At Textverified and our partner site, Phoneblur, the most popular payment method we offer is payment via cryptocurrency. Today we’ll give you a brief rundown on how to buy cryptocurrency, and in a follow-up post, we’ll explain how to use cryptocurrency to make purchases on our sites.
Cryptocurrency is digital currency – it’s real money, but it’s exchanged completely online. At the moment, we accept bitcoin, the oldest and most well-established form of cryptocurrency. But before you can purchase bitcoin, you’ll need to open a wallet.
A wallet is a digital repository where people store cryptocurrency. Depending on the type of wallet you open, you should be able to buy, sell, and trade cryptocurrencies.
For this guide, we’ll go through the steps of opening a wallet at Coinbase, a well-known digital currency exchange site.
First you’ll want to open a free account with Coinbase.
You’ll then receive an email from Coinbase – click through to activate your new account and then set-up two-step verification using a phone number. This is an important step to ensure the security of your account.
Next you’re ready to add your payment method: this is how you will purchase Bitcoin. You can do this via direct debit from a bank account using your debit card, which is the fastest option, or you can do it through an electronic bank transfer, which usually takes a few days to process.
Once your payment method has been verified and accepted, you’re ready to purchase some Bitcoin. Enter the amount you’d like to buy in US dollars (or your local currency) and follow the steps to purchase.
When you do this yourself, whichever payment method you’ve chosen will show up where we’ve put the emojis
Make sure to specify which cryptocurrency you want to buy since most digital currency exchanges will allow you to purchase a wide variety of digital currencies, such as Ethereum or LiteCoin. At Textverified, currently we accept good old-fashioned Bitcoin – not to be confused with “Bitcoin cash” or other spin-off currencies.
Here’s what a $10 USD purchase of Bitcoin will look like:
Please note that there is a processing fee for each transaction. If you know you’ll need a larger amount of Bitcoin in advance, then you’ll save some money by making a larger purchase upfront.
Depending on your chosen payment method, give your purchase a few minutes or a few days to process, and voila! – you are now a proud Bitcoin owner! Don’t spend it all in one place – unless that place is Textverified!
In Crypto 102, we’ll learn how to set-up your wallet for sending payments and how to use your new Bitcoin to make purchases on our sites.