Your Personal Crypto “How-To”

Alex Moschina|December 5, 2020

We got an email from a reader named Ken the other day.

In response to Andy’s latest piece about Dow 100K, Ken wrote this:

Please tell us how to purchase Bitcoin or set up a way to do so. It is very frustrating when you talk about/promote something we don’t really have access to (sorry, my wife and I are over 65 and not financial advisors).

I suspect other readers can appreciate the sentiment. (Feel free to send us your crypto questions anytime.) That’s why today I’ve put together a quick “how-to” for folks ready to dip their toes into cryptocurrency.

As 2020 has shown us again and again – and as the Manward Letter portfolios confirm – the profit potential is huge with cryptos.

By the time we’re done, I think you’ll see that buying crypto is as easy as buying stocks… if not easier.

Let’s get into it.

Sounds Familiar

It all starts with creating an account at a crypto exchange. There are many options you can choose from, but for simplicity’s sake I’ll focus on Coinbase. It’s the E-Trade of the crypto world: easy to use with plenty of educational tools and support built in. In other words, it’s great for beginners.

This much is made clear when you arrive at the Coinbase homepage:

Creating an account is free. Simply click “Get started” in the upper-right corner or enter your email in the box under the “Get $5 in free Bitcoin” banner.

You’ll be asked to verify your email address and add a mobile number for two-step verification – i.e., the same security requirements you can expect these days when creating a new email account.

Next you’ll enter personal info like your name, date of birth, address, etc. You’ll also be asked questions about your income and employment status, just as you would when signing up for any brokerage account.

And lastly, you’ll just need to fund your account by connecting to your preferred financial institution.

Again… it’s virtually identical to the process you’d go through to sign up for any brokerage.

Picking Up a Highflier

Now that we’ve got our account set up, it’s time to make our first purchase.

How about we pick up $100 worth of Ethereum (ETH)? It’s one of this year’s highest-flying cryptocurrencies.

I could search for Ethereum in Coinbase by typing ETH into the search bar. Or I could take a look at all of the cryptos available to me by clicking “Prices” on the main menu.

That would take me to this screen:

As you can see, Ethereum is listed right behind Bitcoin in terms of market cap. To initiate my purchase, I simply click the “Trade” button, and the following window pops up:

From here I enter my desired purchase amount and click the “Preview Buy” button.

The next screen tells me exactly how much Ethereum my $100 will buy, minus a small exchange fee. It looks like this:

If everything looks good on my end, I hit the “Buy now” button, and, within minutes, I’m the proud owner of 0.16199128 Ethereum.

Easy-peasy.

Like I said, it should be no more difficult than buying shares of stock. But if you still have questions, let us know. Shoot an email to mailbag@manwardpress.com.