How to buy Bitcoin Cash: fees on €500 range from €1.25 to €7.45

Buying Bitcoin Cash is simplest through a crypto exchange licensed under MiCA: open an account, verify your identity, transfer euros by SEPA and buy BCH with an order. If you want to hold the coins yourself, you then move them to a wallet of your own. Costs depend heavily on the provider. For a purchase of €500, the trading fee alone ranges from €1.25 at Bitvavo to €7.45 at Bitpanda, according to their price lists.

This guide takes you through the process step by step, recalculates the fees of three regulated providers and explains the pitfalls of the Bitcoin Cash address format. On Sunday morning, November 15, one BCH cost around €189 according to CoinGecko, 3.3 percent less than the day before. For €500 you therefore get just over 2.6 BCH.

How to buy Bitcoin Cash in five steps: exchange, account, SEPA, order and wallet

1. Choose an exchange: Make sure the provider holds a licence under the EU's MiCA regulation and trades BCH against the euro. Our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges gives an overview.
2. Open and verify an account: You need an ID document and must give details of your place of residence and the source of your funds. The check usually takes anything from a few minutes to a day.
3. Deposit euros: At most exchanges, deposits by SEPA transfer are free of charge. Credit card or PayPal is faster but often comes with a surcharge.
4. Place a buy order: Select the BCH/EUR trading pair. A market order buys immediately at the current price, a limit order only once the price reaches your target.
5. Decide on custody: You can leave BCH on the exchange or withdraw it to your own wallet. Check beforehand that the destination address is on the Bitcoin Cash network.

What is Bitcoin Cash? The 2017 split from Bitcoin

Bitcoin Cash was created on August 1, 2017 through a hard fork of Bitcoin. A hard fork is a change to a blockchain's rules that is incompatible with the old version, so that two separate networks emerge. The dispute was about block size: supporters of Bitcoin Cash wanted larger blocks so that more transactions could fit cheaply into a single block. Anyone who held bitcoin at the time of the split received the same amount of BCH.

As with Bitcoin, the maximum supply is 21 million coins. Bitcoin Cash sees itself as digital cash for everyday payments with low fees. You will find more on its history and on the differences in our Bitcoin Cash profile, while scenarios for the price are set out in our BCH prediction. According to CoinGecko, its market capitalisation stood at around €3.8 billion on November 15.

BCH on regulated exchanges: Bitvavo, Kraken and Bitpanda hold MiCA licences

A MiCA licence is the authorisation under the EU regulation on markets in crypto-assets. A provider with this licence must keep client assets segregated, meet capital requirements and may operate in every EU member state. Three large providers with euro trading list Bitcoin Cash:

• Bitvavo received its MiCA licence in June 2025 from the Dutch financial regulator AFM. The exchange trades BCH against the euro in an order book.
• Kraken obtained its licence in June 2025 from the Central Bank of Ireland. There you buy BCH either through the simple app or through Kraken Pro with its order book.
• Bitpanda received its licence in January 2025 from Germany's BaFin. Purchases are handled as broker transactions at a fixed quoted price.

Other providers such as Coinbase also list BCH. Before opening an account, check the register of the European supervisor ESMA to confirm that the licence is still valid, because licences can be withdrawn or restricted.

Bitcoin Cash fees: what a €500 purchase costs at three providers

The following calculation uses the providers' published price lists and the prices on Sunday morning, November 15. It applies to new customers without a discount tier and to a buy order that is executed immediately.

The rates come from the providers' fee schedules. In its cost information document of July 8, 2026, Bitpanda places Bitcoin Cash in the "Other crypto assets" tier at 1.49 percent, while Bitcoin itself costs 0.99 percent there. Kraken restructured the fees for Kraken Pro on July 9, 2026; the entry tier is 0.40 percent for makers and 0.80 percent for takers. Bitvavo quotes 0.15 percent for makers and 0.25 percent for takers in its entry tariff. We have broken down how spread and fee combine at Bitpanda in a separate analysis of Bitpanda fees, and for Bitvavo in our overview of Bitvavo fees.

On top of this comes the withdrawal if you move BCH to your own wallet. Bitvavo charges 0.006 BCH for it, around €1.14 at Sunday's price. The complete route at Bitvavo, purchase and withdrawal, therefore costs about €2.50, or 0.5 percent of €500. With the other providers, read the withdrawal fee in the withdrawal dialogue before the transfer; it is displayed there before you confirm.

Maker, taker and spread: how the order type lowers the cost of buying BCH

A taker is an order executed immediately against an existing offer in the order book, a market order for instance. A maker, by contrast, places a new offer in the order book, usually a limit order below the current price, and waits until a seller accepts it. Because makers bring liquidity to the exchange, they pay less. At Bitvavo this cuts the fee on €500 from €1.25 to €0.75, at Kraken Pro from €4.00 to €2.00.

The spread is the gap between the highest bid and the lowest ask. On Sunday morning it ran from €189.70 to €189.78 at Bitvavo and from €189.59 to €189.86 at Kraken. With a broker such as Bitpanda you see no spread, because you buy at a fixed quoted price. In calm phases the spread on BCH is small, although it can widen considerably during sharp price moves.

The BCH address format CashAddr: addresses start with bitcoincash:q

Bitcoin Cash uses its own address format called CashAddr. According to the network's technical documentation, such an address consists of the prefix bitcoincash, a colon and a string that usually begins with q or p. The format is meant to prevent confusion with the old Bitcoin addresses, which begin with 1 or 3. Wallets may leave out the prefix in the display, which is why you sometimes see only the string starting with q.

The important point for you: never send BCH to a Bitcoin address, and never the other way round. Some older wallets still show the legacy format with a 1 at the start for Bitcoin Cash, which is technically valid but easily mistaken for a Bitcoin address. Use CashAddr where possible and check the first and last characters of the address before every withdrawal. A test amount ahead of a large transfer costs little and protects against typing errors.

A wallet for Bitcoin Cash: app, hardware wallet and backing up the seed phrase

If you hold BCH yourself, you need a wallet that explicitly supports Bitcoin Cash. A software wallet is an app on a smartphone or computer, practical for small amounts and payments. A hardware wallet is a small device that stores the private keys offline and has you confirm every transaction on its own display. For larger amounts it is the safer choice. Our hardware wallet comparison shows which devices support Bitcoin Cash.

During setup, the wallet generates a seed phrase, usually 12 or 24 words, from which all keys can be restored. Whoever knows these words controls the coins. Write them down offline, keep them apart from the device and never type them into a website. For long-term storage, steel plates that withstand fire and water are a good option.

Risks of buying Bitcoin Cash: volatility, liquidity and network decisions

Bitcoin Cash swings far more than Bitcoin. In phases such as the price slide of November 2026, BCH can lose value faster than the market as a whole. Only commit money whose loss you can bear, and spread larger purchases over several points in time.

Liquidity is a further consideration. BCH trading volume against the euro is smaller than for Bitcoin or Ether, so large market orders can push the price down noticeably. The BCH community also votes regularly on technical changes. We reported on the vote on quantum-safe signatures on November 12 in a separate article on the quantum signature decision. Such upgrades usually go ahead without any action from holders, but can move the price in the short term.

Buying Bitcoin Cash: a limit order and SEPA keep costs under 0.5 percent

The cheapest route to Bitcoin Cash runs through an exchange with an order book, a free SEPA deposit and a limit order. Three steps get you there:

1. Compare providers: Check licensing, BCH availability and fees in our comparison of the best crypto exchanges and open your account with a provider that holds a MiCA licence.
2. Settle on custody: For larger amounts, a wallet of your own is worthwhile. The software wallet comparison shows apps that support Bitcoin Cash and the CashAddr format.
3. Record the purchase: Note the purchase date, amount and fees for your tax records. A program from our comparison of crypto tax tools does this automatically.

(As of November 15, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)