So, everywhere you look you see/hear news regarding cryptocurrency , and the conclusion is that you do not get involved, you do not get rich.
So I started documenting. Anyway my principle is to make a good or very good documentation before you start giving away your hardly earned money, by investing into I donno what cryptos. What you find is a ton of videos on what to buy. I came to the conclusion that investing into the following cryptos may be worth: bitcoin, ethereum, ripple and steem. This was the easy part. And even this is arguable, and it may be right or wrong.
Hard parts.
- Nobody, but f@cking nobody tells you how you actually get to the point to exchange EUR or USD into cryptos.
- Which platform to use.
I am going into details on these two issues.
First of all how you get to deposit money. You either use your card (credit/debit) or do a bank transfer (SEPA or wire).
Secondly I found this very useful site to decide on which platform to use: https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/romania/
Just select your country and see the available options.
I balanced a lot between fees, security, reputation and privacy.
Then tried to register on CEX.IO
You are asked for you ID card. You give it.
You are then asked for you credit card details. You give it.
You start to feel like naked after sharing all these very personal details.
When you think no more is required, they still require a bill, with your address.
You are desperate, because you still want to get rich, so you give it.
Then they ask for a picture with you holding you credit card in your hand. At this point I got really tired of the registration process, but let's do it. get rich (hope you feel the irony).
You are done with everything, you feel like you are in the door to Valhalla.
You go to deposit, to spend some money, and find your card is pending....and verify in 2 days...pending...and in 5 days...pending.
So i gave on up Cex.io
Nnnno problem: you can't be defeated, and choose another platform: bitstamp.
You approx. go through the above process, and when press Register button to step through the door of Valhalla: you got on error like bitstamp internal server error, or server too busy, please try again later. So I gave up on this one as well.
Nnnno problem: you still can't be defeated, and choose another platform: coinbase.
This platform seems nice, a lot of European countries can use it. I checked out in a list, Romanian can sign up. cool. let's do this. Aham, when trying to register it does not accept somehow the country region. no problem, I hack it with VPN. no luck. several days later I see that I do not see Romania anymore in the list of supported countries. I hope it was not me with the VPN. :D
Nnnno problem: you still can't be defeated, and choose another platform: kraken.
How cool this name is anyway. Kraken registration is really simple, quick and easy. I was quite surprised that I got through verification phase 1&2 in just 3-5 minutes. Buuuut: you cannot pay by debit card. Only SEPA or wire transfer. What are those I had no idea (still not much), but somehow I managed to transfer 90 euros through SEPA to kraken. Or at least I hope so. Before writing this article I made the payment, and I just really hope that in 1-2 days the money will be on my kraken account, and not lost in the 'ether' :). As I understood SEPA transfers meant to be free-ish. It hurt a bit that my bank purchased 15 euros for this transfer, but there is a price to pay to become rich. Basically what I did was to transfer this amount from my online banking account to kraken account, stating a reference number which is bind to my kraken account. in some days I'll find out if I am right or wrong on this. :D
Until then....I am miling around in the door of Valhalla.