From crypto ignoramus to finally buying my first Bitcoin & Steem

heroic15397 (62)in #bitcoin • 8 years ago

It's Never too Late

About a year ago I set myself to learn about cryptocurrencies. I had just seen a video on YouTube about mining Bitcoin and I decided it was about time I get informed on this whole universe of virtual economy base on blockchain technology. Here is the news report by Motherboard I'm talking about:

Life Inside a Secret Chinese Bitcoin Mine

Gimme Some

Naively, I thought that after only an hour or two of gleaning on the web, I would have the precious at my disposition and thus would be able to spread the joy toward my favorite independent media Internet sites. But as it turned out, after two full week evenings of googling, clicking and reading, I was still empty-handed in regards to having my first electronically traded coins.

I tried figuring out how I could manage to buy some on LocalBitcoins.com, but I quickly got repulsed by all of the different lists of instructions given by each and everyone of the traders there. At first glance at the complications, it seemed as if these people were not interested at all in trading what they had. Then I paid a visit to Canadian Bitcoins, and being with CIBC and Desjardins, I realised the only two banks I have been using so far, are not providing with the Interac Online service which was among the buying options there.

Also, there was no way I would have sent cash in an envelop to a stranger or could have met somebody on the street in Ottawa. Even if I could have arranged a meeting with someone, here in Montreal, it would have not corresponded to the ideal I imagined about ''the currency of the future''. Not only my goal was to get BTC without even lifting my ass from the computer's chair, but I would ideally also had prefered not having to share my passeport or a personal utility bill with a person who might be interested in stealing my identity.

At this point, you might be tempted to say: ''Hey ric, how about a Bitcoin ATM?''; and to this I will answer that I studied the possibility, but still an interesting service like AutoCoinage wasn't enough by itself to convince me to go out for a gold rush in the midst of what is the typical Canadian winters' cold weather.

Second Time has to be the Charm

When doing the research one name came out above all else: QuadrigaCX. And once I had noticed the brand, it popped out in the most unusual of places as an advertisement on a banner. To me, the ubiquity meant that the company was serious about its business, that they had a name and reputation to sustain, and thus that when would come the time of dealing with them, I could probably trust that they would keep their end of the bargain. But for some reason, after searching for approximately ten hours without any immediate result, I putted the entire crypto quest aside.

The follow up only came ten months after, when I got myself immersed into the Steemit world. So a couple of weeks ago, I decided to sign up at this forementioned Coin Exchange from British Columbia that had stood out from the crowd last year. Like I had seen elsewhere, a wide array of ways to fund my account was presented to me there. From vouchers to bank drafts or wires, I told myself I absolutely had to avoid failing for the second time in finding a way to learn how to switch some Canadian Dollar for digital currency.

I settled for trying to send a $100 money order. By doing this, I was accomplishing two things I never did before: buying a Canada Post Money Order and making a concrete action for the purpose of owning Bitcoin. I followed the instructions on the web site and waited for the usual mailing delay to pass before doing any follow up. One week after, still nothing in my account, so I decided to send them an email. Ten hours after, I had my answer and the money appeared.

Steem to Bitcoin

Before going through the steps of my ''buying Steem from Bitcoin'' experience, I want to give a shout out to @piedpiper for posting this video on how to withdraw Steem Dollar:

How to Withdraw Your Steem Dollars from Steemit in Less That a Minute

Bitcoin to Steem

Finding a way to fund my QuadrigaCX account was the hard part, from there funneling the dough all the way to my Steemit account was a two stages walk in the park:

Send a Bitcoin amount to my wallet by copying my EXODUS receive adress to the QuadrigaCX's withdraw form.
Go to my Steemit wallet, press Deposit under the Steem tab, copy the adress shown under Deposit using Bitcoin and paste it as a send adress (along with the amount intended to be transfered) at my above-mentionned desktop multi-asset wallet.

That's about it. ;-)

If you have any question or comment, don't hesitate.

Special Thanks to: @bacchist, @cryptoiskey, @elyaque and everybody else I'm forgetting who has had the patience to answer all of my questions about cryptos in general.

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Steem On! :-)