Although bitcoin has taken the world by storm, that is not the only cryptocurrency in the world. In fact, there are over 1,000 other cryptocurrencies you can buy. These other cryptocurrencies are seeing percentage gains that either beat or match bitcoin---and they are much cheaper to buy. Some of them are just pennies (like TRX).
The cryptocurrencies outside of bitcoin are called alt coins and they have a lot of explosive growth. This may sound overwhelming if it is your first time, but luckily we will be giving you a step by step tutorial of how to to buy your first alt coin.
Buying an alt-coin simply requires you to purchase Bitcoin or Ethereum from Coinbase, send it over to Binance, and swap to your coin of choice. If you have not done so, make sure to sign up for Binance before you can start trading alt coins.
- Log onto your Coinbase Account. If you have not signed up yet, take this time to sign up for a Coinbase account! You will be greeted with a dashboard of the performance of each of the most well known coins. Click on the Buy/Sell Icon highlighted below. This will take you to a page to purchase Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH).
- Next, you will need to purchase either BTC or ETH! But before you purchase either BTC or ETH, make sure the alt coin you want to purchase has a pair with the main coin. To check this, go to Binance and ensure your coin has a pair. If you haven't signed up for Binance yet, do so by clicking on this link. For this example, I will show you how to buy the Alt Coin VEN. Make sure BTC is highlighted in yellow, type in "VEN" in the search bar, and if the pairing is returned, that means BTC-VEN is a tradeable pair on Binance.
- After confirming that your alt coin pair exists you will now purchase BTC. (1) Make sure that Bitcoin is selected along with a payment method. You can use either a credit card, checking account, or USD wallet ($$ sitting in your Coinbase account). (2) In this example I entered in $1000 USD, which translated to .0561241 BTC at the time of this writing. (3) Click "Buy Bitcoin Instantly" when you are ready. (4) You can review your transaction on the right side of the page before committing. This is your receipt showing where the money is coming from (payment method), how quickly you can access this coin, and where it is getting deposited to. In this case, I am using my credit card so the BTC will instantly be available and deposited to my BTC wallet.
- The next step will ask for your confirmation. Once you are comfortable with the purchase, click "Confirm Buy". If the transaction is successful a new window will pop up as below. The BTC is instantly available to me because I purchased via credit card. If you used a checking account, it may take up to 3 business days before the coin is available to trade with.
- The next step is to locate the BTC wallet address on Binance. You want to send the BTC you just purchased on Coinbase to this address. Hover over "Funds" and the click on "Deposits and Withdrawals".
- Search for "BTC" (1), then click on "Deposit" (2). There is some leftover BTC from a previous alt coin transaction (3).
- Your BTC address will appear (1). Click on the Copy icon (2) to copy your address -- never manually type in your address. Read the note on (3), make sure you are depositing to a Bitcoin wallet. You will confirm that on the next step.
- Switch back to your Coinbase page. You will now click on Accounts (1), which will take you a summary of all your different wallets and transactions. Under the BTC Wallet icon, click on "Send" (2).
- A new pop up window will appear. (1) This input box is where you will paste the BTC wallet address that you've copied from the Binance page. You are sending BTC from your Bitcoin wallet in Coinbase to your Bitcoin wallet in Binance. Double check to make sure the address matches what you see in both Coinbase and Binance. (2) Confirm that you are withdrawing from your BTC wallet. (3) Enter the amount of BTC you want to transfer over. (4) Click "Continue" at the bottom of the screen. A new pop up will appear with a summary of your send request. Once you are comfortable, click confirm (5). If successful, another pop up window will appear saying your transaction is on the way. At the time of this writing the BTC network was experiencing delay, so it took longer than usual for the coin to appear on my Binance wallet.
- To confirm the send request, click on "Accounts" in Coinbase and select BTC Wallet. As you can see below the two transactions I performed appears in my history. One transaction shows I bought .05784 BTC and the other transaction shows a pending send request of a slightly smaller amount (due to network fee).
- To confirm that the send request is going to the destination wallet, go to your Binance page. Hover over funds and click on Deposits and Withdrawls and search for BTC. You will now see that BTC got transferred over so we are now able to purchase some alt coins with BTC!
- Click on the home button (1), search for VEN (2), and click on the pair (3).
- Now you are at the detail page for VEN/BTC pair. Within this page you can look at the graph and statistics of VEN/BTC. To purchase this alt coin go to (1). You will choose between a limit/market/stop-limit buy. In this scenario I want to to purchase VEN/BTC at the current value so I would set a market price order. A limit order is when you want to buy the Alt Coin at a specific price, and your order will only trigger when the price reaches that level. When you click on the "Amount" input box, it will show you the maximum amount you can purchase. In my case, my BTC balance of .0559 BTC is equivalent to 624 VEN coins. When ready, click "Buy Ven". If successful you will receive a pop up saying it completed.
- The last step is to check your balance of VEN. Like previously, check your balance of your alt coins by hovering over Funds (1) and click on Deposit and Withdrawals. Search for VEN (2). You will now see your total balance of VEN of 621 coins (3) -- since I put market price, there was a little bit of slippage. This amount of VEN is equivalent to .00575625 BTC.
- Congratulations! If you followed the tutorial, you are now a proud owner of an alt coin!