Buying Peer-to-Peer: Bisq, HodlHodl & Co.

Peer-to-peer means you buy bitcoin directly from another person, not from an exchange. Platforms such as Bisq, HodlHodl, RoboSats or Peach bring buyers and sellers together and secure the trade without holding your money or your bitcoin themselves. In return you usually pay a premium of a few percent over the exchange price and carry more responsibility yourself. The bitcoin land directly in your wallet.

What a P2P platform actually does

On an exchange you buy from the exchange. It holds euros and bitcoin, and you entrust it with both. With P2P you buy from a person. The money flows directly from your bank account to theirs, the bitcoin directly from their wallet to yours.

The problem: someone has to deliver first. If you transfer the money and the seller sends nothing, your money is gone. If the seller sends and you don't pay, their bitcoin are gone. Every P2P platform solves this trust problem in its own way:

• Escrow with multisig: the seller locks the bitcoin into a shared address in advance. They can only be released when enough parties sign.
• Security deposit: both sides put up money that the cheater loses.
• Reputation: the seller has built a reputation through many trades or committed funds that they won't throw away for 100 €.

How multisig works in general is explained in Multisig wallet: more security through multiple keys. For P2P trading this is enough: no single party can take the locked bitcoin alone.

The platforms at a glance

The names are examples, not recommendations. Platforms change fees and limits from time to time, so check them on the platform itself before trading.

Bisq: decentralised and the most thorough

Bisq has been in use since 2016, developed from 2014 under the name Bitsquare. It is not a company with a server but an open-source program you install on your computer. It connects to other users over Tor. There is no account with a name or email.

In classic Bisq, now often called Bisq 1, a trade works like this: buyer and seller pay together into a 2-of-2 multisig address. The seller puts in the bitcoin being sold plus a security deposit, the buyer only their deposit. Only when the seller confirms receipt of your payment do both sign, and you get the bitcoin and your deposit back. Whoever cheats loses their deposit. In a dispute a mediator first proposes a solution, and if one side doesn't agree, an arbitrator decides.

The catch: you need bitcoin already for the deposit. If you have none, you can't get in this way. There is also protection against stolen bank accounts: for payment methods with chargeback risk, new payment accounts can initially only buy small amounts. The limit rises once your account has traded successfully and been confirmed by others. Bisq calls this account signing.

Bisq Easy: the way in without bitcoin of your own

For exactly this chicken-and-egg problem there is Bisq 2 with the trade protocol Bisq Easy. You need no deposit and no bitcoin, only an address from your wallet. Instead of multisig, the seller's reputation secures the trade. The seller builds this reputation by permanently locking up or destroying money in Bisq. That makes cheating more expensive for them than the gain.

Bisq Easy charges no trading fee but limits the amount per trade. According to the Bisq wiki the limits are between 6 and 600 US dollars. The wiki itself says this model is suited to small amounts. For a first purchase that is just right.

HodlHodl: escrow in the browser

HodlHodl is a website. You create an account with a username, no ID. Trades use a 2-of-3 multisig escrow with the keys of buyer, seller and HodlHodl, as in the math card above. Your keys are created in the browser and protected by a payment password you choose yourself. HodlHodl therefore cannot move the bitcoin alone.

The seller pays the bitcoin into escrow. Only when they are confirmed there do you transfer the money. Once the seller confirms receiving the payment, they release the bitcoin to your address with their payment password. In a dispute HodlHodl reviews the evidence and signs with the side that is right. As a buyer you need no bitcoin upfront. The fee is shown on the site.

RoboSats and Peach

RoboSats is reachable only over Tor and trades over the Lightning Network. Instead of an account you get a random "robot" with a token that you must write down. Both sides put up a bond, 3 % by default, held as a lock in Lightning. If all goes well it is released again without any money leaving. The fee is 0.2 % in total. You need a Lightning wallet, as Lightning Network explained shows.

Peach is a Swiss app and the most convenient option, but also the most expensive. Since September 2026 it has been under review by the Swiss authorities, and Peach has restricted its terms. What that means in practice is covered in Buying bitcoin without KYC.

A trade step by step

The process is similar on all platforms. Here is the example of a purchase with escrow by SEPA bank transfer:

1. Have your wallet ready. Set up your own wallet and write down the seed phrase before you buy. How, is shown in Setting up a bitcoin wallet.
2. Software only from the official site. Bisq from bisq.network, HodlHodl at hodlhodl.com, RoboSats via the address in the official documentation. Avoid ad links and app-store copies.
3. Choose an offer. Look at the premium, payment method, time limit and the seller's reputation: number of trades, account age, ratings.
4. Start the trade and wait for escrow. On HodlHodl the seller funds it, on Bisq 1 you both fund it. Only transfer money once the platform shows the deposit as confirmed.
5. Pay exactly as agreed. From your own account, with the exact amount and only to the bank details given in the platform chat. Use the payment reference the platform specifies. Leave out words like "bitcoin" unless asked otherwise.
6. Report the payment. Click "payment sent" on the platform. That starts the seller's time limit.
7. Wait for release. As soon as the money reaches the seller, they release the bitcoin. A normal bank transfer can take one to two banking days, an instant transfer minutes.
8. Check receipt and save records. The trade is done only when the bitcoin sit confirmed in your wallet. Save date, amount, price and chat. You need them for tax.

What P2P costs: premium rather than fee

The biggest cost is rarely the platform fee but the premium. Every seller sets their own price, usually as a percentage above the exchange price. They carry effort and risk, and buyers pay for privacy.

As a rough guide, as of November 2026:

• SEPA transfer, common amounts: often around 3 to 7 % above the exchange price.
• Very small amounts, cash or rare payment methods: often more, even above 10 %.
• On top: the platform fee (from zero to a few percent) and, for escrow on the blockchain, a network fee.

With the calculator you can check how many sats an offer gets you at the current price:

Payment methods and their risk

Not every payment is equally safe. What matters is whether the payer can claw the money back later. Bitcoin transactions cannot be reversed. If the other side has a chargeback, the seller is at a disadvantage, and that makes P2P with such payment methods expensive or impossible.

Cash by mail: private but tricky

Bisq offers "Cash by Mail": you send banknotes in a letter, and the seller releases the bitcoin once it arrives. No bank involved. But in a dispute nobody can prove what was in the envelope. If the seller claims money is missing, it's one word against another. Anyone who uses it anyway films the packing without cuts and only sends amounts they can afford to lose.

Fraud and chargebacks: what to watch for

The most common scams on P2P platforms have one thing in common: they pull you out of the protected process.

• Trading outside the platform. "Let's skip the fee, message me directly." Then there is no escrow and no dispute.
• Fake payment confirmation. A screenshot is not money received. As a buyer this rarely affects you, as a later seller all the more.
• Triangulation fraud. A scammer gets a deceived third party to pay the seller. If that person's bank claws the money back, the seller has neither money nor bitcoin. That's why you always pay from your own account, in your own name.
• Fake software. Copied sites or apps with similar names steal wallet data or bitcoin.

More scams around bitcoin are covered in Spotting bitcoin scams.

Is buying P2P allowed?

Yes. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland you may buy bitcoin from other private individuals as a private person. Anyone who regularly sells to strangers to make a profit, on the other hand, runs a business and needs a licence. What that means exactly for buyers and sellers, how ID requirements and anti-money-laundering law apply and which limits hold is covered in detail in Buying bitcoin without KYC.

For tax purposes a P2P purchase is a purchase like any other. For Germany, Bitcoin taxes in Germany explains why the records from step 8 matter.

Which platform suits you?

• You have no bitcoin yet and want to start small: Bisq Easy. No account, no deposit, no trading fee.
• You want to buy in the browser, including medium amounts: HodlHodl with 2-of-3 escrow.
• You already use Lightning and want small amounts fast: RoboSats.
• You already have bitcoin and want the protection of deposits on both sides: Bisq 1.

For larger amounts P2P is tedious: limits per trade, several sellers, several transfers. Many therefore combine a low-cost savings plan in an app with occasional P2P purchases for privacy.