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How to Buy Litecoin in New Zealand

This guide explores the best ways to buy Litecoin in New Zealand and all the best practices for safely buying cryptocurrency. Disclaimer - by publishing this guide, we are NOT recommending you buy Litecoin.
Updated 8 August 2023
Warning:
  1. By publishing this guide, we are not recommending or suggesting in any way or form that Litecoin is a suitable investment.
  2. We published and routinely update this guide to help people decide what's best for them - MoneyHub is conservative and our publisher, Christopher Walsh, has zero Litecoin or any other cryptocurrency investments. We are cautious about the long-term prospects of Lightcoin given its boom-and-bust history and general lack of applications.
  3. We present this information in good faith and remain objective at all times. ​By including this guide under our Investing and Saving section, we are not advocating that Litecoin or any cryptocurrency is an investment. We may earn a referral bonus for anyone that clicks on some of the below links - see our Advertising Policy for more details.

Summary
  • Litecoin is a less-popular but widely covered cryptocurrency with currently around 84 million Litecoins in circulation (vs Bitcoin's 21 million).
  • Litecoin does not have much mainstream real-world use other than to help with bringing down the costs of money transfers. For this reason, many crypto enthusiasts stand clear alongside sceptics. It is not seen as a store of value like Bitcoin is.
  • In this guide, we'll help New Zealanders navigate the complex and controversial territory of cryptocurrencies to help you buy Litecoin in the safest, simplest and most affordable way possible.
  • We will not consider whether you should or not buy Litecoin; we assume that decision was already made, hence why you're reading this guide. Despite this, our guidance is overtly cautious given the risks involved with Litecoin (and cryptocurrency in general).

Our guide covers:

Buying Litecoin with two local and trusted platforms - Easy Crypto and Swyftx

  • Our research highlighted several Litecoin platforms, but few are based in New Zealand and offer transparency. For this reason, we suggest considering the locally-owned (and trusted) Easy Crypto alongside Swyftx, an Australian-based platform.
  • These two platforms are popular with our users, have esteemed reputations and are trusted by tens of thousands of New Zealanders.
  • Both options are free to join, funded from any New Zealand bank account/card, and in the case of Easy Crypto, there is a local support team.
  • Advertising Disclosure: We may earn a referral bonus for anyone that clicks on some of the below links - see our Advertising Policy for more details.

Overview of Buying Litecoin and Must-Know Considerations

Much like other financial assets, you can acquire Litecoinin a variety of ways - from exchanges, from over-the-counter brokers, or in private trades. When you buy Litecoin from an exchange or broker, they should allow funding using bank transfer, debit/credit card or e-wallets like PayPal or POLI. Once you have completed the purchase, they will deliver the coins to a Litecoin (LTC) wallet which either you provide, or they provide.

Top Tip - Protect Your Holdings Immediately
  • Once you have purchased your Litecoins from an exchange, it's always a good idea to transfer some or all of them to a wallet you control.
  • Exchanges are incredibly vulnerable to hacks and attacks. The infamous New Zealand-based exchange Cryptopia is likely still fresh in everyone's mind. In this scandal, attackers took more than US$17 million in Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens in early 2019.
  • Unfortunately, there are dozens of stories like this, and that's why Litecoin owners need to take steps to protect their holdings. Even though Litecoin trades at a fraction of Bitcoin, cyber criminals don't miss opportunities when there are security deficiencies.

For the average investor, the main characteristics to look for in a platform for buying LTC are as follows:

1. Funding methods
Check if the company has convenient funding methods that are familiar to you. Some companies engaged in cryptocurrency trading may struggle with opening bank accounts or partnering with licensed payment processing companies, which means out of necessity they cooperate with payment institutions with a higher risk appetite.

2. Fees
Familiar yourself with all of the applicable fees. Some companies impose transaction or conversion fees to cover what's charged to them by payment processors. For example, free is perfect, one per cent is fair, two per cent is high, and anything more is unreasonable.

Besides charging for making fiat deposits, some companies charge for withdrawing cryptocurrencies to external wallets. Withdrawal fees vary depending on the coin. Fees could be as high as 0.0005 BTC.

All exchanges and brokers make their money from transaction fees when users buy or sell cryptocurrencies, and again, they can vary widely. Some platforms charge 0.5% and some charge 0.1% or less, depending on your trading volume. Some exchanges adopt a maker-taker model, where they charge less when limit-orders are used instead of market-orders.

3. Reputation
Look for an established company with an active user base. The more users a company serves hints at greater liquidity on the platform, making it easier to buy and sell Litecoin. There are many options in the market today which have been operating reliably for years.

4. Compliance
Decentralised finance advocates might disagree with this point; however, an important characteristic of a legitimate venue for buying Litecoin is if the company requires ID verification before providing services. Companies engaged in trading cryptocurrencies face endless scrutiny from banks and payment providers due to the relative anonymity involved and perceived risks of facilitating money laundering and terrorist financing. Therefore, robust KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) procedures should be in place.

5. Liquidity
It's important to know you have the ability to sell your Litecoin quickly and easily, should you want to liquidate them. Also, check how your sale will be settled, how long it will take, and if any transfer fees should be expected. Litecoin is volatile - if you decide you want your money out, getting it out quickly is essential.

6. Range of products
If you're interested in buying other cryptocurrencies, you may want to review what else is offered. Most large exchanges and brokers offer numerous cryptocurrencies and digital assets. The features of the platform might also be of interest, depending on your Litecoin investment strategy. If you want to make a couple of purchases, you probably want a simple application which doesn't require learning how to use some advanced trading software. However, if you're looking to trade Litecoin and other cryptocurrencies more actively, then a sophisticated trading platform will be more compelling.

Where can you buy Litecoin in New Zealand?

There are several options for buying Litecoin in New Zealand - our list below includes the most trusted and popular methods.
Disclaimer - the inclusion of any Litecoin exchange or broker below is not an endorsement or a promotion. Our list is for information purposes only.

Buying Litecoin with two local and trusted platforms - Easy Crypto and Swyftx

  • Our research highlighted several Litecoin platforms, but few are based in New Zealand and offer transparency. For this reason, we suggest considering the locally-owned (and trusted) Easy Crypto alongside Swyftx, an Australian-based platform.
  • These two platforms are popular with our users, have esteemed reputations and are trusted by tens of thousands of New Zealanders.
  • Both options are free to join, funded from any New Zealand bank account/card, and in the case of Easy Crypto, there is a local support team.
  • Advertising Disclosure: We may earn a referral bonus for anyone that clicks on some of the below links - see our Advertising Policy for more details.

Easy Crypto

Easy Crypto is another example of a popular destination to buy and sell Litecoin and a series of other cryptocurrencies in New Zealand. Easy Crypto has also adopted the non-custodial route and requires users who buy cryptocurrencies from them to have a private wallet to receive the settlement of their purchase. Moreover, the company has gone to great lengths to guide users on keeping their cryptocurrencies safe, with recommendations on hardware wallets, and plenty of user guides on each recommended model.
 
Payment methods: POLI instant pay debit or credit card, or local NZ bank transfer
Fees: All fees are included in the spread, which is why the bid and offer prices might look higher than other platforms. The fees are around 0.70% to 0.90%.
Minimum order size: NZ$50
Settlement: Private wallet
Coins available: 109, including Litecoin
Learn more: ​Easy Crypto

Binance

According to average daily turnover, Binance is one of the largest crypto exchange platforms in the world. After launching in 2017, the company established itself globally and is constantly shrouded with more rumours of expansion in a short space of time. Among many other services, such as crypto fixed income products, derivative products, margin trading and more, Binance also offers New Zealanders a gateway to buying Litecoin locally.
 
Payment methods: Debit/credit card via third-party payment provider Simplex
Fees: Card processing fees are 3.5% with a minimum fee of US$10. When withdrawing Litecoin, for example to your private wallet, there is a withdrawal fee of 0.0005 BTC.
Minimum order size: The minimum order size is the equivalent of US$30, which is approximately NZ$46
Settlement: On an account
Coins available: With a bank card, you can buy 18 different cryptocurrencies, including Litecoin​. On the exchange, there are hundreds of coins available to trade once you have an account funded with crypto
Learn more: ​Binance

Must-Know Facts Before Buying Litecoin

Litecoin has around 84 million coins in circulation; just like Bitcoin, there is limited supply. Despite having only four times the circulation of Bitcoin, the price is not 4X, 10X or even 50X that of Bitcoin as it's not regarded as a storage of value. Our must-know facts help you understand Litecoin better:

Litecoin transactions are non-reversible

This is a great feature for merchants who are concerned about chargebacks. However, if you’ve been scammed, hacked or just sent money to the wrong address, those transactions cannot be reversed. If you do purchase Litecoin, you'll need to triple-check the wallet address you are sending it to.

Litecoin has a limited supply

Litecoin has a circulation of around 84 millions cons. This is different to both Etherum and Dogecoin which have an unlimited supply. Our view is that Litecoin's low price (compared to Bitcoin or Ethereum) does not mean it's undervalued and a 'buy' (compared to other cryptos).

Litecoin is incredibly secure

As private Litecoin addresses are not associated with anyone’s identity, the only way to spend funds is to control the private key. However, if you lose the private key and the seed (backup solution), you will also become a victim of Litecoin’s impressive security and your funds will be lost forever. Litecoin is just as secure (and anonymous) as Bitcoin.

Litecoin is decentralised

Litecoin was developed based on Bitcoin's original source code, which means it is very similar. As such, there are no restrictions on who can create a Litecoin wallet and start using the cryptocurrency. If someone lives in a country with an unreliable or inaccessible banking system, or have issues with money transfer, they can use Litecoin without objection. However, this also means there are no measures to prevent known criminals, sanctioned countries and terrorist organisations from using Litecoin​ (or any other cryptocurrency for that matter).

The past performance of Litecoin is no guarantee of future behaviour

Litecoin has few uses and no real purpose other than to facilitate the transfer of money (compared to Bitcoin which is largely a store of value). Launched in 2011 by an ex Google employee, Litecoin has become popular but also experienced boom-and-bust trading prices. The price of Litecoin is incredibly volatile and if you’re looking for short term gains, you might be very disappointed; it could take months or even years for Litecoin to recover from a correction. Investing in Litecoin is speculative and profits rely on someone paying more for it than you later on.

​​How to Keep your Litecoin Safe by Protecting Your Private Key

Typically, when you invest money in the financial markets, you do so via a licensed and authorised broker to deal or issue those instruments and act as a custodian for your collateral and your assets. These traditional financial service providers need to meet fitness and proprietary requirements before a license is issued, requisition external auditors annually, submit reports to authorities and meet strict operational and fiduciary responsibilities. For the most part, these checks and balances don’t exist in the cryptocurrency industry, and most companies are left to follow their instincts. Therefore, investors are left to their own devices to keep their digital assets safe from accidents or incidents.

The best way to keep your Litecoin safe is to use one of the popular hardware wallets that the cryptocurrency community has already tried and tested. When it comes to Litecoin, the asset you want to protect is the private key, not the coins themselves. The private key is used for signing transactions and allows anyone who possesses it to transfer Litecoins from the corresponding address.

Without going into great detail concerning the underlying cryptography used to make this all possible, a hardware wallet allows you to create Litecoin transactions without connecting to the internet, therefore significantly protecting the private key. In the hardware wallet, you’re able to create a signature, which according to the Bitcoin developer glossary (which applies to Litecoin) could only have reasonably been created by someone who has the private key.

The signature is essentially a by-product of the public-key and private-key but cannot be used to ascertain what the private key is. Therefore, the signature can be generated offline and used to authorise transactions online.

Frequently Asked Questions about Litecoin

There is a lot of misinformation about Litecoin - our shortlist of common questions help you understand some of the finer details.

Is Litecoin a real cryptocurrency?

Yes - Litecoin is a legitimate cryptocurrency, just as Bitcoin, Ethereum and hundreds of others are. The number of Litecoin in circulation is significant compared to Bitcoin (84 million vs a maximum 21 million for Bitcoin), which is one of the many reasons the Litecoin price is much lower than other cryptos. However, unlike Ethereum, there is a cap on the number of Litecoins that will ever exist, which means, relatively, there is more control over the supply of Litecoin.

Can you use Litecoin to buy things?

Yes, but there are very few opportunities in New Zealand. However, you can exchange it for other cryptocurrencies or gift it. In the US Litecoin is accepted by some retailers, but very few (if any) ship to New Zealand for the use of Litecoin to be convenient.

Is it safe to use online Litecoin wallets?

Like many things in life, it’s safe, until it isn’t. Online Litecoin​ wallets offer a lot of conveniences, but they come at a cost. When you keep your crypto in an online wallet, there is always a risk that the provider could be compromised. Cybercriminals are always looking for new ways to exploit cryptocurrency users and businesses. The best advice is to take charge and use a private wallet you control. Generally, a trusted online wallet will be secure and provide you with a confirmation of any trades seconds (or minutes) after you buy or sell Litecoin.

Is it safe to keep Litecoins on an exchange?

Many exchanges allow you to keep your purchased cryptocurrencies in an account on their platform. The idea is to make it convenient for active users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. However, most exchanges also encourage users to keep their coins in private wallets. Its well-known exchanges are the targets of aggressive and sophisticated attacks due to the large amounts of cryptocurrencies under their control. If you’re planning on holding Litecoin for the long term, you should make the necessary arrangements to keep your coins safe.

Buying Litecoin with two local and trusted platforms - Easy Crypto and Swyftx

  • Our research highlighted several Litecoin platforms, but few are based in New Zealand and offer transparency. For this reason, we suggest considering the locally-owned (and trusted) Easy Crypto alongside Swyftx, an Australian-based platform.
  • These two platforms are popular with our users, have esteemed reputations and are trusted by tens of thousands of New Zealanders.
  • Both options are free to join, funded from any New Zealand bank account/card, and in the case of Easy Crypto, there is a local support team.
  • Advertising Disclosure: We may earn a referral bonus for anyone that clicks on some of the below links - see our Advertising Policy for more details.
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