My experience with cryptocurrency as a complete n00b

carrotcake

I thought I’d write a little about my experience with cryptocurrency, having just got into it a week ago. I’m sure there are others like me, so maybe this will help.

Bitcoin had always mystified me a little bit since I’m into technology, yet the barrier for entry seemed rather high. I’ve known about its existence for the last 4-5 years, and was curious about it, but not curious enough to really make an effort to figure it out.

A few different things happened in the past weeks to pique my curiosity again, and this time I decided to make the effort. I’m now dipping my toe in the water with a small amount of money.

WTF is Blockchain?
I already knew that Bitcoin used blockchain technology, but didn’t really know what it is. This article popped up on my Medium account last week, and explains it really well: https://hackernoon.com/wtf-is-the-blockchain-1da89ba19348

How can they just create money out of nothing?
This was my biggest question, and my scepticism around this put me off crypto for a long time. Others can explain it way better than me, but when I made the link between mining gold and mining Bitcoin (and finding out how and why its done), as well as the value that people place on P2P/decentralised payments then it started to make sense.

Buying cryptocurrency
I read a lot about this, since there are different ways (online exchanges, ATMs, direct buying from other people). In the end, I decided to make an account on www.kraken.com since it seems to have a good reputation, and has low fees for those of us dealing with euros. I made a bank transfer to Kraken one morning, and it showed up in my account the next.

The interface for buying on Kraken is not great, and I found it a bit confusing as a noob, but I figured it out. I bought some Bitcoin, which was confirmed after a minute or so, and then wanted to buy some EOS. Then I noticed that you can’t buy EOS with euros, but rather with Bitcoin. Rookie mistake, I suppose. So off I went to buy more Bitcoin, and then trade it for EOS. That was a bit confusing, since Kraken doesn’t present you with a BTC-to-EOS price by default.

Wallets
Time and again I read that you should move your crypto to a wallet after you buy it, instead of leaving it on your account at Kraken or another exchange. This is to prevent it from being stolen from the exchange if it gets hacked (like with Mt. Gox). This was another area that needed some research, since there are different types of wallets (mobile, desktop, paper, hardware, etc).

In the end I decided to use Bread, which seems to be the most reputable Bitcoin wallet for iPhone. There are plenty of people out there who say to never use a mobile wallet, since they are connected to the internet, and therefore susceptible to hacking, but for the small amount of Bitcoin that I bought, I think it’s fine. Plus an up-to-date, non-jailbroken iPhone is relatively solid security-wise.

Transferring the Bitcoin to Bread was fairly simple. Bread gives you an address for receiving Bitcoin, so you enter that on Kraken and hit send. Here is where I got caught out, because Kraken has a flat fee of 0.001 Bitcoin per withdrawal, which is about €5.50 at today’s rates. Pretty steep relative to the small about of Bitcoin that I’m dealing with, but I took the hit and put it down to experience.

My EOS, however, is still sitting on the exchange. I’ll decide later on today what to do with it, but I see that the withdrawal fee is 0.5 EOS, which is 33c at today’s rates.

Altcoins
Any Cryptocurrency that’s not Bitcoin can be called an altcoin, of which there are hundreds. I decided to dip my toe into these as well. Kraken only supports a small number of altcoins, so I did some research on the ones that they have, and decided to buy some EOS, as mentioned above.

They say to do your research on each altcoin before buying, to see whether you like the project, etc. Project details are usually very technical, which is not so bad for a software developer like me, but for someone who doesn’t work in IT it must be a nightmare.

From what I’ve read, Bittrex is recommended for trading altcoins, since they support many more than Kraken, but I haven’t managed to get my account verified yet.

Learning about the market
I learned a lot from watching/listening to videos on YouTube. Mostly I find myself watching DataDash and Trevon James, and checking out other recommended videos from the sidebar.

Trading
Since I’m at the noob stage I haven’t looked into trading much. I’ll see how things go in the future, and maybe dip my toe into it. DataDash has a nice video about learning to trade. Maybe using a bot like Gunbot would be better, but costs 0.09 Bitcoin (€500 at the moment), so you’d need to be pretty serious about it. There is also lots of talk about Bitconnect. A lot of people seem to be doing well out of it, but it seems too good to be true.

...That’s about it so far. It took one week between starting my research and buying my first crypto. Thanks to all the posters on here who unknowingly helped me along the way. My only regret, like everyone else, is that I didn’t get into this sooner!

pro_gnostic_8

Well done! Very good write-up.

Only one final aspect I would recommend you to address in your learning curve ................ SECURITY. (How to protect your coin, safe transacting, best-practice to avoid being scammed, phished, address-changing malware etc etc).

Welcome to joining in a great adventure, btw.

S.M.B.

Excellent post.

SkySter

Good stuff. Candidate for a sticky if slightly reworded.

carrotcake

Thanks for all the positive feedback! EOS is up 50% since yesterday... I probably should have bought more than €50 worth. :pac:

whacker1982

any ideas on how to set up a kraken account tried a few times now but its comes back saying there is a problem with its host, i really want to buy some ripple, tried gatehub but its been a month since i gave them my id vertifaction and it keeps coming back rejected, ive done exactly what they have asked and they dont seem to respond to emails so im at a complete loss their. joined up on coinbase and put in my middle name for sepa transfer only to find out it says that my name has to be exactly the same on my coin base account as to my bank account. i dont have my middle name in my bank account. since the start of all this ripple has doubled in price, i feel sick. and fustrated but i really want to buy some ripple before it goes up any more in price. any help please

GreeBo

whacker1982 wrote: »

any ideas on how to set up a kraken account tried a few times now but its comes back saying there is a problem with its host, i really want to buy some ripple, tried gatehub but its been a month since i gave them my id vertifaction and it keeps coming back rejected, ive done exactly what they have asked and they dont seem to respond to emails so im at a complete loss their. joined up on coinbase and put in my middle name for sepa transfer only to find out it says that my name has to be exactly the same on my coin base account as to my bank account. i dont have my middle name in my bank account. since the start of all this ripple has doubled in price, i feel sick. and fustrated but i really want to buy some ripple before it goes up any more in price. any help please

Its just slow at the moment, you have to keep refreshing.

you can also buy XRP on bittrex without verification (its only needed for withdrawals)

Sabre0001

One massive lesson for me was the reality of fees...and the power of FOMO. Was eager to get in, got the account set up, but thought that buying by credit card wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. I was very wrong! Now, the tiny amount of coins I bought have covered the fees since, but better for it to be in your wallet than paid as fees! Definitely have a read of the Avoiding the Fees thread and take that tutorial to heart. Also, don't let FOMO or excitement / fear dictate your actions (easier said than done!)

Next lesson for many of us is going to be taxation and keeping tabs on profits made by exchanging coins for one another...

GreeBo

Sabre0001 wrote: »

Next lesson for many of us is going to be taxation and keeping tabs on profits made by exchanging coins for one another...

cointracking.info (and many others) will do all that for you.

whacker1982

using bitterex can i use my debit card to make a purchase of xrp

GreeBo

whacker1982 wrote: »

using bitterex can i use my debit card to make a purchase of xrp

No, bittrex doesnt support fiat.

If this is your first foray into crypto you will need to get the btc, eth or other somewhere else first.

Coinbase allows for Credit card deposits which are ~instant which you could use to buy eth/btc and then transfer to bittrex to buy xrp

whacker1982

GreeBo wrote: »

No, bittrex doesnt support fiat.

If this is your first foray into crypto you will need to get the btc, eth or other somewhere else first.

Coinbase allows for Credit card deposits which are ~instant which you could use to buy eth/btc and then transfer to bittrex to buy xrp

I’m with coinbase but it won’t allow our debit cards because it 3D secured, also tried it with a pre payed card like swirl, they won’t allow it either. That was my plan buy bitcoin from coinbase and then buy ripple from gate hub

GreeBo

whacker1982 wrote: »

I’m with coinbase but it won’t allow our debit cards because it 3D secured, also tried it with a pre payed card like swirl, they won’t allow it either. That was my plan buy bitcoin from coinbase and then buy ripple from gate hub

Your credit card should work...

whacker1982

GreeBo wrote: »

Your credit card should work...

Don’t have one 😩

GreeBo

whacker1982 wrote: »

Don’t have one ��

And you call yourself an investor!

whacker1982

GreeBo wrote: »

And you call yourself an investor!

So many walls, I just don’t think I’m meant to be a millionaire. Unless bitcoin reaches 10million

GreeBo

whacker1982 wrote: »

So many walls, I just don’t think I’m meant to be a millionaire. Unless bitcoin reaches 10million

Personally I dont think BTC is going to go much beyond ~$25K.

It stabilizing will make it much more useful and I see it as being a digital form of gold, it will be where people run to to protect their cash.

whacker1982

GreeBo wrote: »

Personally I dont think BTC is going to go much beyond ~$25K.

It stabilizing will make it much more useful and I see it as being a digital form of gold, it will be where people run to to protect their cash.

Only time will tell, but only a fraction of people around the world know about it. It’s like when the internet came, took awhile for people to warm to it. Look where it is now. Bitcoin is starting to grow up now. Hopefully people will take to it like they did to the internet. They said the bitcoin bubble would burst when it hit $500. Less then 3 years ago.
Nobody really knows, but this crypto currency is really exciting but it’s always gonna be a gamble. As they say only buy what you can afford to lose

grindle

GreeBo wrote: »

Personally I dont think BTC is going to go much beyond ~$25K.

In what time-frame?

It's going beyond that within the next six months.

Uncle Mclovin

Which website do most people use for tracking their portfolio?

Just trying to get a grip of things before I'm too far in and don't know what potential CGT I have.

I'm using Binance as my exchange.

Blacktie.

Uncle Mclovin wrote:

Which website do most people use for tracking their portfolio?

Blockfolio app

grindle

Uncle Mclovin wrote: »

Which website do most people use for tracking their portfolio?

Blockfolio, Delta, CryptoCompare?

GreeBo

grindle wrote: »

In what time-frame?

It's going beyond that within the next six months.

Oh ok, great.
I must have missed that tweet.:cool:

I'd be surprised if it's above that in a years time.

smacl

GreeBo wrote: »

Its just slow at the moment, you have to keep refreshing.

you can also buy XRP on bittrex without verification (its only needed for withdrawals)

Also looking to mooch about with crypto, so tried setting up accounts with a couple of the bigger exchanges with the following results;

- Kraken has been stuck at the tier 1 verification all morning. Kraken blog says it is pretty much down at the moment but should be in better condition next week.

- Bittrex is giving a 404 error creating a new account. On twitter it reports it has removed new account registration due a spike in demand.

- Sign-up for Changelly also not working, no obvious explanation

- Gemini doesn't allow users in Ireland.

- Set up a Coinbase account, pending activation once photo-id has been verified

Clearly should have done this a month ago, we'll see how it pans out over the next week or so.

cravings

even months ago when i set up mine, before this mad new busy period, it took a few weeks to get things sorted.

smacl

cravings wrote: »

even months ago when i set up mine, before this mad new busy period, it took a few weeks to get things sorted.

Not in any huge hurry myself, well aware of the whole FOMO-FUD cycle. Plan is to muck about with very small amounts just to get a feel for how the whole thing works.

Uncle Mclovin

I'm updating my Blockfolio portfolio with my coins on Coinbase and Binance.

I bought Litecoin on Coinbase and I transferred it to Binance. Does anyone know how you reflect the transfer to Binance from Coinbase?

At the moment I'm showing 8 LTC/EUR which were the coins I bought in Coinbase. I sold these Litecoin for Bitcoin in Binance so my Blockfolio app is showing +8.71 LTC/EUR and -8.69 LTC/BTC.

Can you net these off?

grindle

GreeBo wrote: »

Oh ok, great.
I must have missed that tweet.:cool:

I'd be surprised if it's above that in a years time.

Tweet? Uh, okay.
Very bearish? There's a lot more money entering, I don't see how $25k can be stopped from happening, whether it's liked or not.
Whether it's that price in a year doesn't matter too much - it could well drop down terribly by the 2nd half of the year - but I think the momentum and interest at the moment & the amount of new accounts plus another round of the holiday-dinner-speculators to come...
It's just the rate it's going at - it's certainly heading in that direction and a much larger group of people seem more informed about it this cycle, more aware of the value it brings beyond speculation.

FastFullBack

carrotcake wrote: »

Buying cryptocurrency
I read a lot about this, since there are different ways (online exchanges, ATMs, direct buying from other people). In the end, I decided to make an account on www.kraken.com since it seems to have a good reputation, and has low fees for those of us dealing with euros. I made a bank transfer to Kraken one morning, and it showed up in my account the next.

How long did kraken verification take? I applied yesterday and I know it's probably super busy but I'm just wondering how long it might take.

carrotcake

FastFullBack wrote: »

How long did kraken verification take? I applied yesterday and I know it's probably super busy but I'm just wondering how long it might take.

For Tier 2 it took around 20 minutes. For Tier 3 I don't remember. I think it was was verified on the same day that I applied. There weren't as many new user sign-ups then, even though it was just two months ago.

JC01

FastFullBack wrote: »

How long did kraken verification take? I applied yesterday and I know it's probably super busy but I'm just wondering how long it might take.

I applied the other day for tier2 and its still processing. With the amount its crashing lately I think there is a massive influx of new users that the site probably hasn't been set up for (including me!).