if you're already a crypto expert and found your way here, please feel free to read through and ridicule me. everyone else, strap in and let me tell you a story about getting started in crypto trading.


just getting started

everyone is most likely familiar with coinbase.com. this is probably the best place for now to begin any crypto journey. as we move along at some point i will share tips on how i have saved money on fees buying crypto, but by far the quick and dirty easy first step is to just suck it up and purchase some bitcoin with coinbase. in fact, i went ahead and downloaded the app onto my iphone (the phone everyone should be using) and make most of my immediate purchases through it. using debit card purchases allows me to immediately start buying, selling, and apeing crypto all over the place.

once you have some bitcoin it's ok to stop there. no one is going to make fun of you for not getting into other coins and you will most likely enjoy the simplicity of being a coiner and still be able to sleep easy at night. there's a whole group of people that only own bitcoin and they are far superior to everyone else.

apes are cool too

you're still reading so, like me, you are also in to making questionable decisions. fantastic.

the next step i took with diving deeper into an unknown abyss of exorbitant fees and technical challenges was to find a self hosted wallet. there are a ton of options and i looked at a few, but for simplicity guess what i chose - yep, coinbase wallet. tada. here's why: if i decided to give up my crypto shenanigans i can immediately transfer everything right back to coinbase.com and withdraw it to my debit card (with a fee) or bank account via ach. simple and effective. the only downside to coinbase wallet is that it won't fully integrate with every dapp.

"wtf is a dapp?!"

ha. just kind of sprung that shit on you didn't i? short story: dapps are decentralized applications. you're going to use them a bunch if you take this path. you'll need to be able to connect your wallet to interact. sometimes coinbase wallet works and sometimes you just can't. so the next trick in my bag? metamask.

metamask is actually pretty cool once i got used to it. probably could've used it as my first and only wallet but again, nothing (to me) beats the simplicity of being able to exit at any time through coinbase. get ready because now we're actually going to get technical.

seeds of apery

know this - your seed phrase is yours and only yours and (all caps here) YOU SHOULD NEVER SHARE IT WITH ANYONE. unless you're leaving it in your will then that's probably ok. so here's how i set up metamask.

  1. install the metamask.io extension for whatever browser you are using on your desktop/laptop. yes we're going non mobile for a bit.
  2. after you get done moving your mouse around all over the screen so you can watch the fox head look in different directions (you'll see) go ahead and click on get started.
  3. here we're going to select import wallet on the side that says "no, i already have a seed phrase" and i'm not going to tell anyone

  1. open up the coinbase wallet on your iphone. you can do this on android too but you probably won't like your phone as much. go to settings and select recovery phrase.
  2. type all 12 words separated by spaces (in numerical order) into the seed phrase box. make a new password and continue on.

  1. once the metamask extension is setup, open settings, select advanced, and sync with mobile. you'll have a qr code on your screen. download the metamask app.
  2. after opening the metamask app you should see an option to sync with extension. select that and scan the qr code.
  3. boom. you're done.

alright if you've made it this far then hopefully you're way more knowledgeable than i was when i got started. a few things to note at this point:

  • things are only going to get more challenging if you choose to continue
  • you are probably going to be shocked about how much gas fees are
  • you are probably now wondering what gas fees are
  • i will write another blog post as a part 2 of apeing into crypto eventually but feel free to google some stuff
  • honestly i'm going to write about stonks eventually too

some additional resources

there are some good resources out there if you hunt for them. you just have to know what you're looking for. some of the best resources are people on twitter. i'm going to plug a couple here that i like:

  • believe it or not, i've learned some stuff following @CryptoCobain. he also hosts a stream with @ledgerstatus called @UpOnlyTV. there's some pretty good information talked about here.
  • we all know you're here because you heard about nfts. so check out The Non-Fungible Token Bible over at opensea.io. you should also read through their help center.
  • another good follow is to keep up with the happenings over @coincenter. they are into helping the government understand cryptocurrencies and advocating for sensible regulation.

that's all for now. this is my first blog post and i think i stopped reading after the first 2 paragraphs so if you're reading this, bless you. go ahead and comment below or reach out to me on twitter and let me know if i should stick to my day job. thanks for reading.