Ethereum, you would have heard the name and sounds like an atomic element from the periodic table you’ve learnt in high school. It’s not a newly identified atomic element, rather it’s an innovative platform in Blockchain space with a growing market cap of more than $70 billion dollars only next to the king Bitcoin. Why so much value for Ethereum We’ve bitcoin, why do we need another crazy sounding cryptocurrency? Good question :) Bitcoin is like store of value — it’s a ledger to maintain the transactions and hence it has it’s value. Imagine another platform where it can be a ledger of transactions + conditional fulfilment/execution of these transactions with all abilities of blockchain(immutable, verifiable etc) — That’s Ethereum Image by Linda Xie That’s really undervalued! Next steps Now that you know the power of Ethereum, if you have decided to invest in Ethereum — you’ll have following questions in mind. What’s a reliable place to buy a Ethereum? What’s the process associated and options available? Wallets, Deposits and Purchase Advanced users: A slightly better way. Where can I buy my Ethereum — This is the place where you can convert your fiat currency(US Dollars) into Ethereum or other Cryptocurrencies. Coinbase I don’t work for . I just find them convenient. There are a lot of alternative options but is the recommend one! Coinbase Coinbase Always — always pay your taxes and never try to evade them! Ethereum is not just the one to buy, there are other blockchain based currencies, which are different and in some terms superior to just being a currency. Few of which are Bitcoin, Ripple, Monero. . Litecoin is like silver if Bitcoin is Gold Confused about what cryptocurrency is and Blockchain technology is? Head out to our educational chatbot powered by AI https://m.me/confusedcoin _Answers your basic questions and common doubts regarding cryptocurrency and blockchain world. Don’t be shy — keep posting your questions._m.me/confusedcoin AI Powered Crypto Chatbot provides you ways to buy Coinbase Bitcoin (BTC) Ethereum (ETH) Litecoin (LTC) What’s the process of buying on Coinbase? Signup on Coinbase Verify your identity Choose a payment method Which payment method to choose? Credit/Debit Card obviously has higher fees associated, so you might not want to go for that Among Paypal and Bank Account, I would suggest you to choose Bank Account if you are in the US Factors here are fees associated and limits allowed to transfer as you can see in the image here. After linking Bank Account, What’s next? lets you to deposit money either to it’s USD Wallet or You can buy BTC/ETH/LTC directly. Depositing money to Coinbase takes some time i.e 4–5 business days. This is because of the ACH transfer from bank to Coinbase. This delay is one of the factors to be considered while depositing as you need to think of it and see if you want to deposit or buy directly — we’ll discuss about this as we go ahead. Before that what’s these wallets? Coinbase What’s these wallets? provides you with 4 types of wallets. Essentially each one of them is store specific currency. Coinbase USD Wallet: To Deposit US Dollars, Store USD when you sell any of your currency. Transactions from USD Wallet to buy any of those coins is Instant. BTC Wallet: Your bitcoins will show up here after you buy using USD. ETH Wallet: This is the place where your Ethereum will be stored LTC Wallet: This is the wallet for storing your Litecoins. Follow me on for updates regarding Cryptocurrency & Blockchain. Twitter Deposit to USD Wallet or Direct Buy Depositing money from your Bank to USD wallet takes about 4–5 days. . Meanwhile a lot can happen! These cryptocurrencies are so volatile that price may shoot up even 100% in 4 days. When I mentioned volatile, it’s equally possible that it may go down 100% or more in just 4 days! So it’s all about your own research about what exactly these coins are, what’s the right price — price of these coins mostly depends on supply vs demand as well as some technological breakthroughs and partnerships. You can refer this article to understand why it takes so long Even a direct buy takes 4 days for your bought currency to reflect in your wallet. The very explains it. It’s because of ACH transfer and bank takes 3–5 business days to process the request and send your money to Coinbase. However, same article you get a locked-in price for the selected coin if you buy directly! So, if you think price of a Bitcoin or an Ethereum is right at this point of time, and you think if the price might go up in next 2–3 days and are sure that it will not go down in next 4–5 days — Then go for direct buying of the currency you are interested in. So when you click on big blue button “Buy Ethereum” — you will lock your price to the current value on coinbase and acquire it. It shows on your ETH Wallet as Pending with the amount of Ethereum bought. In this case it would show as 13.82657643 ETH — arriving on Saturday 6/24/2017 and shows $5000 irrespective of current price. This way, if the demand for ETH increases and the price soars to $450 by 6/24, you would have already made profits by then. Same is the case with losses — if it goes to $200 by 6/24, you still got 13.82657643 but valued at $200. If you are looking for detailed analysis on other upcoming ICOs and information regarding cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology in general — check out confusedcoin.com Confused Coin explains about the technology, trading and investment details about Bitcoin, Ethereum and many other cryptocurrencies. visit www.confusedcoin.com Confused Coin Get started with Cryptocurrency & Blockchain When to deposit to USD Wallet? If you think price is high or irrational at current point or you have not decided which coin to buy or not ready to invest, then deposit your money to USD Wallet, so that once you makea decision — it would be an instant buy of either of those coins from USD wallet. Advanced Users: There’s a slightly better way What’s that — Trading via an Exchange — GDAX : Global Digital Asset Exchange (formerly Coinbase Exchange) is a crypto currency exchange owned by coinbase. Advantage here is you can login to GDAX with your coinbase credentials. GDAX An exchange, if you are into stocks before would understand easily — place where people buy and sell stuff. In this case, it’s BTC, ETH and LTC — GDAX is a place where people trade these 3 currencies. GDAX allows you to deposit money in 4 ways Through ACH transfer (takes 4 days) Through wire transfer ($10 fee, available same day if deposited before 1PM PDT) From coinbase account, could be BTC/ETH/LTC/USD. (Instant & Free) From another address(wallets stored in another exchanges or elsewhere) So what’s the key here? Once you’ve your money deposited to GDAX, you can buy a currency (say ETH) at Market Price or Limit Price. Exchange is a place where someone sells a unit of currency and someone buys it. If both of them agree on a price, that will be the market price for that moment. Eg: If someone wants to sell an ETH at $300 and there’s someone who want’s to buy at $299. Sale will never happen unless one of them compromises or a new guy places another order at $300. So one cannot sell unless someone buys at price he quotes and vice versa. Market Price In above example, you say “Buy at Market Price” you will be allotted the ETH at minimum sell order placed by someone i.e. $300 — So you’re called a because someone an offer and you it. Taker made took Limit Price If you’ve said “Buy at Limit Price” and set a Limit Price to $299.23; you will be allotted an ETH when someone sells an ETH for the amount you’ve asked for i.e. $299.23 — In this case, you’re called because you an offer and someone it. Maker made took Same applies for Sell too. Still, What’s the advantage here? On GDAX, transaction fee for is 0% and transaction fee for taker is between 0.10% and 0.25% for BTC books and 0.10% and 0.30% for ETH books. So you save transaction fee, if you understand how the trading works on an exchange and how to place a limit order for buy or sell. We’ll have an article soon on how to do this for beginners. Maker If you found this article useful, feel free to leave at a tip of any amount at these addresses: BTC: 1P8ZCe4vUBCzd4eVCvfXYtYJ9HP1gbe38f ETH: 0xc347018DbfCFFBa91872635AC4CFc0521359A420

Litecoin

Monero

Maker

Coinbase

fees

Twitter

Phuck Phishing & Be Secure While Using MyEtherWallet

Missed Bitcoin? Here’s how to buy Litecoin

Write for BearTax

Read My Stories

Too Long; Didn't Read

CTA: Download the FREE AI Productivity Shift report

How to buy Ethereum in USA, Australia, Europe & Singapore

How to buy Ethereum in USA, Australia, Europe & Singapore

About Author

Comments

TOPICS

THIS ARTICLE WAS FEATURED IN

Related Stories

Untitled Story

ReactJS: The Javascript Developer’s Guide

06/02/2018: Biggest Stories in the Cryptosphere

06/09/2018: Biggest Stories in the Cryptosphere

05/02/2018: Biggest Stories in the Cryptosphere

0 to Pro Crypto Trader: Your Ultimate Guide to Bitcoin and Altcoin Investing

ReactJS: The Javascript Developer’s Guide

06/02/2018: Biggest Stories in the Cryptosphere

06/09/2018: Biggest Stories in the Cryptosphere

05/02/2018: Biggest Stories in the Cryptosphere

0 to Pro Crypto Trader: Your Ultimate Guide to Bitcoin and Altcoin Investing

Light-Mode

Classic

Newspaper

Dark-Mode

Neon Noir

Minty

HN StartUps