Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum are all the rage nowadays, and I don’t see that ending anytime within our lifetimes so all of us better make the most of it. I’ve been following this particular part of the internet subculture for many years by now, and have been playing around with lots of aspects including DeFi (decentralized finance). That’s basically investment bank services without the bank. Or investment in a way, since you can trade/invest in nothing but an idea (someones coin idea). But it’s services. That it is.
Through my adventures in crypto I’ve registered and used innumerable services, apps, wallets and alike. Only a few of them remains in my bookmarks or installed on my phone to this day, as I usually give most things about a day or two to attach itself to my consciousness. If I haven’t used it again within that day or two after registering/bookmarking/installing, I simply delete it. Or, it’s obviously crap immediately. But the few I consistently return to are the following, and I can’t recommend any and all of them enough since I wish more people were able to find them since they make the whole crypto thing very easy to wrap your head around. And some of them make it stupidly simple to start earning more, without any expertise or knowledge.
My recommended top 5 places to buy and exchange crypto:
Bit2Me
This is my favorite gem that isn’t very commonly known about. It’s a crypto exchange located in Spain and has been mostly been just serving their own national market, so they are not widely known about outside of españa. This has the actual benefit of not being known with most banks either, so if you’re like me and your normal bank really do not like you buying crypto or dealing with anything about it, then this place is golden. You can buy crypto directly with your visa or mastercard, and also cash it out the same way or directly to your bank, without any fuss or blocking. It not only is one of the most dependable services I’ve come across, but it’s also insanely user friendly. Like, coinbase level user friendly. But european! Viva españa.
Binance
This is probably, after coinbase, the most well known international exchange. It’s huge. And it’s complicated. And it’s awesome. I don’t quite know why I like Binance so very much, but basically they have everything and anything, with decent rates and without any scammy business practices. This is the only place where I’ve chosen to actually get myself a physical visa card from, which is directly connected to your crypto wallet for super simple real-world usage of your proceedings. Because, like everything in Binance, it is a good deal without fees or catch-you-with-fineprints. And on top the usual low-fee buying of crypto with credit cards, they also (because they’re Binance which has everything, remember?) have a whole own customer-to-customer platform like localbitcoins and such, where you can purchase your bitcoin directly from other individuals instead. To sum it up, if there’s something you won’t find on Binance, it’s probably not invented yet.
Revolut
Revolut is of the first major digital phone app-bank, alternative online bank, or whatever you wish to call it, around. I started using their iphone app a couple of years back, and enjoy their free cards and mostly user friendly interface. And last year they also allowed for buying crypto and investing in alt-coins, on top of stocks and shares. Kinda. Since they don’t allow you to actually transfer out your investments to a wallet, it’s more like a investment vehicle to easily ensure you can gain from the market without doing any actual work with learning about the technicalities. It’s extremely straight forward, and what you give up in control you receive in simplicity. So it’s suited for just that – putting a few bucks aside from your revolut account into crypto to HODL. But not for trading or doing any actual life savings of course.
Ps! Right now you’ll get paid 300 SEK if you’re swedish, and you register with the link above and order your card, as well as do three transactions during october.
Localmonero/Localbitcoins
These are services that allow you to buy Monero/XMR (my personal favorite crypto currency which is the most commonly used privacy coin that is completely untraceable) or Bitcoin/BTC from other individuals like yourself. No need to go via a third party that may or may not do annoying things, charge extra on top, keep track of you or any number of other things you’d rather avoid. Buy some crypto that Billy or Jane has over and want to convert to moneys instead of donating to Coinbase or Binance. It’s not quite as user friendly, and you do really need to mind the conversion rates, but it’s the preferred way of buying and selling crypto. It just is. Get yourself a wallet, register and hook up with someone like it’s tinder for coins.
Coinbase
Yes, yes, this place probably doesn’t even have to be mentioned. For all intents and purposes everyone everywhere know about Coinbase even if they’re not involved with crypto. But still, I just have to include them since there’s a reason for that. They are just the most user friendly, simple and fool-proof service out there. The fees aren’t the lowest and their services aren’t the broadest, but hot diggity do the service work like a well oiled machine. And it does it while also being an actual crypto exchange that actually gives you control of your investments, unlike Revolut and such. While it’s mostly tailored for Americans, I haven’t found much problems using it as a european. But the main reason I had to include Coinbase in this list is actually their “earn crypto by learning” scheme, which is unique and brilliant. They offer you as a customer various short “courses” on different currencies of how they work, and when you answer 3 questions right about it you will instantly get a 3$ reward paid out to your account in that actual coin! It’s free money. And actually interesting most of the time to get a quick primer of a new alt-coin. Brilliant.
