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So after all the hype and many annoying friends gently trying to persuade me to get onto the cryptocurrency train, we decided to take a swing at it and hopefully I shall try to explain here how to get started. We have only invested a small amount, which we hope to grow and use towards our round-the-world trip. In this post I’ve suggested some companies to use, but it’s always a good plan to research your own and make sure you get what you are looking for.
I’m not going to explain the ins and outs of cryptocurrency, rather give the steps you need to take to get in the game.
Step 1 – Get a Wallet
What’s a wallet? Just a digital version of your standard cash wallet, used to hold your digital money securely in one place. There are many out there, all with different fees and that deal with different currencies. A friend recommended Coinbase to us, Coinbase trade in the famous Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC), so that’s what we went for (they have an app on both Android and iPhone).
Whichever wallet you choose, we advise putting a number lock on them when dealing with your money on there. If you choose Coinbase, to register you can click here (this is a referral link, that allows you to gain an extra $10/£7 bitcoin for free if you deposit $100). Once you’ve completed your account details, you need to go through the verification process.
Step 2 – Verify Your Account
The verification process can take a while. It requires photos of either your driving licence front and back or your passport, we opted for the driving licence. This is the point that you have to add your card details, then when your photos have been verified you are ready to go.
Step 3 – Add Funds to Your Wallet
In the wallet app, if you are using Coinbase, click “Buy” and choose the currency you want to purchase. Buy and sell options come up, click “Buy”, enter the amount you want to deposit, you will then see the equivalent amount in your chosen currency. Click “Next”. Here you can see the fees that will be charged, remember, these fees are taken off the total deposit you have entered, they’re not added on top of it. If you’re happy with the amount, click “Confirm buy”.
Congratulations, you now own Cryptocurrency!
Step 4 – Is Variety the Spice of Life?
You can just use the wallet if these are the currencies you would like to invest in, but if you would like to invest in a wider variety of currencies you will need to register for a broker. What’s a broker? It’s similar to an airport currency exchange office. You give them your money in one currency, and they transfer it to another at the current set rate – they also charge a fee for the privilege. There are, again many different brokers with many different pros and cons so it is worth researching this further to find the right one for you. We opted for one that has cheaper fees and some good reviews, called Binance.
Step 5 (optional) – Register for a Broker
If you’re going to use a broker, choose one and go through the registration process, which presumably is pretty similar for most of them. When it came to Binance, registering was trickier than the wallet registration. Click here for our referral link to Binance. You will need to enter your email address and have a secure password, you then verify this on your received email.
The next part is where it’s a little complicated. You will need to download and register for the Google Authenticator app (registration is pretty simple). This app gives you a code to input after you log in to Binance, to confirm your identity. We advise putting the Google Authenticator on another device, as the login load process tends to take longer than the authenticator code timer – so by the time you’ve managed to login, the code has often expired.
There are different levels of identity authentication to deal with different amounts of money deposits. This involves taking photos of yourself with a driving licence or other form of identification.
Step 6 – Deposit Funds to Your Broker
You can then use the funds option on Binance to deposit your funds that will be from your wallet. Just make sure you don’t do what we did and use a currency that the broker doesn’t deal in! We chose Litecoin first and had to change to Bitcoin and got more fees for the mistake. On the broker app, after doing some research, select the currency you would like to invest in, for example NEO or APPC and they will give you a “deposit address” which is a lot of digits that you can copy. Once you have this, you go back to your wallet (Coinbase), go to the send option and put the amount, and paste the address that you just copied (do not get this address wrong or you can lose the money you are trying to send). Click send then boooooom! Like us you can buy, buy, buy and sell, sell, sell.
Final Advice
One big piece of advice when dealing with cryptocurrency would be… before you invest, go in with a plan of how much you would like to invest into which currency and mainly when you will sell. Decide at what price to sell your coins and stick to it, don’t get caught umming and ahhing when the time comes. And lastly, only ever invest what you can afford to lose, as remember cryptocurrency can be very volatile and you may lose everything you put in. Good luck!
Original article and pictures take quirkyrambler.com site
