TS2 | Your First Steps With Crypto

While NFTs do intrigue many people, the steps to enter this world make it overwhelming for most. So, here we are with Vnstr who shall break it down for you so you can start investing in the crypto world without any further delay.

Discussion Topics: Your First Steps with Crypto

• Setting up your wallet
• Getting cryptocurrency
• Signing up for MetaMask Wallet
• Storing passwords

Transcript: Your First Steps with Crypto

Hello everybody, and welcome to the second episode of The Token Singaporean, My name is Vnstr. Today, I’m basically going to walk you through part one of the onboarding process, We’re going to look at what you need to do to set up your wallet and exchange the right tokens you need in order to start buying and selling in the NFT space. So I think it would be very beneficial if you have your computer or laptop beside you just to be able to follow the steps as we go along. So without further ado prepare yourself and let’s go.

Hi, everybody. So welcome once again to today’s episode. And I suppose if you’re still here, after listening to the introduction, it probably means that you’ve set your mind to really want to get started in this space. I’m very happy that more and more people are getting interested. And I’m glad to be of help along the way. So as I mentioned earlier, in today’s episode, we are going to go through the first part of onboarding, which is to basically set up your wallet, and get your Ethereum.

And just prep everything so that you can get started on the buying and selling once you set your eyes on a particular project on NFT. So actually, in my conversations with my friends, sometimes when we talk about NFTs, and when they ask me about it, most of them would be really interested in the buying and selling aspect. I mean that really so because the technology is just so interesting.

But when it comes to the onboarding process, meaning when I start to explain to them the steps they need to go through in order to onboard themselves, I think that’s when the enthusiasm starts to fizzle out a little bit. And then that’s when their procrastination kicks in, like maybe two or three weeks later, when I asked them, or maybe when we go back to the same topic is back to the square one, like, I’m really interested, I just haven’t had the time to onboard myself, or like, there’s just so many steps. And I’m really confused, I’m afraid that I will do the wrong thing, because we are dealing with pretty large sums of money, I don’t know, that kind of thing.

So personally, I think that this would be one of the most important episodes to listen to because I think it will really help a lot of people who want to get started. But at the same time, they are a little bit worried as to what if I miss a step or two along the way. Or what if I get lost, and don’t know how to move forward during the onboarding process?

Or some people are saying that, but I’m afraid because we’re dealing with rather large sums of money. So I really hope that this episode can serve to clear all these doubts and help people who want to onboard themselves successfully into the space. And for myself, I think it’s also very helpful because next time when I talk to the same friends who want to get themselves into the space but have been procrastinating to get themselves onboarded, I can just point them to this podcast and don’t have to repeat the same things to them over and over again, you know who you are.

So I hope that you have your laptops, and computers ready, please make sure it’s connected to the internet because you can’t do anything without the internet these days. And let’s get started. So the first step we need to do is if we are going to buy NFTs that sit on the Ethereum blockchain, we will need to buy Ethereum through an exchange so that will be the currency that we use to transact along the way.

Okay, at this point, let me just explain a little bit more about what exactly an exchange is. Basically, an exchange is an online marketplace where users can buy, sell, and trade cryptocurrency. So imagine it’s like a huge money changer. So what you do is you sign up for an account, and you can use the fiat money you have, fiat means the currency that you hold, it can be USD, SGD, whatever, and through the exchange, you can exchange for cryptocurrency which can then be used for your NFT transactions. So when it comes to choosing an exchange, there are a lot of exchanges out there big and small.

But personally, I like to go for the one with the brand. I like to go for something more well-known and renowned. And of course, it also depends on which exchanges are allowed in your country. So for example, in Singapore, recently, they banned Binance, so that is not allowed.

So obviously, don’t go sign up for an account there if you’re Singaporean, because you will face a lot of difficulties when it comes to I mean, I don’t think you’re even allowed to create an account or maybe you won’t be able to deposit money and withdraw money, you’re going to meet a lot of problems. So yeah, do take note and make sure that you are on an exchange that is number one, renowned. Number two is allowed in the country where you’re operating. Examples of exchanges include exchanges like Coinbase, Binance, Coinhako, etc.

All these are pretty reputable and dependable. So for example, if you are based in Singapore, a local exchange would be Coinhako or if you want something bigger, you could use Coinbase. It’s really not much of a difference, because all these are rather renowned, they are quite popular. So I think it’s quite dependable. It’s only about whether they’re allowed to operate in your country, I think that’s more the issue over there.

So in general, to set up an account on exchange, it will probably take about 10 to 20 minutes. I say it’s that long because you will be required to authenticate your identity, etc. These days KYCs are necessary. But even though it’s a tedious process, I think it’s important because it shows that these exchanges, take security seriously. So I think if you sign up for an exchange whereby they barely ask you for anything, I don’t think you’ll feel safe putting your money there as well.

So, I mean, give and take, you know, it’s a tedious process, but just get do it. So Signing up is pretty much the same, Just press sign up, fill in the details, give them whatever they need, and you’re more or less set. And once you set it up, then the next thing you can do is you can start buying Ethereum on the exchange. So like I said, it’s like a money changer. So you exchange your Fiat, your normal money into crypto assets.

So in this case, if you’re buying Ethereum NFT right? So you have to change to Ethereum. This can be done in several ways as well. For some they accept credit cards, they accept bank transfers, etc. The main difference would be the fees. So transaction fees and platform fees might be slightly different. This one will need a little bit more research.

But I would say that if you’re starting with a small sum, I think, honestly, the fees are pretty negligible. So don’t worry too much about that. When you’re dealing with bigger sums of money I think that’s when you have to be a little bit more aware, in my opinion. So usually, when it comes to how long it will take for a transaction to complete, I think it pretty much depends on a couple of things, firstly depends on the exchange itself.

Secondly, it depends on how busy the network is at that point in time. But don’t worry, I think most importantly, as long as you follow the instructions given on the website to a tee, exchanging your money on these platforms is pretty secure. And yeah, you should be able to see your crypto assets reflected in the exchange wallet that is tied to your account once your exchange is successful once your transaction is successful.

Once that is done, the next thing you need to do will be to set up your MetaMask wallet. So what is a MetaMask wallet? Why is it that you already have an exchange wallet and you still need another MetaMask wallet?

So a MetaMask wallet is basically a wallet that allows you to assess your assets through a browser extension or an app. So you can use the money and site to pay for NFTs and store your NFTs back inside the wallet as well. So this is the most important thing to link your money to the site or whichever site that you can buy and sell your NFTs. So when it comes to registering for your MetaMask wallet, usually it’s pretty simple, it takes probably less than 10 minutes.

You just need to take note of two things that would be to note down your recovery phrase and know what your wallet address is. So let me talk a little bit more about what each of these items are. So for the recovery phrase, it’s basically like the ultimate password you need to access your wallet from any other device. So once you set everything up, they usually allow you to set your own password to assess the wallet.

But let’s say, you come to a point where you forget your password. On other websites, what happens is you can use your email or whatever to recover or set a new password. But for the MetaMask wallet, you can’t. The only way for you to access your wallet would be for you to key in your recovery phrase, which is 24 random words, and you have to key them in perfect order.

So it’s super important for you to write down your recovery phrases and not write them randomly on a piece of paper. It has to be in the right order. That is super important. This will allow you to recover your wallet in case you lose your password. So having said that, it also means that no one other than yourself should know what your recovery phrase is.

Because it means that anybody who has your recovery phrase will be able to access your wallet from anywhere, this brings me to the point, that when you’re saving your recovery phrase, please do not save it on your computer, please do not save it on Cloud. Because what happens is that hackers if they do hack your computer, or your iCloud or whatever, they can just grab your recovery phrase, and then they can just access your wallet. And that’s it, you’re done. So that is one of the most important things.

And what is a wallet address? A wallet address is basically what you need in order for people to transfer assets into your wallet, or for you to transfer out okay for people to take note, okay, this is the address that represents my wallet. And your MetaMask wallet is usually a long string of numbers and alphabets. And it usually starts with 0 X bla bla bla, bla, bla, bla bla.

So you should be able to see it on your MetaMask app, or in the MetaMask website once you set everything up. And once you’re done with that, you’re almost done, you are only left with the last step, which is to transfer your Ethereum assets from your exchange wallet through your MetaMask Wallet.

So very simple just go to your exchange, click send, and from there, paste your MetaMask wallet address correctly, and just click send, you probably have to do a couple of authentication things, they probably ask you to key in five digits that are sent to your email this and that, blah, blah, blah, do it, as you’re told. And usually, the process can take between a couple of minutes, to hours, again, depending on network conditions. But as usual, if you follow it to a tee, it shouldn’t be a problem. And once it’s done, you should see your Ethereum balance reflected in your MetaMask wallet. And with that, you’re good to go, you’re good to begin.

And yep, this pretty much sums up part one of the onboarding process. So once you complete all this, you’re pretty much done and ready. So actually it is not as difficult as it seems. It’s overwhelming at first. But if you just follow this podcast and start to stop along the way, and finish it step by step I think is very doable. So I hope that you guys have already got everything ready. Okay, by the time you reach this part of the podcast and all said all done.

Oh, yes, actually, there is one more thing that you need to do to really be done and ready. So once everything previously, done all set, the last thing you need to do is to just install the MetaMask extension on your browser. So simple just go to the MetaMask website using a browser, use a supported browser, they should include this information on the MetaMask site, and just download the right one and then log in to your MetaMask using the extension, then you’re really good to go.

All right, so with that, we’ve come to the end of the podcast. Thank you for listening. I hope that you have everything set up and ready to go. I hope that this podcast has been interesting and beneficial to you. If it is, please help me by dropping a review. I’ll really appreciate it. If you have any comments, suggestions, or feedback, feel free to write to us.

We’ll be happy to hear from you. In the next episode, we’ll probably talk more about the second part of the onboarding process. And that would include how to discover new communities, and the different social media platforms that we should join in order to get ourselves connected to the space and consider ourselves real members of the NFT community. So thank you so much, and I hope to see you again in the next episode.