Hi Hubski! I've been riding the ether wave happily as of late. I wrote this guide to send to some of my family members who were interested in buying some ether. I tried to make the process as easy as possible, which I think for my not-too-tech-savvy family members would involve first buying bitcoin with a credit card and then trading for ether.
I'd love some feedback on my instructions. It is better to just have them buy bitcoin with a credit card and then swap it at a place like shapeshift.io? I'm thinking they want it at an exchange so they can easily cash out later, so these instructions send them to Kraken. Too complicated?
Thanks
Mike
STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO BUYING ETHER
0. Decide how much you want to invest. Only use money you can afford to lose. A lot of folks think Ether is going to go way up, but you should be willing to accept the risk that it could go to zero.
1. Go here: https://blockchain.info/wallet/#/signup
2. Register, verify email address, and then buy bitcoin with a credit card. Maybe $100? $20? $5000? Doesn't matter, it can be as little or as much as you want to play with. The site takes a 2.9% transaction fee. It is the cost of money.
NOW YOU HAVE BITCOIN! Congratulations. Welcome to the future. Now you're going to trade it for ether.
3. Register at kraken.com. This is one of the best online trading sites. They deal in all kind of cryptocurrency. You can think of them as a bank where you can store money and cryptocurrency and trade freely between them.
4. In your Kraken account, click on "Get Verified" and upgrade from Tier 0 to Tier 1. Very easy to do, just some minimal information and no documentation to send. At Tier 1 you can trade cryptocurrency.
5. Now click on "Funding", then "Deposit", then pick Bitcoin (XBT) in the side menu.
6. Click on "Generate New Address". You will get a hexadecimal number. This is you address you will send Bitcoin to. Copy it to your clipboard.
7. Go back to your wallet on blockchain.info. Click on "SEND".
8. Paste in the address you got from Kraken. IMPORTANT: double- and triple-check the address. If it's not right, your money could dissappear!
9. Finish the sending process. You must now wait a little until the transaction clears. It might take 30 minutes.
10. Go back to Kraken, click on "Trade". Has your bitcoin arrived yet? Yes?...
Now you have bitcoin in an exchange and can trade for whatever you want. This next part is not all that intuitive...
11. In the top left corner is a dropdown menu to choose type of trade. Choose ETH/XBT. You will be trading bitcoin to get ether.
12. Click on "Trade". Find out how many bitcoin (XBT) you have and copy this amount.
13. Click on "New Order". "Simple" is the type of trade selected by default, that's fine.
14. The green button should be clicked to BUY.
15. In the first field, Amount, click on the dropdown meny and choose XBT. The text under should say "Amount of XBT to spend". Paste in the number of bitcoin (or fraction thereof) you have.
16. In the middle is a button for Market/Limit. Click on "Market". That says you will buy at market price. (You can instead set a limit which with automatically buy for you a price you set, so if the price comes down it buys automatically. I think. I've never actually done that.)
17. Click the big green button: BUY ETH WITH XBT. Complete the order. It will take a few minutes for the buy to take place.
Now you have ether! You can follow the price here: https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/eth/overview/USD
Your ether can live at Kraken for as long as you like. You can sell it for dollars whenever you want to, and then do a bank transfer to send money to your bank account.
It's actually safer to hold your ether in what is called a "paper wallet". If you get this far and want to do that I can talk you through it. http://myetherwallet.com is a great place to create secure wallets.
Just ask if you want help. Good luck!
Kraken will not tell you if your location is one of its "restricted locations" but as of 2015, New York State is restricted. As of next week, Washington state is restricted. At least they learned a few things; the New York post is unprofessional as all hell. The fact that you cannot find out if your location is restricted without trying to open something and failing, and the fact that should they restrict your location in the future you get one email and two weeks notice, should give everyone pause about using Kraken.
are you fucking kidding meNew York State is restricted.
I wouldn't say it's a no-go? But I'd say that it reflects the non-fiduciary nature of the cryptocurrency universe. I went with Kraken because they were less shady than Coinbase and now Kraken is no longer an option for me. this here be the wild wild west.
EDITED -- UPDATE: A friend tried this. The credit card took 4 days to clear through Coinbase, it had a 100 euro limit, and the charge was 3.5%. He then did a bank transfer which was (a) cheaper, (b) had a higher limit, and (c) took 2 days instead of 4. If you want more than 100 euros and can wait 2 days before you start buying, use this method instead. STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO BUYING ETHER (bank transfer) 0. Decide how much you want to invest. Only use money you can afford to lose. A lot of folks think Ether is going to go way up, but you should be willing to accept the risk that it could go to zero. 1. Register at kraken.com. This is one of the best online trading sites. They deal in all kind of cryptocurrency. You can think of them as a bank where you can store money and cryptocurrency and trade freely between them. 2. In your Kraken account, click on "Get Verified", scroll to the bottom and upgrade from Tier 0 to Tier 1, then Tier 1 to Tier 2. Very easy to do, just some minimal information and no documentation to send. At Tier 2 you can send and receive money with bank transfers and trade cryptocurrency. 3. Now click on "Funding", then "Deposit", then pick your currency in the side menu. 4. Choose Deposit Method from the dropdown. My bank uses SEPA. You should check with your bank how to a wire transfer to send money. It will be on their webpage. You will get all the information you need to enter on your online banking site to send money. Read the "important" points in the instructions, they want you to include the proper codes so it goes to right place. 5. Send money from your bank! We send from Norway to England. It takes 2 days. This is good, because the transfer is reviewed by actual humans, so they should catch any errors. 6. Check back with Kraken each day. Has your money arrived yet? Yes?... Now you have money in an exchange and can buy stuff! 7. In the top left corner is a dropdown menu to choose type of trade. Choose ETH/EUR or ETH/USD or ETH/your currency here. 8. Click on "Trade". Find out how much cash you have and copy this amount. 9. Click on "New Order". "Simple" is the type of trade selected by default, that's fine. 10. The green button should be clicked to BUY. 11. In the first field, Amount, click on the dropdown meny and choose XBT. The text under should say "Amount of EUR (or USD) to spend". Paste in the the amount of money you want to spend. 12. In the middle is a button for Market/Limit. Click on "Market". That says you will buy at market price. (You can instead set a limit which with automatically buy for you a price you set, so if the price comes down it buys automatically. I think. I've never actually done that.) 13. Click the big green button: BUY ETH WITH EUR (or USD). Complete the order. It will take a few minutes for the buy to take place. Now you have ether! You can follow the price here: https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/eth/overview/USD Your ether can live at Kraken for as long as you like. You can sell it for dollars whenever you want to, and then do a bank transfer to send money to your bank account. It's actually safer to hold your ether in what is called a "paper wallet". If you get this far and want to do that I can talk you through it. http://myetherwallet.com is a great place to create secure wallets. Just ask if you want help. Good luck!
A friend of mine today tried to buy using a credit card on Coinbase. They only allowed 100 euros and he needs to wait a week to buy more. He wants to buy about 900 euros and doesn't want the wait time, expecting a spike in prices soon. I recommended a bank transfer to Kraken which can take less than a week, but he is skeptical of bank transfers for some reason. Anyone know of a service with higher limits?
I appreciate this as someone who is exposed here on Hubski to quite a lot of talk about Bitcoin and so on, but has never even vaguely understood acquiring it. It would be nice to buy even a small amount, if only for the feeling that I'm investing in something.
I think you should buy a small amount, just for the fun factor. And who knows, maybe you buy one eth for $50 today and in 10 years it's worth $10000. Of course, read step 0: be willing to accept that your investment could go to zero. Don't withdraw your pension! (Unless you want to!)