Automatically buying bitcoins from SEPA deposit

Question

I'd like to buy bitcoins via SEPA deposit automatically with a recurring schedule. To specify this with an example, I would like to purchase bitcoins for 100 EUR each month, at the current market rate, without manual intervention. For this, I can set up a recurring payment at my bank to a SEPA bank account. The manual way to do this at Bitstamp would be:

• Start SEPA deposit at Bitstamp for 100 EUR.
• Make a bank transfer to the given account with the given message.
• Wait for funds to appear at Bitstamp.
• Use instant order to purchase bitcoin for 100 EUR (converted to dollars).
• Wait for the transaction to complete (may take days if market fluctuates).
• Withdraw bitcoin from Bitstamp to a given address.

I am not bound to a single exchange, any one of them will do as long as they roughly follow the current market. I am not afraid to run a server, or to create my own program using an API to do this. However, I am not willing to use screen scraping, because I would wish for this to run with minimal intervention and such an approach would seem too error prone. I am also obviously not able to affect my bank, so the best I can do is to have a recurring payment with a fixed message/reference number each month.

Is there an exchange or combination of services that will let achieve the above automatically?

Answer 1

Bitstamp does not require a unique code in every SEPA deposit. They require the same code everytime you send euros. So you can setup a recurring payment to your account. Maybe the first time, when requesting the SEPA deposit, type in the comment that you will be making monthly deposits.

Then write a program that checks the EUR balance daily and buys bitcoins for you. This should be pretty straightforward.

Bitstamp only offers limit orders through their API. If you want to speed up the buy order, set your price a few percent above the market price.

Good luck!

Answer 2

There is a website called Bitcoin Magnet that does exactly what you require. Check them out, they have good reviews. They convert a bank transfer containing your reference code into bitcoin (using Bitstamp) and send it automatically to your desired bitcoin address. You can therefore set up a standing order to buy on a regular basis. UK only.

Answer 3

Xapo allows you to do this.

When buying bitcoins with them you get a unique code which has to be added to the SEPA transfer. Any funds received with that code are automatically converted to BTC and added to your wallet, indifferent of the amount or from what account it is coming from.

Now I get to think of it I see a great opportunity for a service which allows you to send a SEPA transfer with a bitcoin address in the message field, automatically converting the fiat currency into BTC and transferring it to bitcoin address. Transfers with faulty addresses could be bounced, and like Xapo a 1% fee could make it worthwhile...

Answer 4

And what's your question?

If you can use API, do it. Else, simulate browsing the website: get html code to string in your program, then search for some html markup e.g. <div id="bitcoinPrice">321.24243 USD</div> and fetch proper data, then send it in proper forms. You can use php, curl, wget, Apache Commons httpClient or any similar tools/libs.