It took me a Google search and a YouTube video to find out how to withdraw my USD from Coinbase into my bank account. Did anyone else find this unnecessarily burdensome? Gemini makes it so much easier and clearer. I feel that Coinbase intentionally makes it difficult to withdraw funds to keep users locked into the account.
I use a variety of ways to track my crypto portfolio, including using the built-in tools from CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko. I tend to find the latter a bit more accurate since it includes the transaction fee in your total returns, whereas CoinMarketCap does not.
Separately, I keep track (and ensure the accuracy of the online portfolios) using Excel. I recently created my own Excel spreadsheet tracker which I intend to share in the near future once I have all the features built. It's quite a low maintenance tracker and all I need to do is enter my transactions manually (e.g., buy or sell) and the spreadsheet handles all the updating and tracking for me, including calculating my gains and losses versus the market price. This is accomplished by accessing the CoinMarketCap API (free for personal use).
There's an excellent HOWTO guide on linking the API to Excel here.
How do you track your portfolio? Let me know in the comments below.
There is so much to learn about crypto. When I first got started, I used a variety of YouTube, Wikis, and websites to get me up to speed. In particular, the following websites have proven invaluable to me and I wanted to share them with you:
If you have a resource that you find especially useful, please let me know. I am always happy to learn more.
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 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:
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.