Frequently Asked Questions
With bittr, you can simply transfer fiat, using a regular bank transfer, from within your own online banking environment. Bittr will deposit the equivalent in bitcoin into your wallet within 30 minutes after it is received in our bank account (initial deposits take 1-6 hours)! If you'd like to get started, just hoop through our quick on-boarding process.
We'd like to know whom to reach out to in case something goes wrong, therefore you'll need to confirm your email address so we can reach out to you if needed :) You'll also need to proof that you own the address you're providing, by signing a message with your wallet. Once that's done you'll get your unique banking instructions and you can buy bitcoin!
There are many reasons to buy bitcoin through bittr. Think ahead and buy bitcoin for your children or grandchildren. Be healthy; drink a beer less and invest this saved money into bitcoin instead. How about pocket money you could give to your kids in bitcoin? Or why not just buy bitcoin to get (your first) experience with the money of the future?
Bittr is designed for people who value simplicity, privacy, low cost, and decentralization. The fundamental values of bitcoin! Bittr is simple because you just need a wallet and a bank account. Whenever you buy satoshis (the smallest unit of a bitcoin) with bittr, they will be transferred directly into your own wallet. We value your privacy as we don't ask you for any more personal information than strictly necessary. Due to our lean structure and focus on simplicity, we can offer fair and transparent fees (1.5% + 1CHF for transactions below 100CHF). Finally, we genuinely believe in decentralization and therefore think we should not provide custodial wallet services. Bittr storing your bitcoin would compromise this fundamental idea of bitcoin!
Satoshis, or 'sats' are the smallest units of a bitcoin. Of course, satoshis are named after the elusive creator of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. One whole bitcoin comprises one hundred million sats. Stacking sats is the action of buying additional bitcoin to add to your bitcoin stash. When bittr receives your EUR/CHF, bittr sends the satoshis (fractions of bitcoin) to your wallet. We never hold your bitcoin, which means there is no third-party risk. You hold your keys, you hold your bitcoin.
At Bittr, we believe in providing you with the freedom to buy bitcoin whenever you want without being charged any subscription fees. To cover the cost of running our services, we charge a small 1.5% fee from your EUR/CHF deposit, as well as a EUR/CHF 1,00 surcharge for transactions below EUR/CHF 100 to cover increased banking costs. Additionally, we deduct the lowest possible bitcoin mining fee from your deposit, ensuring that every satoshi in your purchase counts. However, please note that using the lowest possible mining fee may sometimes result in longer transaction confirmation times. If you're in a hurry to receive your bitcoin, Bittr may not be the best option for you.
Bittr is compatible with bitcoin wallets which allow you to sign a message. If you don't have a bitcoin wallet, you may find what bitcoin wallet suits your needs best on the bitcoin website or check out our wallet tutorials to see how different wallets work with bittr. We recommend using a hardware wallet to safely store your satoshis for the long-term. Wallets including this functionality are Trezor, Ledger (via Electrum), BitBox and Coldcard. Through our wallet tutorials you can find step-by-step guides for the signing process with each wallet.
Bittr supports almost every bank in Europe, as long as the transfer is coming from your own personal bank account and is issued in Euro (for our EUR IBAN) or CHF (for our CHF IBAN). Payments in other currencies are automatically reverted by our bank (and may cause additional fees), leading to significant delays to your payment. Please do not send EUR to our CHF account or vice versa.
Our bank account is not connected to the SWIFT network, meaning we are unable to receive SWIFT payments. If you accidentally send a payment this way, the funds will not reach us. You will need to contact your bank directly to retrieve your money, as we do not have access to or control over SWIFT transactions.
Unfortunately, it is only possible to use a personal bank account due to our AML/KYC compliance requirements. We have built bittr to be a very consumer friendly service in order to conveniently buy bitcoin and have adjusted our business and legal processes accordingly. It is not possible to use a corporate bank account to buy bitcoin with bittr.
Yes. If you would like to buy bitcoin to the same bitcoin address as the one you've used initially, you may use the same deposit code for a new bank transfer.
We'll do our best to match your payment manually. Please contact support@getbittr.com with the following details: your full name, the IBAN you sent the transfer from, and your bittr deposit code. This helps us identify and match your payment as quickly as possible.
If you did not set up the order at bittr yourself, someone is probably trying to scam you. Do not send any money, it will be lost. more information, read How Scammers Misuse Real Companies to Steal Your Money
For transactions below EUR/CHF 100, a fixed fee of EUR/CHF 1,00 will be applied to cover the costs of a bank transaction. The maximum amount of fiat you can exchange via bittr is 999CHF (or euro equivalent) per 30 days.
The maximum amount you can exchange without a registration is 999 CHF (or euro equivalent) per rolling 30-day period. For full information read What does the 30-day limit at Bittr mean?
Bittr Whales is for anyone who wants to buy more than 999 CHF (or euro equivalent) worth of bitcoin per 30 days. There's no need to sign up in advance, just send your transfer as usual. As soon as you exceed the limit, you'll automatically receive an email that lets you join Bittr Whales. For full information read Bittr Whales: Stack sats without limits
If your total transfers exceed 999 CHF (or euro equivalent) within a 30-day period, your payment will be paused and you'll receive an email with two options: (1) have the funds returned to your bank account, or (2) complete a Whales verification to unlock higher limits. Please note that regardless of which option you choose, you will need to complete the Whales verification in order to continue using bittr in the future. This is required by Swiss regulatory guidelines.
Bittr is designed in order to buy bitcoin conveniently, so you can easily buy bitcoin and receive the bitcoin straight to your own wallet. We do not provide a service to convert bitcoin back into fiat currency.
No, unfortunately it is not possible to change the bitcoin address linked to your deposit code after signing up. As there are no credentials to login with bittr, we have no way to be sure that it's actually you, who would like to change the address. This would open up a security issue as people with malicious intents might convince the bittr customer support team to change your address while nothing has changed at the your end (i.e. changing the description of the bank transfer). To securely change your address, create a new order to obtain a new deposit code and change the description of your bank transfer.
Never use bittr when you urgently need to send bitcoin somewhere. Only use bittr when confirmation time is not an issue. Please be advised that due to bitcoin's decentralized nature, a mining fee is necessary to incentivize the bitcoin miners to safeguard the network. Bittr broadcasts bitcoin transactions with relatively low mining fees. The more congested the bitcoin network gets, the longer it will take for bittr transactions to confirm. However, our transactions are not broadcasted as a single transaction. Instead, we will always be spending the (unconfirmed) change from the previous bittr transaction. Because of this, all unconfirmed bittr transactions are stacked upon each other, improving the likelihood of them being confirmed all at once. The more unconfirmed transactions being stacked upon each other, the more interesting they become for the miners to include them all (accumulating mining fees). In the unlikely event transactions do not confirm in reasonable time, we can always send the remaining change with a high transaction fee to ourselves, this technique will ensure your transaction will always be confirmed at some point and never gets "stuck"! This method is also known as Child Pays for Parent (CPFP).
Unlike regular bitcoin exchanges, you do not know the market price of the bitcoin you are about to purchase due to the time between your bank executing the bank transfer and the moment bittr receives your money. Your deposit is always converted in bitcoin the same day it is received in our bank account. Depending on your bank and its connection to bittr's bank, this may take 0-3 business day(s).
Even SEPA Instant transfers, which are usually credited within seconds, can occasionally take longer due to processing delays on the banking side. This is outside of our control. Rest assured: as soon as your funds arrive in our account, they are converted to bitcoin and sent to your wallet automatically. You don't need to take any action.
Right now we are focussing on setting up the most simplistic way of buying bitcoin, right through your own online banking environment, always managing your own wallet (private keys). We will never add support for any cryptocurrency other than bitcoin as we don't see any other cryptocurrency meet the criteria as a scarce digital good worth saving in the long-term. If you have further ideas how we can improve bittr, do let us know!
Bittr was founded by Ruben Waterman, student in the MSc degree in Digital Currency at the University of Nicosia. The idea of bittr was born during a discussion in one of the classes, where we thought it would be great to have a service where one could easily buy bitcoin, without manual intervention. We were convinced that this should exist in Europe, sooner rather than later and that's why Ruben embarked on this adventure. If you're interested in knowing more, you can read the blog article The Bittr Story.
You may use the contact form, or reach out to us via email: hello@getbittr.com. You can also join our bittr community on Telegram to hang out with fellow bitcoiners and help each other!
There is no automated way yet to incorporate your service with bittr. If you are interested in this, please send an email to developers@getbittr.com
Though this would technically be feasible, it highly contradicts what bitcoin stands for: decentralization! We therefore believe we should not offer this to our customers, but if you need help setting up a bitcoin wallet, we wrote a blog post to help you get started. If you still have questions, just reach out to us via hello@getbittr.com and we will try to help you out as soon as possible! You can also join our bittr community on Telegram to ask for suggestions from other bittr users!