On-Ramp
A service that converts government-issued money into digital assets, usually funded by a bank transfer or a card payment.
On-ramps include exchanges with bank connections, licensed brokers, and payment widgets embedded inside wallets and applications. They perform identity verification, apply limits by account level and jurisdiction, and price the conversion using both an explicit fee and the exchange rate they quote. Card funding settles fastest and usually costs the most, because the provider carries chargeback risk on an irreversible delivery, while bank transfers are cheaper and slower. Availability is set by local licensing and by whether banks in that country will support the provider, so the same service can be unavailable across a border.
En pratique
The same purchase can cost noticeably more by card than by bank transfer at the same provider, because the two payment methods carry different risk and processing costs.
Le malentendu courant
The advertised fee is often not the full cost; the exchange rate an on-ramp quotes can carry a markup larger than the stated fee itself.