Buying BTC for the first time: my story
I've always been interested in computers and technology. I've talked about this before, but this year my involvement with cryptocurrency has gone from observing curiously to going hands on.
To summarize my struggles shared in my previous "log along the crypto-road": despite verifying a bank account on a reputable centralized exchange as well as a great decentralized exchange, the actual transferring of FIAT USD into those exchanges was not easy. Once I got the technicalities figured out I realized my bank's wire transfer fees were outrageous. The price my bank would charge just to move some USD to an exchange was pretty cost prohibitive. So I decided the easiest way would be to use Coinbase and purchase BTC via credit card. In comparison to my bank's wire transfer fees, Coinbase's credit card fee was nominal.
I made the choice to buy my first BTC just before the China scare.
It didn't matter what the price was, I was buying into BTC because I believe in the future of the technology. I was ready to be personally involved. But hey, I won't lie, I was excited to get in as the price dropped. I never doubted the dip was temporary and saw it as a fortunate opportunity for me. However, I was having a HECK of a time trading in FIAT for crypto. I felt like Harry Potter in a match of Quidditch, but instead of chasing a small ball with wings I was chasing Bitcoin.
You already know I abandoned trying to transfer funds to an exchange. Then, my first attempts at Coinbase failed because my bank thought the transactions were suspicious. I had to contact them, say it was me, and request they don't decline future transactions on Coinbase.
When I first started attempting to buy BTC, it was around $3,000 USD. When I successfully purchased my first BTC today I paid an exchange rate of $4,837. I'd be lying if I said it didn't matter; I'm disappointed I wasn't able to take advantage of the quick dip. But, in the big scheme of things, it doesn't matter.
I bought BTC to HODL. I bought BTC because I believe in blockchains. This is a better system, and it's the way of a future I want to be a part of. I'm planning to keep what I bought today as BTC, then diversifying my next purchase into blockchains I believe in like STEEM and BTS.
For all the zipping around, duck, weave, dive, and leaping... it felt like more effort than I expected it should have been. But now that I've caught my first BTC "snitch" I feel much better and have learned a lot.
How about you? I'd love to hear your first Bitcoin story! For some of you it was years ago, or maybe just a couple months ago. Are you still waiting to buy into crypto? Even if you follow me for fiction writing or other things not crypto related, please leave a comment and share your story.
Nice to hear someone else say that they found buying bitcoin hard! I would like to make a start and with (very) limited funds just buy a token amount. I hoped to make use of the dip too but really don't know what I'm doing with exchanges and wallets! I managed to sign up to Cex.io but haven't put any money on the exchange yet and am so unclear about what I would do after that (like moving it to an offline, more secure wallet) that I haven't got any further. I feel I need to sit and actually go through it with a tutor!
I got started with just a small amount, and for that I recommend using credit card on Coinbase. Linking a bank account isn't like I thought, similar to PayPal where you just access your funds directly. To use your bank account on an exchange you have to wire transfer funds, and for the fee to be worth it I'd have to transfer about $700 USD.
The dip is over and Bitcoin is recovering strongly. That's unfortunate for us new buyers who wanted to get in then, but it was to be expected. If you still want to, I say go for it! Don't wait. Since I'm not planning on selling my first purchase of BTC for anything, I immediately transferred it off Coinbase to my desktop wallet (Electrum). Anytime you leave your crypto in an exchange you're trusting them to hold it for you. In a wallet, you control the private keys, meaning you only need to trust yourself and how well you manage access to your wallet.
I learned a lot by reading, and @lukestokes answered some questions for me. Anytime I'd come across something new I'd just Google search and learn. I didn't get BTC when I wanted, but I learned a lot along the way. I'm more than willing to share that info and help with any questions you might have.
Thanks for commenting. :)
Thanks for that. I really must get onto it as the price is only going to go up!
I'm a crypto newb too and just about two weeks ago bought my first crypto (litecoin) from coinbase. I had a similar experience where my credit card was having issues but I eventually got it through.
Yesterday I actually purchased something with the litecoin. It feels great :)
Awesome! Thanks for sharing. It's great that Bitcoin and other cryptos are getting more acceptance for marketplace transactions. I imagine at first I'll just be buying crypto through Coinbase, until I find a better way to transfer USD to an exchange.
I thought it was odd that Coinbase makes a couple verifying transactions to your card, you type in the exact amount... but then your credit card company declines actual transactions. You'd think the verifying charges would make your card company less suspicious to future transactions, but nope!
It took few weeks to validate my account on coinbase. Bought fraction of bitcoin to quickly convert it to steem. I caught it for 1.45 because i thought its going to skyrocket. Now it dipped so i got little more. It was much quicker and cheaper to buy it with litecoin. Thats my first experience with crypto purchases . I am newbie too:)
That's a thought that crossed my mind: when I want to buy other coins should I start with BTC as the base to purchase with, or ETH, or LTC? I imagine a smarter person knows which would be most beneficial... or perhaps it doesn't matter much. So in your experience at that time, was the exchange rate of LTC/Steem just better than the others?
It was almost immediate while with btc took half an hour. With sending btc provision was around 1euro and ltc 1cent. So far made 3 transactions so not enough experience to give advices yet.
Gotcha. Currently I'm experimenting with selling some Steem for SmartCash. However, it's not a one step transaction, as the markets where SmartCash is currently traded don't handle Steem. Sooooo... (take a deep breath) I'm selling Steem into BTS (because the volume to direct sell Steem to BTC on BitShares is non-existent right now) then I'll sell the BTS for BTC, which I'll then transfer to a market with SmartCash. Man that sounds convoluted, why would I do such a thing?! Well, SmartCash caught my interest, it won't hurt to get rid of a little Steem for it, and the biggest reason: TO LEARN.
We'll see how it goes, hahaha.
Good luck with that. Don't lose passwords for all this accounts :) I will hold to steem for while. I hope this will help me with blogging and at the same time if will rise in value. I missed opportunity on BTC and dont want to make same mistake twice ;) I will need to learn how to withdraw, hopefully at 1000usd per steem levels :)
This is incredible! @aksounder
good work my friend
It's true, its much harder than it needs to be, I'm sure. I was rejected from 3 exchanges before skulking over to CoinBase. Aussies dont have too many choices from what I can see, so I took what I could get at that point. Still don't have any Bitcoin, but I bought a few Litecoin and am excited to see where it takes me. Lots of promising things on the horizon.
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