So I'm finally on the Crypto band wagon in SG now that I'm getting paid in Bitcoin.
Never thought I would be into this whole thing, but seeing how my earnings grows by a couple of dollars even before I've cashed out my week's pay has taught me otherwise.
Now only if I had the good sense to have accepted BTC as payment in the beginning of the year, I might singing a totally different tune about now, while wearing a new dress, holding an iPhone X and perhaps with a maid helping me shush and feed the baby to boot...
ahem moving on...
It was a bit of a hassle finding the right wallet so that I could truly start getting immersed in the Crypto world. As I mentioned with Payza and Poloneix, getting money out of STEEM was a real B**** since you basically spend a whole lot of money on fees converting STEEM to Pound to USD to SGD and then paying more fees to withdraw the money out of whatever you were using.
Thank goodness for Facebook though. Through it, I managed to streamline some of the better wallets for use in Singapore, thanks to friends who have already been trading.
I've ended up with Coinhako, even though there was some rather worrying news about how they have been closing down SGD accounts for some of the more popular wallet providers in Singapore.
Coinhako makes use of Xfers as a platform to transfer money in and out of Coinhako and after you've hooked up your accounts, it's actually pretty intuitive, as long as you remember to select the wallet you want to credit when you're carrying out your transactions.
Considering how complicated it is to get money out of Steemit, I daresay that this new method of getting my BTC out of the system has totally changed how I am viewing cryptocurrency and the potential that lies in playing the market.
I used to tell myself that if I ever was going to put money in some form of "Stock", that I would be watching the market too often so that I could make my money grow and while I've been rather glued to the recent fluctuations of BTC, I hope that I will be able to take a break from the charts every once in awhile to give the currency a chance to grow.
Reading this article and this article on Forbes and perhaps a dozen more you can easily find when you Google for "Blockchain predictions", when you spend the time reading what these big investors and financial institutions are saying about blockchain, you'll be as convinced as I am that investing in BTC for the long term might be a good move.
Again, that's if I can get myself away from those numbers long enough to let the money just sit there.
Getting Set Up
In any case, if you're thinking of jumping on the bandwagon like me, here are some of the things I did to make sure I was properly set up before I started trading.
1 . Do your research about the different wallets that were available.
- this means ENSURING that you can CASH OUT or withdraw BTC to your local currency
- and also being able to WITHDRAW LOCAL to your bank
(this step alone had me going through 5 to 6 different wallets, before I realised I should tap on my social media network to get some help.)
2 . Do all your identity verification
- most wallets will have different levels of requirements when it comes to helping you transact money.
- upload your personal ID and make sure that you're approved to go ahead otherwise your money could get jammed up in your wallet while you wait for the approvals
Granted you may not be a person who's gonna put a few thousand dollars in transaction on a daily basis, the financial institutions of today all have requirements of their own with regards to accountability to the monetary authority in the country you're in. Singapore's Money Bank (MAS) is particularly stringent about this.
3 . Do a test run of a few dollars so that you know whether the operator you're using is diligent with making the transactions for withdrawals.
- obviously if they say 3-5 working days for them to credit your bank account, give them the benefit of the doubt.
4 . Take the time to message their customer service people, even if you don't have a problem
- If you've got money somewhere, you want to make sure that the idiots looking after your money are on the ball at solving your problems.
- I asked them stuff like, how is my verification going. Is it on the way. Can you update me?
- It's good to get a feel of how they will handle your issues in case there are any.
And just a couple more precautionary notes...
- You can look at how different wallet exchange rates might work for you If you intend to invest in other forms of Cryptocurrency, make sure that wallet supports it. Just like Forex, different "exchanges" will give you a different rate for your crypto. Choosing the right one might earn you a few more cents than others, and when you scale that up to your (hopefully) future thousands, those cents will really count!
- PLEASE read the reviews of the wallet that you're using, and don't be like me and wait until you're on wallet before asking for help from your friends. You never know if someone in your circle may have had a bad run in with a particular provider. Such timely advise can save you not only money but heartache...
SO that's my simple take of how you can get started! Once your wallet is up, tradigin money should be pretty intuitive. I'm quite proud to say that all of my "trading skill" (not as if a couple of hundred dollars is much to shout about) is learnt from silly pirate tradigin games where you ferry goods from one island in the Caribbean to another.
Advice where you can't go wrong? BUY LOW, SELL HIGH.
Above all, please be cautious when you trade. Never put more money down than you can't afford to lose. You just might make a couple of dollars here and there by playing around a bit on the market., but in case you don't make money, just don't get caught up in the adrenaline of the exchange and sell yourself out of house and home to play some more.
That is all.
Happy trading everyone!
Jess