Funding your wallet
Before trading on Bisq, it's necessary to fund your wallet with bitcoin. This is because making and taking offers on Bisq requires traders to post a security deposit and pay fees with bitcoin.
Posting bitcoin security deposits in a 2of2 multisignature address is part of what makes trading on Bisq highly secure.
Contents
Security Deposit Requirements
You can see the required deposits for an offer by clicking on the i icon for an offer. You'll see a pop-up appear. On the bottom of this pop-up will be a Details section with a Security Deposit line.
For Buyers
Buyers need to post a deposit of at least 15% of the trade amount, with an absolute minimum of 0.006 BTC. The maximum possible deposit for a buyer is 50% of the trade amount. The offer maker sets this percentage when creating an offer.
For Sellers
Sellers need to post a deposit of 15% of the trade amount with an absolute minimum of 0.006 BTC (in addition to 100% of the bitcoin being sold). As of this writing, the security deposit percentage for sellers cannot be adjusted.
Notes for Buyers and Sellers
If the size of an offer is a range, the required security deposit is calculated according to the maximum possible trade size. Example: if the buyer's deposit is set to 20% for an offer with a 0.05-0.10 BTC trade size, the buyer will need to post a 0.02 BTC security deposit. The seller would need to post a deposit of 0.015 BTC (for a total deposit of 0.115 BTC, since they'd also have to post the entire possible trade amount).
How to Obtain Your First Bitcoin
If you don’t already own any bitcoin, you’ll need to obtain some—ideally, as privately and securely as possible.
How much do you need? In addition to covering a security deposit (as described above), traders also need to cover mining fees and trading fees. Estimates for both are shown in the interface when making or taking an offer. As of this writing, a safe estimate for buying your first bitcoin on Bisq with fiat is 0.01 BTC.
Here are some ideas for how to do that.
- Friends and family. Simply buy a small amount of bitcoin directly from someone you trust.
- Bitcoin ATM. Some bitcoin ATMs don't require ID for smaller purchases, and some don't require any ID at all. You can find bitcoin ATMs in your area on Coin ATM Radar.
- Sell something. Do you offer a product or service? Use BTCPayServer to collect BTC for it! Otherwise don't forget about local marketplaces like Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace—many people are willing to buy and sell everyday goods for BTC.
- Work for it. While sites to find gigs that pay in bitcoin never really panned out, it may not hurt to let a client or business contact know that you also accept bitcoin for payment.
- Meetups. People at bitcoin meetups might have bitcoin. Crazy, right? Find out where and when they take place on Meetup, Twitter, and other places where people talk about bitcoin.
- Vouchers. Companies like Fastbitcoins.com and Azte.co may sell vouchers at physical stores in your area for cash. There aren't a whole lot of locations yet, but more are being added all the time.
It's highly recommended that you avoid using a corporate, centralized exchange to get your first bitcoin. Most such exchanges (like Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, etc) require a significant amount of personal information, putting you at risk by tying your identity to your bitcoin (as well as by storing all this information in databases with that of others, forming what are commonly referred to as "honeypots"—highly attractive targets for hackers). Also, since bitcoin transactions are public and easily traceable, any future transactions involving bitcoin purchased with these services can be traced back to you.
Bisq is built from the ground up to avoid this privacy fiasco, so we strongly recommend avoiding centralized exchanges.
Sending Bitcoin to your Bisq wallet
Once you’ve gotten enough bitcoin for your security deposit and fees, you can move it into Bisq’s built-in wallet. This isn’t strictly required, but it’ll make trading more convenient since the funds you need to accept an offer will be readily available when you need them.
To send bitcoin to your Bisq wallet, you'll need an address. You'll find one on Funds > Receive Funds.
You might see many addresses listed. Pick the address on the bottom next to the QR code.
