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How to buy Bitcoin with Venmo

Demystify the world of digital currencies with a detailed guide to purchasing Bitcoin with Venmo and reviewing transaction fees, limits and security precautions….

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6 months ago

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Demystify the world of digital currencies with a detailed guide to purchasing Bitcoin with Venmo and reviewing transaction fees, limits and security precautions.

Venmo, a versatile financial application, provides a range of features, including peer-to-peer (P2P) money transfers and cryptocurrency transactions. Serving as a comprehensive financial tool, Venmo enables users to seamlessly handle transactions, including the option to participate in digital currencies like Bitcoin (BTC). The app is designed to simplify financial operations and assist users in navigating contemporary economic systems.

What is Venmo?

Venmo, a mobile payment service established in 2009, has been under PayPal’s ownership since 2013. It operates as a P2P platform for money transfers within the United States. The social payment app facilitates money exchanges between users and businesses. Additionally, it functions as a digital wallet that enables individuals to accumulate funds within their Venmo accounts for future expenses.

Venmo also extends its capabilities by integrating cryptocurrency transactions, enabling users to buy, sell and hold digital assets within the app. Following a similar initiative by its parent company, PayPal, this feature was introduced in April 2021. Venmo users in the U.S., excluding Hawaii, can engage with four cryptocurrencies: BTC, Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). In the future, Venmo has plans to incorporate the PayPal USD stablecoin (PYUSD).

Buy Bitcoin with Venmo

To purchase Bitcoin with Venmo, users can use their Venmo balance, bank account or debit card, among other payment methods. However, it’s important to recall that credit cards and Venmo Credit Cards cannot be used to complete these transactions. Moreover, users are restricted from making crypto purchases through Venmo. Users are limited to a weekly cap of $20,000 and a yearly cap of $50,000 in crypto acquisitions.

Since cryptocurrencies are digital currencies, buying them involves exchanging one currency for another. The exchange rate determines the amount of Bitcoin users receive in exchange for U.S. dollars. Keep in mind that cryptocurrency values are highly volatile and change frequently.

Steps to buying Bitcoin through Venmo

  • Open the Venmo app and navigate to the “Crypto” tab at the bottom of the menu.
  • Select “Bitcoin (BTC)” from the list of cryptocurrencies. The current exchange price of Bitcoin is also available on the page.
  • Click “Buy” at the bottom of the page.
  • Enter the dollar amount to buy in BTC and tap the “Review” button. This step confirms purchase details, such as bank account, exchange rate and transaction fee, before finalizing the transaction.
  • The app will provide a breakdown of the amount of Bitcoin to be purchased, along with any associated fees.
  • Once satisfied with the details, tap the “Buy” button to complete the Bitcoin purchase through Venmo.

After completing a purchase, crypto acquired through Venmo becomes irreversible. This implies that users have to sell their digital currencies to regain U.S. dollars. It’s also important to note that Venmo does not provide compensation to users for any losses caused by price fluctuations.

After successfully purchasing Bitcoin through the Venmo app, users can conveniently track its price fluctuations within the app itself. The app also provides historical price data for the selected cryptocurrency, including past transactions involving that digital asset.

Steps to track the current market price of Bitcoin in Venmo

In Venmo, the current price of Bitcoin can be tracked using following steps:

Venmo’s app is equipped to monitor cryptocurrency prices in real-time, with updates occurring every few seconds. By default, it uses a line graph to show price movements over a 24-hour period. The time frame for price changes can be switched to one week, one month, six months, a year or the entire lifespan of the cryptocurrency selected. Tapping on the timeline graph provides more specific values over time.

Venmo fees for purchasing Bitcoin

Acquiring cryptocurrencies through Venmo involves fees based on the purchase’s size, with transparent fee disclosure during transactions. These fees consist of the spread between the market price from Venmo’s trading service provider, Paxos, and the USD-to-crypto exchange rate, along with a transaction fee associated with buying crypto assets. Venmo discloses both rates during crypto transactions, with an estimated 0.50% spread, subject to market conditions.

It’s crucial to note that Venmo doesn’t detail the specific spread earned on each transaction. By utilizing Venmo’s crypto services, users agree to cover all relevant exchange rates, including the spread and the associated fees.

Additionally, if a linked bank account or debit card is used as the funding source for purchasing crypto assets, additional bank fees, such as overdraft charges, may be imposed. Venmo doesn’t bear responsibility for bank-imposed fees, so it’s important to understand a bank’s fee policies when using these funding sources for crypto transactions.

Who can buy Bitcoin with Venmo?

To buy Bitcoin with Venmo, the app needs to be accessed, and specific user criteria must be met:

  • Age requirement: Users must be at least 18 years old.
  • Location: Cryptocurrency services are accessible to users physically present within the U.S., except for Hawaii.
  • Payment methods: Either a Venmo balance, bank account or debit card is needed.
  • Unique cell phone number: Users need a unique U.S. cell phone number not associated with another Venmo account.

Anyone who fulfills these prerequisites is eligible to create a Venmo account and can proceed with acquiring Bitcoin. To access cryptocurrency transaction services on Venmo, a user’s identity must be verified. This verification process includes providing essential information such as a Social Security number or an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number. Furthermore, these services are exclusively accessible for personal Venmo profiles and are not supported for business or charity profiles.

Price Alerts in Venmo

To stay informed about Bitcoin market movements, Venmo’s Crypto Price Alerts can assist in monitoring and responding to crypto price fluctuations, assisting in making timely and informed decisions in this dynamic financial landscape. When activating crypto price alerts, push notifications will be sent when the chosen cryptocurrency’s price experiences a daily percentage change.

It’s important not to rely solely on them for cryptocurrency-related decisions. Crypto price alerts may experience delays or disruptions due to market conditions and data interruptions. Thus, verifying any information received through a price alert before making decisions is advisable.

To set up Bitcoin price alerts in Venmo:

  • Navigate to the “Crypto” tab.
  • Select “Bitcoin.”
  • Activate price alerts using the Price Alerts toggle.
  • Once activated, specify the desired percentage for price fluctuations, which can be adjusted as necessary.

If identity verification with Venmo is already complete and an account is configured for cryptocurrency activities, it’ll be possible to subscribe to price alerts while purchasing Bitcoin.

Security and safety measures in Venmo

Venmo employs data encryption technology to safeguard users from unauthorized transactions, ensuring user information is securely stored on protected servers. The mobile payment service also allows users to log out of their Venmo accounts on lost or stolen phones, set up personal identification numbers (PINs) for mobile applications, and enable two-factor authentication (2FA).

Despite Venmo’s security protocols, users should be aware of potential risks, including scams and fraud by cybercriminals. Although the source of these risks might not be attributed to the payment application itself, the resulting implications may directly impact Venmo users. It’s crucial never to share login details, use strong passwords, set accounts to private, and transact only with trusted individuals and businesses.

According to research findings, Venmo publicly reveals all peer-to-peer transactions by default, with the exception of the transaction amount, which could possibly disclose sensitive user information in certain instances. In 2018, the company reached an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission to address multiple privacy and security concerns related to this and other aspects, leading to corresponding setting adjustments. Nevertheless, Venmo remained under scrutiny for potentially exposing users to privacy vulnerabilities.

Drawbacks to buying Bitcoin with Venmo

Buying Bitcoin through Venmo presents certain drawbacks to consider. Firstly, Venmo’s Purchase Protection doesn’t extend to cryptocurrency purchases, leaving users vulnerable to losses stemming from cryptocurrency price fluctuations. While unauthorized activity is safeguarded, Bitcoin transactions on Venmo are irreversible, underscoring the need for thorough research and cautious decision-making.

Unlike traditional banks, Venmo’s Bitcoin and investment balances lack protection by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Securities Investor Protection Corporation

(SIPC) or any other public or private insurance. Consequently, funds held within the app are not protected as they would be in a bank account, making Venmo an insecure choice for storing substantial cryptocurrency holdings.

Additionally, any currency or asset acquired on Venmo remains limited to the platform, making it impossible to transfer crypto to other platforms or personal accounts. This limitation can be restrictive for those who prefer to hold their coins in digital wallets or explore different trading options.

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February Employment Situation

By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000…

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1 hour ago

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March 9, 2024

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By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert

The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000 average over the previous 12 months. The payroll data for January and December were revised down by a total of 167,000. The private sector added 223,000 new jobs, the largest gain since May of last year.

Temporary help services employment continues a steep decline after a sharp post-pandemic rise.

Average hours of work increased from 34.2 to 34.3. The increase, along with the 223,000 private employment increase led to a hefty increase in total hours of 5.6% at an annualized rate, also the largest increase since May of last year.

The establishment report, once again, beat “expectations;” the WSJ survey of economists was 198,000. Other than the downward revisions, mentioned above, another bit of negative news was a smallish increase in wage growth, from $34.52 to $34.57.

The household survey shows that the labor force increased 150,000, a drop in employment of 184,000 and an increase in the number of unemployed persons of 334,000. The labor force participation rate held steady at 62.5, the employment to population ratio decreased from 60.2 to 60.1 and the unemployment rate increased from 3.66 to 3.86. Remember that the unemployment rate is the number of unemployed relative to the labor force (the number employed plus the number unemployed). Consequently, the unemployment rate can go up if the number of unemployed rises holding fixed the labor force, or if the labor force shrinks holding the number unemployed unchanged. An increase in the unemployment rate is not necessarily a bad thing: it may reflect a strong labor market drawing “marginally attached” individuals from outside the labor force. Indeed, there was a 96,000 decline in those workers.

Earlier in the week, the BLS announced JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) data for January. There isn’t much to report here as the job openings changed little at 8.9 million, the number of hires and total separations were little changed at 5.7 million and 5.3 million, respectively.

As has been the case for the last couple of years, the number of job openings remains higher than the number of unemployed persons.

Also earlier in the week the BLS announced that productivity increased 3.2% in the 4th quarter with output rising 3.5% and hours of work rising 0.3%.

The bottom line is that the labor market continues its surprisingly (to some) strong performance, once again proving stronger than many had expected. This strength makes it difficult to justify any interest rate cuts soon, particularly given the recent inflation spike.

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Mortgage rates fall as labor market normalizes

Jobless claims show an expanding economy. We will only be in a recession once jobless claims exceed 323,000 on a four-week moving average.

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17 hours ago

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March 8, 2024

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Everyone was waiting to see if this week’s jobs report would send mortgage rates higher, which is what happened last month. Instead, the 10-year yield had a muted response after the headline number beat estimates, but we have negative job revisions from previous months. The Federal Reserve’s fear of wage growth spiraling out of control hasn’t materialized for over two years now and the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9%. For now, we can say the labor market isn’t tight anymore, but it’s also not breaking.

The key labor data line in this expansion is the weekly jobless claims report. Jobless claims show an expanding economy that has not lost jobs yet. We will only be in a recession once jobless claims exceed 323,000 on a four-week moving average.

From the Fed: In the week ended March 2, initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits were flat, at 217,000. The four-week moving average declined slightly by 750, to 212,250


Below is an explanation of how we got here with the labor market, which all started during COVID-19.

1. I wrote the COVID-19 recovery model on April 7, 2020, and retired it on Dec. 9, 2020. By that time, the upfront recovery phase was done, and I needed to model out when we would get the jobs lost back.

2. Early in the labor market recovery, when we saw weaker job reports, I doubled and tripled down on my assertion that job openings would get to 10 million in this recovery. Job openings rose as high as to 12 million and are currently over 9 million. Even with the massive miss on a job report in May 2021, I didn’t waver.

Currently, the jobs openings, quit percentage and hires data are below pre-COVID-19 levels, which means the labor market isn’t as tight as it once was, and this is why the employment cost index has been slowing data to move along the quits percentage.  

2-US_Job_Quits_Rate-1-2

3. I wrote that we should get back all the jobs lost to COVID-19 by September of 2022. At the time this would be a speedy labor market recovery, and it happened on schedule, too

Total employment data

4. This is the key one for right now: If COVID-19 hadn’t happened, we would have between 157 million and 159 million jobs today, which would have been in line with the job growth rate in February 2020. Today, we are at 157,808,000. This is important because job growth should be cooling down now. We are more in line with where the labor market should be when averaging 140K-165K monthly. So for now, the fact that we aren’t trending between 140K-165K means we still have a bit more recovery kick left before we get down to those levels. 




From BLS: Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 275,000 in February, and the unemployment rate increased to 3.9 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care, in government, in food services and drinking places, in social assistance, and in transportation and warehousing.

Here are the jobs that were created and lost in the previous month:

IMG_5092

In this jobs report, the unemployment rate for education levels looks like this:

  • Less than a high school diploma: 6.1%
  • High school graduate and no college: 4.2%
  • Some college or associate degree: 3.1%
  • Bachelor’s degree or higher: 2.2%
IMG_5093_320f22

Today’s report has continued the trend of the labor data beating my expectations, only because I am looking for the jobs data to slow down to a level of 140K-165K, which hasn’t happened yet. I wouldn’t categorize the labor market as being tight anymore because of the quits ratio and the hires data in the job openings report. This also shows itself in the employment cost index as well. These are key data lines for the Fed and the reason we are going to see three rate cuts this year.

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Inside The Most Ridiculous Jobs Report In History: Record 1.2 Million Immigrant Jobs Added In One Month

Inside The Most Ridiculous Jobs Report In History: Record 1.2 Million Immigrant Jobs Added In One Month

Last month we though that the January…

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17 hours ago

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March 8, 2024

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Inside The Most Ridiculous Jobs Report In History: Record 1.2 Million Immigrant Jobs Added In One Month

Last month we though that the January jobs report was the "most ridiculous in recent history" but, boy, were we wrong because this morning the Biden department of goalseeked propaganda (aka BLS) published the February jobs report, and holy crap was that something else. Even Goebbels would blush. 

What happened? Let's take a closer look.

On the surface, it was (almost) another blockbuster jobs report, certainly one which nobody expected, or rather just one bank out of 76 expected. Starting at the top, the BLS reported that in February the US unexpectedly added 275K jobs, with just one research analyst (from Dai-Ichi Research) expecting a higher number.

Some context: after last month's record 4-sigma beat, today's print was "only" 3 sigma higher than estimates. Needless to say, two multiple sigma beats in a row used to only happen in the USSR... and now in the US, apparently.

Before we go any further, a quick note on what last month we said was "the most ridiculous jobs report in recent history": it appears the BLS read our comments and decided to stop beclowing itself. It did that by slashing last month's ridiculous print by over a third, and revising what was originally reported as a massive 353K beat to just 229K,  a 124K revision, which was the biggest one-month negative revision in two years!

Of course, that does not mean that this month's jobs print won't be revised lower: it will be, and not just that month but every other month until the November election because that's the only tool left in the Biden admin's box: pretend the economic and jobs are strong, then revise them sharply lower the next month, something we pointed out first last summer and which has not failed to disappoint once.

To be fair, not every aspect of the jobs report was stellar (after all, the BLS had to give it some vague credibility). Take the unemployment rate, after flatlining between 3.4% and 3.8% for two years - and thus denying expectations from Sahm's Rule that a recession may have already started - in February the unemployment rate unexpectedly jumped to 3.9%, the highest since February 2022 (with Black unemployment spiking by 0.3% to 5.6%, an indicator which the Biden admin will quickly slam as widespread economic racism or something).

And then there were average hourly earnings, which after surging 0.6% MoM in January (since revised to 0.5%) and spooking markets that wage growth is so hot, the Fed will have no choice but to delay cuts, in February the number tumbled to just 0.1%, the lowest in two years...

... for one simple reason: last month's average wage surge had nothing to do with actual wages, and everything to do with the BLS estimate of hours worked (which is the denominator in the average wage calculation) which last month tumbled to just 34.1 (we were led to believe) the lowest since the covid pandemic...

... but has since been revised higher while the February print rose even more, to 34.3, hence why the latest average wage data was once again a product not of wages going up, but of how long Americans worked in any weekly period, in this case higher from 34.1 to 34.3, an increase which has a major impact on the average calculation.

While the above data points were examples of some latent weakness in the latest report, perhaps meant to give it a sheen of veracity, it was everything else in the report that was a problem starting with the BLS's latest choice of seasonal adjustments (after last month's wholesale revision), which have gone from merely laughable to full clownshow, as the following comparison between the monthly change in BLS and ADP payrolls shows. The trend is clear: the Biden admin numbers are now clearly rising even as the impartial ADP (which directly logs employment numbers at the company level and is far more accurate), shows an accelerating slowdown.

But it's more than just the Biden admin hanging its "success" on seasonal adjustments: when one digs deeper inside the jobs report, all sorts of ugly things emerge... such as the growing unprecedented divergence between the Establishment (payrolls) survey and much more accurate Household (actual employment) survey. To wit, while in January the BLS claims 275K payrolls were added, the Household survey found that the number of actually employed workers dropped for the third straight month (and 4 in the past 5), this time by 184K (from 161.152K to 160.968K).

This means that while the Payrolls series hits new all time highs every month since December 2020 (when according to the BLS the US had its last month of payrolls losses), the level of Employment has not budged in the past year. Worse, as shown in the chart below, such a gaping divergence has opened between the two series in the past 4 years, that the number of Employed workers would need to soar by 9 million (!) to catch up to what Payrolls claims is the employment situation.

There's more: shifting from a quantitative to a qualitative assessment, reveals just how ugly the composition of "new jobs" has been. Consider this: the BLS reports that in February 2024, the US had 132.9 million full-time jobs and 27.9 million part-time jobs. Well, that's great... until you look back one year and find that in February 2023 the US had 133.2 million full-time jobs, or more than it does one year later! And yes, all the job growth since then has been in part-time jobs, which have increased by 921K since February 2023 (from 27.020 million to 27.941 million).

Here is a summary of the labor composition in the past year: all the new jobs have been part-time jobs!

But wait there's even more, because now that the primary season is over and we enter the heart of election season and political talking points will be thrown around left and right, especially in the context of the immigration crisis created intentionally by the Biden administration which is hoping to import millions of new Democratic voters (maybe the US can hold the presidential election in Honduras or Guatemala, after all it is their citizens that will be illegally casting the key votes in November), what we find is that in February, the number of native-born workers tumbled again, sliding by a massive 560K to just 129.807 million. Add to this the December data, and we get a near-record 2.4 million plunge in native-born workers in just the past 3 months (only the covid crash was worse)!

The offset? A record 1.2 million foreign-born (read immigrants, both legal and illegal but mostly illegal) workers added in February!

Said otherwise, not only has all job creation in the past 6 years has been exclusively for foreign-born workers...

Source: St Louis Fed FRED Native Born and Foreign Born

... but there has been zero job-creation for native born workers since June 2018!

This is a huge issue - especially at a time of an illegal alien flood at the southwest border...

... and is about to become a huge political scandal, because once the inevitable recession finally hits, there will be millions of furious unemployed Americans demanding a more accurate explanation for what happened - i.e., the illegal immigration floodgates that were opened by the Biden admin.

Which is also why Biden's handlers will do everything in their power to insure there is no official recession before November... and why after the election is over, all economic hell will finally break loose. Until then, however, expect the jobs numbers to get even more ridiculous.

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/08/2024 - 13:30

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