How to buy bitcoins using USD - without going through Coinbase
I had a friend write to me today, asking how to buy STEEM.
What a noob! (joking)
I had told him about steemit last month; he needed some time to look it over.
Both BTC and ETH are way down right now(!) and it's a good time to buy them with USD...
So I would recommend watching the market for a few days, it could be lower by July 25, but that's just a guess.
Buying now, is also a very good time!
If market starts going up much, go ahead and buy now.
All this below, assumes you already have a Steemit.com account and basically understand the basics of the steemit wallet.
(You have copied your steemit keys and have them backed up on flash in secure locations!)
First: Setup a BTC (or ETH) wallet on your computer (Mac is more secure, Win10 works)
Setting up a wallet to deal with ETH or BTC is it's own subject, and I recommend looking into JAXX and other more universal wallets (modern) or just setup the basic Bitcoin wallet, which you can research on internet.
Warning: it takes a few days to get your wallet in sync, and so you need to do it in advance of a purchase.
ETH wallet may be easy to setup too, but took a week for me to get it in sync..
Second: Buy either ETH or BTC. (I recommend working with BTC for now; it's easier to set up a wallet.)
Use one of these two sites listed below, and get back to me on how it goes, ok?
They come highly recommended from reputable Steemit community, and I would tend to trust their opinion.
Set up an account on one or both of these sites:
I would personally recommend avoiding Coinbase. It is the source of much frustration, and I find people that use it, never learn how to actually use crypto.
OR
Find local people that will sell you bitcoin directly (craigslist?) or buy from paxful or localbitcoins. I used to buy BTC from college kids in the Ebay parking lot.. years ago.
Third:
Exchange BTC or ETH for STEEM
I have been using blocktrades.us and it's very good.
I have heard maybe you can get better exchange rates with Bitrex or Poloniex, but I have not verified that.. and I doubt it's a huge difference. blocktrades.us will issue you an address to send BTC to, and they will convert it to STEEM and put in your STEEM account, all automatically and easy.
Here is a tutorial on how to use Blocktrades.us from timcliff:
https://steemit.com/steem/@timcliff/how-to-buy-steem-guide <-- excellent blocktrades tutorial, how to use steemit wallet
Now you have quite a bit of STEEM in your account, you can use it to help the community by reading, commenting, curating and posting to steemit.com!
One extra option:
https://changelly.com/ <-- you can buy STEEM with a visa/debit card here
From pfunk:
There are cheaper ways to buy BTC and alts, but this seems convenient if you don't care about getting overcharged. The current market price of bitcoin can be seen at https://bitcoinwisdom.com and many other sites.
Any reason you dont like coinbase
Many imposed limits.
I was one of the first people to get a coinbase account, and they pissed me off, within the first days of using the account. I don't even remember, but Coinbase is also the most highly regulated exchange, in my experience (IRS).
Lately, many reports coinbase is off-line as they can't handle all the noob traffic they get, as ICOs crash their servers, or sellers want out when bitcoin prices crash.
Read any number of reviews on coinbase from the internet; you will find many more issues than I raise here; it would be cool if you write an article on the many problems with CB!
There is a limit to the amount that the IRS was able to request, I believe it was something along the lines of accounts with over 20 thousand? I should have found the article for a quote.
Personally I have used coinbase but have seen MANY flaws. I also use Bittrex, livecoin, and Poloneix
I feel you are completely correct in your dislike for coinbase though. It simply cannot handle the traffic, and has too many "glitches"
20K is what I read, and if you are a newly minted "success" with bitcoin, that's not that much..
I'm thinking local deals with people i can investigate before I meet up with them.
Thanks for the honest opinion. I will take a stab on writing the articel
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Thanks for the info, I've always gone through Coinbase in the past and have been wanting to try something new.
Not looking for any upvotes on my article here, but I did a write up on avoiding Changelly when it comes to purchasing with USD. Check it out before making that move.
With that said, I've never had an issue with Coinbase, but I'll have to check out Paxful and Localbitcoins if their fees are lower than the 1% that Coinbase charges.
Thanks for the tip!
Thanks for the comment, and the link.
Exactly why I post my stuff; so I can get the feedback loop going, and get some second opinions and figure if I left out anything important.
Absolutely!
p.s. I need to pick your brain on how you managed a 60 reputation score in such a short amount of time. One of my goals is to bring my rep score up!!
I usually reply to questions, with a post ;-)
https://steemit.com/steemit/@surfyogi/how-i-got-a-reputation-of-60-in-2-months-no-steemit
Perfect!! I could definitely do a better job of commenting on other posts. So far, I've tended to spend more time actually researching and writing articles/coming up with ideas for articles as opposed to just browsing Steemit and writing engaging comments.
I'm definitely going to switch up tactics and spend more time curating than authoring and see where that gets me.
Great article by the way and thanks for the help!
Good info on buying BTC without Coinbase. thanks!
great tutorial 😊😊😊
really helpful to newbies like me that dont know anything about crypto
⬆(What if i told you... that this banner is clickable)⬆
I agree blocktrade is much easier to convert and does not need an account.
thank you
oh this was something new for new thanks for telling about this.