CRYPTO-4-BEGINNERS

Welcome to Crypto-4-Beginners, our topic is buying and selling cryptocurrencies.  In this section we'll look at a few crypto-exchanges, how to set up an account on an exchange, and how to buy or sell crypto on an exchange.  

We will cover three different crypto exchanges; Coinbase, Binance, and Crypto.Com.  I'll also briefly cover the difference between a centralized exchange and a decentralized exchange. 

So, lets begin... 

Coinbase, is the go to spot for newbies in crypto.  If its the first time you're buying crypto, Coinbase is a good place to start.  

I'll provide a link you can use to access the Coinbase exchange.  By using the link you'll be entitled to 12.70$ worth of Bitcoin, after you spend 127$ on the platform.  

You'll also receive your own referral link that you can give to your friends or family, and once they sign up, and spend 100$, you'll receive 10$ worth of Bitcoin.  

On top of that, users will also have the option of watching a couple video's that teach them about various cryptocurrencies, and Coinbase will pay you in crypto for viewing these videos.  Each video set pays roughly 3$ to 9$ each in the crypto that is being presented in the video.  Its a great way to get started and earn some crypto without buying it.  

To create an account with Coinbase you will have to go to their website. You can use my link below, or google Coinbase, or download the mobile app.  You'll only get the 12.70$ worth of Bitcoin if you use the link below.  
https://www.coinbase.com/join/kirby_ij6

You'll need to provide a KYC (Know your Client), and prove your identity by issuing either a drivers license, national card, or passport, and also provide a proof of address.  

Once you're set up, the user-interface is extremely easy to use.  To buy or sell crypto, you'll need to link your bank account.  After that, buying or selling crypto is easy, at the push of a button.  In the top corner, you'll see a button that says "Buy or Sell".  You also have the option of "sending or receiving" crypto.  If you choose to send crypto, you'll need the address of the wallet you're sending too.  If someone is sending you crypto, in order to receive it, you'll have to click the "receive" button, and then copy the wallet address.  This is your public key and you can give this alpha-numeric code to the person that is sending you the crypto.  

Its important to understand that each cryptocurrency has its own wallet, and each has its own unique address.  For example, lets say you bought both Bitcoin and Ethereum off the Coinbase exchange.  Within the Coinbase platform you'll have a Bitcoin wallet, and an Ethereum wallet.  Each wallet has a different address.  So, if your friend wants to send you Bitcoin, you must give them your wallet address for Bitcoin.  If your friend sends Bitcoin, but to your Ethereum address, then the Bitcoin is lost forever.  So its important to make sure that the address that crypto is being sent to, is accurate.  Thats why we usually copy and paste when dealing with crypto wallets, cuz if one character is missing, or capitalized when shouldn't, then the crypto being sent will be lost.  

It is also important that you add security features, such as 2-step verification.  This just means that every time you try to send crypto out of your Coinbase wallets, you'll receive a text message code.  This helps prevent against hackers that may try to access your account and steal your crypto.  To do this, go to "Settings", then select "Security".   

Binance is another popular crypto exchange.  There are two features, beginner or advanced.  The beginner version is user friendly, but limiting.  The advanced version can be overwhelming to newbies as it has more features.  

Like Coinbase, you'll need to provide a KYC.  This means that Binance will ask you for identification (license, national card or passport), proof of address, and to link your bank account.  Once completed you'll be ready to use Binance to buy, sell or trade crypto.  

You can access Binance by googling Binance, or downloading the app on mobile.  The icon is a diamond, usually in yellow or white.  Or you can use my link, and you'll get 10$ worth of BUSD (Binance U.S. Dollars, its a stable coin pegged to the U.S. Dollar).  

By using my link, you'll also save 10% on commission fee's.
https://www.binance.com/en/register?ref=HM5JKBKD

Now Binance is a bit more complicated than Coinbase.  However, there are some benefits to using Binance.  On Coinbase, there are only a select few cryptocurrencies you'll be able to purchase.  Many popular crypto's are not available on Coinbase, but are available on Binance.  However, its not possible to buy certain cryptocurrencies directly with your fiat currency, bank card or credit card.  For example, lets say you want to by a cryptocurrency called ADA (Cardano).  To do this, you'd first have to buy either Bitcoin or Ethereum, and then exchange the Bitcoin or Ethereum into ADA.  

I know, I know, crypto can be tedious.  

Let's do an example, step by step, just so you can see how its done for future references.  

Lets say, in this scenario, you want to buy 200$ worth of ADA.  ADA isn't available on Coinbase, so you use Binance.  First, assuming your account is set up, and you're using a mobile device, and you're on the advanced settings.  

If you want to use the beginner settings you can press the little icon at the top left corner, and it will open up your settings.  From here you can turn on "Binance Lite".  Or if you want to set it to the advanced settings, you can turn off "Binance Lite".  You wont be able to purchase ADA with Binance Lite.  

So, you're in Binance advanced settings.  First you'll click the icon at the bottom of the screen that says "Wallets".  Next, you'll click "Spot" at the top of the screen.  Here you'll see a display that shows your equity value in Bitcoin (thats your combined crypto holdings total value worth in Bitcoin).  Next to it, you'll see that value but in fiat (Your country's currency).  Under that you'll see a list of different cryptocurrencies and how much you own of each.  Since you haven't purchased any yet, the values will be zero.  

In order to purchase 200$ worth of ADA, we first must purchase 200$ worth or Bitcoin or Ethereum.  Lets use Bitcoin for this example.  Scroll down until you see Bitcoin (BTC) and click on it.  On the next page, you'll see an option to buy using a credit/debit card.  Click that, and you'll be brought to another page where you simply plug in the values.  Since were buying 200$ worth of Bitcoin, you'll select your country's currency, and put 200.00 in the value box. The box below it, which is the amount in Bitcoin that can be bought with 200$ will be filled automatically.  Press continue, and another page showing the rates will appear, press purchase and 200$, minus fee's, worth of bitcoin will be in your Binance wallet.  In some cases, your bank may temporarily block the purchase and you'll need to call your bank and verify that you want the purchase to go through.

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Next, you'll want to select "Trades" at the bottom of the screen.  From there you'll see a combination pair, if its not ADA/BTC, you'll need to click the two-way-arrow and a new page opens.  Scroll down until you see ADA/BTC.  Select that, and then fill in the values for how much BTC you want to use to purchase ADA.  Once you fill in the BTC value, the ADA value will automatically be filled to correspond.  Press "Buy ADA" and the order will be sent.  It may take a few minutes for the order to be filled. You can select the wallet icon at the bottom of the screen to go back to your wallet, select "Spot" to see the values.

You also have the option to send your crypto from your Binance wallet to another wallet. To do this you'll want to be in your wallet, select "spot" and then scroll down to the crypto you want to send.  Click on the name of the crypto, and you'll be brought to another page.  Select withdrawal, and you'll be prompted to put the address of the wallet you're sending to, and the network, and the amount you want to send.  Please note, there will be a fee changed by the exchange when you send crypto off the exchange.  The network is the blockchain the specific crypto operates on.  If you're sending Ethrereum, you want to use ERC-20.  If you're sending ADA, you want to select Cardano.  This can be a bit more complicated, and if you have questions I suggest contacting me on our Facebook group page via Messenger.  

Its important to set up the 2-factor authentication, and have an email code and a text code sent to you whenever you want to move crypto out of your Binance wallets.  This is to prevent hackers from trying to access your account and stealing your crypto.  You can set that up by going into "Settings", select "Security".  

Crypto.Com is somewhere in the middle between Coinbase and Binance in terms of difficulty.  While this platform is more user friendly than Binance, it has more features than Coinbase.  Again, you'll need to do a KYC and provide identification, proof of address and link bank account.  And you should do the same security features as mentioned for Coinbase and Binance.

You can google Crypto.Com, or download the app for mobile.  Or you can use my code.  
https://crypto.com/app/nrthcxeumb 

When you use my code, you'll receive 25$ (USD$) worth of CRO (CRO is Crypto.Com's cryptocurrency) if you purchase 5000 CRO.  

One reason I like Crypto.Com is they offer a pre-paid Visa Crypto Card.  This is similar to any pre-paid credit card, except you can load up crypto on to it.  So if you have 100$ worth of Bitcoin and would like to spend 10$ of it, you can load 10$ worth of Bitcoin onto the card and its accepted anywhere Visa is accepted.  

Crypto.Com offers a few different pre-paid Visa Crypto Cards.  The Midnight Blue, is the lowest level card, but it's absolutely free.  It only allows for up to 250$ to be spent via this card per month.  Other cards have higher spending limits but require the user to hold a certain amount of CRO for 180 days to be eligible for those cards.  There are no monthly or annual fee's, and each card level comes with more perks.  For example, the highest level card is the Obsidian, it requires the user to hold 5,000,000 CRO for 180 days, but has a spending limit of 1300$, offers 8% back on the amount spend on the card, with 100% cash back if you use your card to pay for Spotify or Netflix, 12% CRO stake rewards, 10% back if you use your card on Expedia or AirBNB, and Amazon Prime reimbursement of up 13.99$ per month.  Also, considering that the CRO you need to own in order to order cards can increase in value over the 180 days, and after the 180 days you can sell or trade that cryptocurrency for fiat or another cryptocurrency.  So, win, win!  

There are also other features, such as being able to buy gift cards with your crypto, and it you use CRO to make these purchases, you can get 5% back in the form of CRO.  

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, lets talk about the difference between centralization and decentralization in the crypto-space.  

Coinbase, Binance, Crypto.Com and many others such as Gemini (we didn't cover Gemini) are what are considered centralized exchanges.  This means that there is a central authority that operates the exchange.  The benefits of using a centralized exchange is that they are [usually] user friendly, easy to access, and provide an on ramp to buy crypto with credit/debit cards quite easily, providing you pass the KYC.  If you're new, you usually start here.  Mainly because its easy, and if you lose your password, the platform can work with you to help you retrieve access to your account.  However, the downside is, you don't actually control your private keys, remember - "not your keys, not your crypto".  This just means that you're not in control of your crypto, you entrust the exchange to manage that for you.  The risk here is that at any time the platform can halt trading, ban you from the platform, or do a rug pull and simply disappear with your crypto.   Its not likely that major exchanges like the ones mentioned above would do that, but there have been instances of trading being halted.  This can sometimes have drastic outcomes for users.  For example, if you wanted to sell crypto, but the exchange halts trading, and the the value goes down before you were permitted to sell, you would lose potential revenue.  Centralized exchanges are also targets of hackers, and while some exchanges may offer to refund accounts that get hacked, sometimes this isn't the case.  A cautionary tale is the story of MTGOX.  This was one of the first exchanges that was hacked and users lost all of their Bitcoins.  It took years before only some of the users were returned portions of their crypto.  

This is why its usually encouraged to move your crypto off of exchange wallets into your private wallet, such as a software wallet like Exodus or MetaMask (or even your Brave wallet), or to cold storage hardware wallets like the Ledger or Trezor.  

However, leaving your small amounts of crypto on an exchange isn't the worst idea.  It saves in transfer and exit fees, and gives a quick option to sell if you ever want to.  Plus, platforms like Crypto.Com offer an array of ways to spend your crypto, if thats what you want to do.  I personally have several wallets, one for the bulk of my savings and others on various exchanges for trading, selling or spending.  

Decentralized exchanges, or DEX's are often used by more experienced crypto-players.  There are a few DEX's, Uniswap is a popular one.  These mainly operate on the Ethereum blockchain and only compatible with ERC-20 tokens (these are tokens that exist on the Ethereum blockchain).  Some examples of ERC-20 tokens are popular cryptocurrencies you might have heard of, ETH, LINK, UNI, etc... 

To use a DEX, lets say Uniswap, you simply go to the Uniswap platform, and connect your MetaMask Wallet.  Once there, you can use ETH (Ethereum cryptocurrency) to swap for any other ERC-20 token.  The advantages of using a DEX is that its permissionless.  This means you don't have to fill out a KYC.  The exchange is decentralized, meaning, nobody owns or controls it, and all users are free to engage with it.  It cannot be shut down, and trading cannot be halted.  The dangers however, is that, its possible for anyone to create an ERC-20 token, and thus, a new user may accidentally buy a fraudulent token thinking they are buying an established token.  This is certainly not for newbies.  I try to cover more in depth stuff like DEX's on our Facebook group page, please join me there to learn more about how to use DEX's like Uniswap, and others.