How to buy Cryptocurrencies on Coinbase ?

Do you want to lose invest a bunch of money in cryptocurrencies ? This is the right place. Let’s see how to buy some on Coinbase.

But first I apologize for my English.

Coinbase… what’s that ?

Coinbase is an exchange allowing to buy, sell and stack 14 different cryptocurrencies :

– Bitcoin (BTC)
– Ethereum (ETH)
– XRP (XRP)
– Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
– EOS (EOS)
– Litecoin (LTC)
– Stellar Lumens (XLM)
– Ethereum Classic (ETC)
– Zcash (ZEC)
– Basic Attention Token (BAT)
– USD Coin (USDC)
– Augur (REP)
– 0x (ZRX)
– Dai (DAI)

Thanks Wikipedia.

Coinbase is one of those unusual websites we can trust. It was launched in 2012 and has now more than 25 million users. In a world full of scammers, a company with a strong history is quite reassuring…
Even if it’s far from being a seal of quality.

To top it all, Coinbase is quite simple to use.
The negative point ? Transaction fees are a bit high.

Ok let’s go. You will have bought your first Bitcoins in less than one hour.

Create your account

Start going on subscription page : https://www.coinbase.com/join
(You’ll receive $10 of free Bitcoin if you buy $100 of Bitcoin with my affiliate link. Every little bit helps.)

And fill the form :

!! STOP !!
We are talking about your money. Cryptocurrencies are the Mad Max of security. If you don’t want to wake up and see that all your wallets have been emptied, you have to choose a strong and unique password. Ideally you should change it regularly.

To generate a decent password you can use this website : https://passwordsgenerator.net

Default password length is good enough. It may be better to exclude ambiguous characters :

Click as much as you want on ‘Generate Password’ then copy the password. Don’t lose it. Store it in a safe place. 

GDPR

If you are in the EU you will go through GDPR notifications :

Read everything if you want to. Then click on ‘Next’.

And on ‘I acknowledge’.

Then here is the classic message : “Do you want to receive news about our product, services, …” :

Click on ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ if you want to receive their marketing emails or not.

Email verification

It’s time to verify your email address : 

A confirmation email has been sent to you. Sign in to your email account and you should see it :

Simply click on ‘Verify Email Address’. Your email address will be validated and you will be able to continue the subscription process.

Phone number verification

Now you have to verify your phone number :

Enter your phone number, click on ‘Send Code’ and you’ll receive a SMS confirmation code.

Enter the code you received, then submit.

Identity verification

You need to provide a few details about you for regulatory purposes :

Fill out all form fields :
– First Name and Last Name
– Date of Birth
– Address
– What will you use Coinbase for ? Investing, Trading, …
– What is your source of funds ? Employment, Inheritance, …
– Current Occupation
– Employer

Here is the last but not least step. The verification of your identity :

You can choose to provide a photo of your passport, your driving licence or your ID card. The process may be scary but is very simple and fast.

Click on the document you want to use. If you already have a copy of this document on your computer you just need to upload it. If not, you can do it by phone. You’ll receive a SMS with a link to directly take a photo of your ID and to upload it. Nothing could be more simple.

The validation will take a few minutes. It can be longer according to the time and the day. Finally you will receive a confirmation email.

From now on, your account is created and ready to use ! Phew !

Add your Credit/Debit Card

Your account is created and activated. Wonderful.

If you’re not, sign in : https://www.coinbase.com/signin

You have to enter the SMS verification code to sign in.

It is the Two Factor Authentication (or 2FA) that aims to increase the security. 

This system is not completely bulletproof but we will talk about that in another article. Anyway it’s clearly better than just a password.

So, are you connected ? Perfect. We can continue.

We will add a payment method to allow you to spend your money.

In the upper menu, click on “Buy/Sell” :

Then click on “Add a Payment Method”.

The list of payment methods is now open :

I will show you how to set up a “Credit/Debit Card” but you are completely free to choose another payment method.

First fill your billing address :

Some fields should be prefilled.

Submit and add your card details :

Then you will be redirected to the buying form :

That’s it your payment method is added. We’re almost done !

Buy your first Bitcoins

Everything is ready. You can finally buy your first Bitcoins on Coinbase.
I told you it would be quite simple and fast.

Good let’s start where we were on the buying form.

If you need to go back to this page just click on “Buy/Sell” in the upper menu :

Are you on it ? Excellent !

Fill the buying form :

1. First step : Choose the cryptocurrency you want to buy
2. Second step : Select your payment method
3. Third step : Enter the wanted amount
4. Fourth step : You can repeat your buy if you want to : daily, weekly, every two weeks, monthly. It’s quite useful if you want to smooth out the market by investing little and often.
5. Fifth step : Submit the form

Then you arrive on the transaction summary :

Click on “Confirm Buy” to confirm. And if needed follow the confirmation process required by your bank.

Voilà ! It’s done.

Your account is operational and you bought your first Bitcoins on Coinbase. 
It’s possible to follow your portfolio value in real time and you can buy as much as cryptocurrencies as you want.

We’ll see in another article how to sell, send and receive cryptocurrencies from/to Coinbase.

I hope this article was helpful to you !

Leave a tip to keep learning.