Crypto Journey

I recently confirmed that Gemini does indeed offer free withdraws and does not charge transaction / network fees. I'm surprised by this because transaction fees on the Ethereum network can cost over $10 for small transactions (e.g., under $50), which is cost prohibitive. It seems many exchanges, including Coinbase, also offer this free service. 

Gemini has some internal software to make it cost efficient for them by rolling withdrawals into one transaction. So when you refer to your transaction hash on Blockchain.com, you'll see a few other transactions alongside your's. 

I am trying to understand how Ethereum manages accounts and addresses. Unlike Bitcoin which you can generate an unlimited number of addresses, it seems you can only create one Ethereum address if you wish to spend it in one transaction. 

My understanding is that with Bitcoin you can send bitcoin from multiple addresses as long as it is coming from one account. Ethereum, on the hand, seems to only have one account, one address. To make matters more confusing, you can have ERC-20 tokens (e.g., BAT) transact using an ETH address. Before I transferred BAT from Gemini to my Trezor wallet, I was perturbed because it seemed illogical -- how can one type of coin get transferred to a different address? I had read stories of people losing their bitcoins forever due to carelessness in mixing up other cryptocurrency addresses (e.g., sending BTC to an ETH address) and I was determined not to make that mistake. When my BAT transaction using an ETH address went through, I was elated! This is such an interesting discovery for me but for someone who is 100% brand new to crypto, this can seem very confusing and off-putting. 

I am going to learn more about how Ethereum and ERC-20 handles transactions in the coming weeks.

Edit: Based on this Reddit thread, it's normal for Ethereum to have only one address per wallet.

I've been using the Brave browser for over two months now. I like its speed and compatibility with websites. Previously, Firefox was my main browser but I found it incompatible with a handful of websites. Brave uses the same engine as Google's Chrome but has built-in ad blocker. On top of this, Brave also has a unique incentive of giving users the option of opting into their native Brave ads, which are essentially Windows Notifications, that allow users to earn Basic Attention Tokens each time an ad is presented. 

I turned on Brave ads for three days now and have earned 0.6 BAT, which is equivalent to about $0.60 today. I'm not doing it for the monetary reward (though, I've read some people making ~$150+ last year), instead I'm excited to see what Brave can do with BAT. Supposedly there's a search engine in the works. Maybe they can compete with Google someday.

I created my first online wallet using Gemini and purchased some Bitcoin, Ethereum and Basic Attention Token over the course of two weeks. The process of creating an online wallet was simple and quick: all I needed was my U.S. driver license and a bank account. 

A month ago I purchased a Trezor hardware wallet (referral link here). After reading about basic security, I felt that the $55 was well worth the peace of mind knowing my coins are stored safely. I also use an YubiKey for added security. 

In order to familiarize myself with the basic functionality of cryptocurrency, I embarked on a simple "to do list" which consisted of:

1. Updating the Trezor firmware (this is a default step when you use the device for the first time)
2. Performed a dry run of recovering the wallet using the recovery seed
3. Purchased and transferred BTC, ETH and BAT to my hardware wallet
4. Formatted the Trezor
5. Recovered the wallet using the seed and confirmed I could still see my balance

I'm not sure how Gemini processes withdrawal fees because in my experience so far, none of my transactions seem to incur any network or transaction related fees. 

If you are new to Gemini, my suggestion is to use the default web layout for your first purchase. Once you feel confident about what you're doing, go to Settings and change your layout to Active Trader. By doing so, you'll save a lot on purchasing fees. I'm not sure why Gemini charges such a high rate for a different frontend, but I was disappointed to find out that I had paid 3%+ for my earlier purchases using the simple layout vs. changing to Active Trader I paid only 0.25%! 

With this, I have taken my first steps into my crypto journey. I can't wait to see what the next ten years has for cryptocurrency.  

Today marks the first day of my ten year journey into cryptocurrency. I've been sitting on the sidelines since 2011 watching the space evolve. In 2013, I even attended a Bitcoin talk hosted by Andreas Antonopoulos in San Francisco. I remember thinking to myself that Bitcoin seemed interesting, but didn't see the potential of what it could be. 

In 2015, Coinbase was offering $10 in BTC to almost anyone with a .edu email address to open an account. I took advantage of this offer since it was quite literally free money, so why not? I cashed it out within days. Had I held onto it, today it would be worth over $1,000.

Now that I'm a little bit wiser, today seems better than ever to join the cryptocurrency movement.