Why should I choose Bitonic?
Bitonic is not the only service in the Netherlands that offers bitcoin purchases through iDEAL. How do you know which service to use? We recommend making your decision based on the following criteria:
- Price. You can compare our prices to the European average on bitcoinaverage. In addition, you can compare various Dutch services by googling. Note that prices generally are not far apart; Bitonic is usually one of the cheapest services to use.
- Trustworthiness of the service provider. A Dutch service where you can use iDEAL to make your payment offers more reliability and security than a foreign exchange where you can only deposit money through (international) bank transfers. In addition, past experiences have shown that your funds are not always safe at an exchange (MtGox, Bitcoin24, Cryptsy, etc.). Some Dutch services add a transaction fee during the payment process, or adjust the bitcoin price while you are checking out, resulting in a different price for your bitcoins than you were initially offered. Bitonic offers an all-in price and will never change the amount you pay once you have started the payment process.
- Expertise. It is not very difficult to build a bitcoin exchange website. However, keep in mind that Bitcoin is a complex and new technological development where things can go wrong. It is comforting to know you will be helped by an accessible, knowledgeable, experienced party in the case of such an event.
- Speed. Bitcoin exchanges usually offer a better price than iDEAL services, typically around 1% cheaper. The main difference between an exchange and a service like Bitonic is that we offer instant bitcoin purchases for an agreed price. If you spot an opportunity to buy, you will not have to wait for your money to be transferred to an exchange; we are able to instantly send you your bitcoins from our own stock.
- Experiences. Some service providers urge customers to leave an evaluation on a review website, by offering compensation for doing so. We believe this does not result in reliable reviews. We do not encourage customers to place (positive) reviews; instead we believe experiences shared in the Bitcoin community (e.g. Bitcointalk, Reddit) on people's own initiative are more valuable. Bitonic has been known as a good and reliable service in the Bitcoin community for many years, but you don't need to take our word for it!