

Ripple’s Pros and Cons

The open-source technology is already well-established, worldwide, and built on the popular blockchain technology.

The company is stable; it has had a proven track record for over five years of user-friendly technology that is ready for any financial institution or enterprise to use.

The founder of TechCrunch Michael Arrington has just launched a USD 100million cryptocurrency project with XRP. XRP is scalable; they can handle consistent 1,500 transactions a second, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. They can handle the same throughput as VISA, the world’s largest payment processor in history.

One of the cons of Ripple is that many consider the company to be centralized in many ways (unlike other altcoins like Bitcoin Cash, Monero, IOTA, NEO, Litecoin, and Verge). Also, in many ways, Ripple is not entirely transparent about their XRP market quarterly published reports that show exactly how much of their tokens were released by Ripple Labs and sold on the open market. The final issue is that some institutions have questioned the purpose of the XRP token, they love the idea behind Ripple but don’t see the coin itself as useful.

Buying Ripple Using Different Payment Methods

Bank Transfer

Currency exchanges allow for effortless bank transfers on your XRP buy orders. You can use local Australian exchanges like Swyftx, Independent Reserve, and CoinSpot. Simply register for an account, verify your identity, and link your bank account.

Bank transfers typically take less than 6 business hours to complete and incur zero deposit fees. SEPA bank transfers might be a cheaper option if you’re a European trader because of the lower fees. This option is available on Coinmama and eToro.

BPAY, Osko, POLi, and PayID

Although buying XRP via bank transfer is relatively fast, there are some (almost) instantaneous payment methods you can choose from if you’re willing to pay a small fee for these trades. Some online payment services popular with traders are Osko, BPAY, POLi, and PayID.

Most of these options are available on Australian asset exchanges but we recommend using Swyftx or CoinSpot because they’re trustworthy and their customer support teams are very responsive to user queries.

Moreover, Swyftx has zero deposit fees on both crypto and fiat currency deposits (below $100,000 Australian Dollars).

Credit Card and Debit Card

Card payments are becoming an increasingly popular method for crypto trading because they’re quick and convenient. Local Australian exchanges, however, still don’t offer support for these payments.

Instead, if you’re living in Australia, you can use international exchanges like Coinbase and Coinmama that are known to be card-friendly. Convenience doesn’t come for free, so get ready to pay some extra trading fees to deposit funds to your account.

Coinbase only allows customers to pay with their Visa or Mastercard debit card. Trades incur a fixed 3.99% fee, plus a weekly limit of $7,500. Coinmama charges even more, i.e. 5% per transaction because it locks the crypto price at the moment you decide to place an order.

OTC

If you want to buy/sell a small amount of Ripple, regular trading platforms will do the trick. However, if you’re an institutional trader who needs to deposit a large sum of money (more than $100,000) to place a big crypto order, you’ll be safer using an OTC (Over the Counter) desk.

There are some platforms like Circle, ItBit, and Genesis that are designed especially for OTC trading. Two global high-volume exchanges with high market cap, Binance and Kraken have their own OTC desks with deep liquidity and high processing time.

PayPal

Finally, a less-popular method of investing in XRP is to use your PayPal account if you have one. This payment service incurs higher fees than other services and is, therefore, less practical for most traders.

Those of you who have some money left on their PayPal balance can link their account to the bank account that you have previously connected with a cryptocurrency exchange. This way, you can make a regular bank transfer and still use PayPal money.

How to Store Your Ripple

When you buy digital assets, you need a dependable digital wallet to keep your private key safe. You need this key which is simply an encrypted address to access your crypto balance.

Right now, cloud-based wallets seem to be the most popular ones because you don’t have to download them to your device. Most exchanges provide their own web wallets so you can use one platform for both trading and storing currencies.

You can also download a software wallet as long as you’re careful not to expose your device to malware and potential hacking attacks.

A third option would be to purchase a hardware wallet such as Ledger Wallet Nano S. This device looks like a USB stick. It’s portable, integrates state-of-the-art technology, and keeps your private key offline. If you ever lose this wallet, you can use the recovery phrase to reclaim your coins.

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