Simple 7-step Beginners Guide To Buying Bitcoin Online And Start Trading

Buying Bitcoin online made simple. This page will guide you through your first steps into the world of cryptocurrency, from buying your first Bitcoin to trading.

Step 1: Buying Bitcoin online (how to open Coinbase)

Step 2: Deciding what you want to do after you have bought Bitcoin online

Step 3: How to open a Binance account

Step 4: How to send Bitcoin from Coinbase to Binance

Step 5: Basics of trading on Binance

Step 6: How to store your Bitcoin safely

Step 7: How to monetize your profits to Dollars or Euro


Step 1: Buying Bitcoin online

buying bitcoin online

So you’ve decided to enter the world of cryptocurrency and to purchase Bitcoin for the first time. That’s great! Buying Bitcoin online is a simple process, but if you’re new it can be a bit challenging to take the first steps. That’s why we’ve written a simple step-by-step process for new crypto enthusiasts like you.

We’ve found that Coinbase is one of the safest, most reliable and most user-friendly platforms for buying Bitcoin online. Coinbase is an exchange where you can buy Bitcoin and other crypto coins with US Dollars, Euros or British Pounds. You can also easily cash out your Bitcoin to your local currency.

Buying Bitcoin online: Create an account on Coinbase in 15 minutes

1. Click here to sign up and create your own Coinbase account by clicking “Get started” and following steps.

2. Enter your name, email address and password.

Coinbase login

3. You will now receive a confirmation email to verify your email address.

4. After verifying your email address, you will be asked to enter your country of residence and phone number.

5. A verification code will be sent to your phone via text message. Enter the 7-digit code to verify your phone number.

6. Next, you’ll need to verify your identity. This can be done by sending a scanned copy of your passport or ID card. Coinbase will then verify your identity.

7. Complete your personal details under Settings > My Profile

8. Enter your payment method under Settings > Linked Accounts

9. Optional: We highly recommend enabling 2-factor authentication (2FA). This is an extra security measure that requires you to fill in an automatically generated code (on your mobile phone) whenever you want to login to your Coinbase account. Enabling 2FA can be done on under Settings > My Profile

Once your account has been created, you can start buying Bitcoin online:

buying bitcoin on coinbase
  1. Login to your Coinbase account
  2. Go to Buy/Sell
  3. Select the option to buy Bitcoin
  4. Select your preferred payment method
  5. Enter the amount of Bitcoin you want to purchase
  6. Select Buy Bitcoin

Once you’ve made the purchase, you will need to wait for the Bitcoin to be transferred. If you are using Creditcard, it will only take a few minutes for this transaction to be completed. If you have selected to pay via regular bank transfer, it could take several days for the transaction to be completed. You can view your balance via the Dashboard and Accounts pages.

how much bitcoin should i invest

How much Bitcoin should I invest?

How much Bitcoin to invest varies per person. Our advice is to only invest a fee that you can afford to lose. The great thing is that you do not have to buy a full Bitcoin. You can purchase whatever amount you want. There is always a risk involved with trading, especially with trading cryptocurrencies. The markets are volatile which means that you can win a lot, but also lose a lot. Use common sense when buying Bitcoin online.


“PayPal had these goals of creating a new currency. We failed at that, and we just created a new payment system. I think Bitcoin has succeeded on the level of a new currency.” – Peter Thiel (Venture Capitalist and Founder of PayPal)


Step 2: Deciding what you want to do after you have bought Bitcoin online

Deciding what you want to do after you have bought Bitcoin online

Congratulations, you have now opened a Coinbase account and purchased some Bitcoin. You are probably wondering: What should I do next?

What to do next after buying Bitcoin online is entirely up to you. There are many options, but we’ll explain to you the simplest and most common options to start with: HODL, buying and selling.

what is hodl

What is HODL?

HODL is a cryptocurrency slang. It basicially means: Hold (or keeping). You are considered a HODL’er if you:

  • Do not have the intention on selling your Bitcoin in the near future
  • Do not have the intention of trading your Bitcoin

Bitcoin and whole crypto space have interesting years ahead. The price of Bitcoin has a lot of room for growth, thus there are a lot of HODL’ers of Bitcoin. After buying Bitcoin online via Coinbase, you can simply decide to hold onto them. Though you can keep your Bitcoin in Coinbase, we strongly recommend storing your Bitcoin in a so-called hardware wallet. Keeping your Bitcoin on Coinbase means that you are storing them online. Though Coinbase is considered a safe and reliable exchange, there is always a chance of hacking. But by purchasing a hardware wallet, you can easily store your Bitcoins offline!

If you’ve decided to HODL your Bitcoin, you can skip to step .. to learn more about storing them on a hardware wallet

How can I start trading

How can I start trading?

Trading basically means buying and selling. If you do not want to HODL Bitcoin, you can also decide to trade it with other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash and EOS. Binance is the most popular, safest and simplest exchanges to trade on.

How to open a Biance account?

Have you ever heard of bot trading?

Besides trading on Binance, you can also make use of automated trading software. Cryptohopper is a great platform for so-called bot trading. It allows you to create a strategy for selling portions of your Bitcoin to other cryptocurrencies, and then buying them back with a profit. Automated bot trading of cryptocurrencies is a common way of trading. We’ve got good news for those who are interested in learning more about bot trading via Cryptohopper. We will be covering this subject in detail – using simple language so that beginners can also more easily find their way – on CryptoTrade.Blog

The basics of bot trading on Cryptohopper and opening an account


Step 3: How to open a Binance account

How to open a Binance account

Binance is the biggest cryptocurrency trading exchange. It is a good idea to open a Binance account if you want to trade cryptocurrencies. There are other trading exchanges, but we recommended starting with Binance. This is because Binance has low trading fees, it is considered one of te most secure exchanges and because it is really easy to setup an account.

You can easily trade your Bitcoin for hundreds of other cryptocurrencies. One of the reasons for trading Bitcoin for other coins is to eventually trade them back to Bitcoin with profit.

Note: Trading is not the only thing you can do on Binance. You can buy Bitcoin with a credit card but you cannot sell Bitcoin for dollars. That is why you’ll also need to create a Coinbase account. We recommend for now to buy and sell your Bitcoins on Coinbase and trade on Binance.

Follow these steps to create a Binance account within a few minutes:

binance open account
  • Fill in your name, password
  • Select the I agree to Binance’s Terms of Use and then Register.
binance register
  • A Captcha puzzle will then appear
  • Once completed, you will receive a verification email. Go to your email inbox to verify your account
  • Now your account has been created. When you login again, you will be asked to setup 2-Factor Authentication. This is an extra security measure that requires you to fill in an automatically generated code (on your mobile phone) whenever you want to login to your Binance account. It is optional but we highly recommend setting up 2FA!
  • Once logged in, you’ll first see an account screen with several options. Here you can setup SMS login verification (alternative for 2FA)
  • Your account is now fully setup and secured. You can start trading!

Step 4: How to send Bitcoin from Coinbase to Binance

How to send Bitcoin from Coinbase to Binance

As we’ve explained in step 3, Binance is a good starting point for trading your bitcoin to other cryptocurrencies. To start trading on Binance, you first need to send bitcoin from another exchange (like Coinbase) to Binance. When sending bitcoin from one exchange to another, you are in fact sending your bitcoins from one wallet to another wallet.

The most important part of the transaction is finding out what your wallet address on Binance is. To find out, you need to:

  1. Login to your account
  2. Go to funds and then deposits
binance funds
  • You’ll see a tab appear that says ‘Select coin/token to deposit’
deposit coin on binance
  • Search and select bitcoin. Make sure to select the right bitcoin currency!
deposit bitcoin
  • Now you’ll see what your bitcoin wallet address (deposit address) is. It’s a long unique code consisting of numbers and letters in random order.
  • Select copy address when you are ready to send bitcoin from Coinbase.
deposit bitcoin on binance

Note that this will always be your bitcoin wallet address on the Binance exchange. Now that you know your bitcoin wallet address, it’s time to send some bitcoin from Coinbase to Binance. Simply follow these steps:

login on coinbase
  • Login to your Coinbase account and go to ‘Accounts’
  • Go to BTC Wallet and click the ‘Send’ button.
bitcoin wallet on coinbase
  • Copy your Binance bitcoin wallet address and paste it where it says ‘Enter a BTC address’.
send bitcoin from coinbase to binance
  • Choose the amount you want to transfer. You can enter the amount of bitcoin directly, or enter the amount in Euro (or whichever local currency you have), it will automatically convert it to the amount of bitcoin. Or you can select ‘Send Max’ which will send all your bitcoins from Coinbase to Binance. Note: Coinbase will automatically deduct a small fee for the transaction.
  • Select continue and then verify the transaction.

It will take a few minutes for your transaction to appear in Binance.

In Binance, go to Funds > Deposits > History. Your transaction needs to be approved by the Blockchain and will take some time. Once approved, you’ll see that the transaction is marked as ‘Completed’ and then you can start trading your bitcoins!

coinbase and binance

What just happned?

You’ve sent some Bitcoin from a Coinbase wallet to a Binance wallet. For this transaction you have used the Blockchain, the underlying technology of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Blockchain technology is extremely intelligent and safe. For example, the Blockchain knows how to find your wallet address on Binance and also checks to see if you have enough funds on Coinbase to send Bitcoin.

The checking process is done by so-called miners and/or full nodes. Miners are ultra-fast computers that are trying to find a new Blockchain block to add new and old transactions en full nodes check all transactions and once approved, the data of the transaction is added to the Blockchain. Multiple miners and full nodes are involved in checking transactions, which is why it may take a little time before your transaction is visible.

So don’t worry if your transaction is not immediately visible in Binance. By the way, miners are rewarded each time they solve a mathematical problem which finally will produce a new block in the blockchain. At this moment the reward for the miners is 12,5 Bitcoin. The Full Nodes are not rewarded but very important for the trust inside the Bitcoin environment. Everybody with a pretty fast computer is able to run a full node Bitcoin wallet which also gives more safety and anonymity then running a Bitcoin wallet at a third party provider.


Step 5: Basics of trading on Binance

Basics of trading on Binance

Now that you’ve transferred your bitcoin to the Binance exchange, you can start trading bitcoin for other cryptocurrencies. Binance has hundreds of cryptocurrencies that can be traded 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Binance works just like stocks on a regular exchange. Many people trade coins and there is a constant change of demand and supply. This leads to prices going up and down. Through trading you can thus gather more bitcoin by selling and buying back at a profit.

altcoins trading on binance

There are several trading options on Binance. You can simply buy and sell at any given moment. You can also place an order to buy or sell a coin once it reaches the price you’ve specified (stop-limit). Here at Cryptotrade.blog we’ll inform you in-depth regarding trading on Binance. Be prepared to go through a period of learning and practicing, because trading on exchanges like Binance is not as simple as you may think.

need help trading on binance you nee a trading bot cpryptohopper

Need help with trading on Binance? You need a Trading Bot!

Do you need a helping hand with trading your bitcoin on Binance? There are several third-party bot programs that are compatible to Binance. These bots automatically execute buys and sells. With the right settings this can bring you some nice profits. In our opinion, Cryptohopper is one of the best trading bots out there. We’ll be covering this and several other trading bots on Cryptotrade.blog


Step 6: How to store your Bitcoin safely

how to store your bitcoin safely

After buying Bitcoin online via Coinbase, you may have transferred it to Binance to trade with. But what if you’ve decided to HODL and thus keep (some of) your Bitcoin on Coinbase? Though Coinbase is a safe exchange that is committed to protect your Bitcoin, there is one other way to store your Bitcoin more safely: A hardware wallet.

hardware wallet ledger

Hardware Wallet

A hardware wallet is the best and safest way to store Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It prevents you from losing your Bitcoin due to a hack or theft. You are storing them offline on a device. This is somewhat similar to a USB stick but with codes to unlock and access it.

With a hardware wallet your store the bitcoin private keys yourself through a smart safety method. Even if your hardware wallet gets damaged or lost, you can still access your bitcoin by buying a new hardware wallet and accessing your bitcoin using your own personal codes. There are several hardware wallets on the market, but our preferred on is de Ledger Nano S.


Step 7: How to monetize your profits to Dollars or Euro

How to monetize your profits to Dollars or Euro

You are now well familiar with the Crypto world. After buying Bitcoin online you’ve hopefully stored (part of) it on a hardware wallet. Or perhaps you’ve been trading with it on Binance. If you are using the Cryptohopper automated bot software you’ve hopefully seen some nice profits.

There comes a moment that you start thinking about what to do next with your bitcoin. You can choose to keep them on your hardware wallet, but you may also decide that it’s time to cash out to ‘normal’ money on your bank account.

If that is the case, Coinbase is the place to be. Just as easily as it was to purchase your first bitcoin online, it is just as easy to exchange bitcoin for your local currencies like US Dollars, Euros or British Pounds.

To monetize your profits, you’ll need to transfer your funds from the hardware wallet and/or Binance to Coinbase. Then, login to your Coinbase account, go to ‘Buy/Sell’, then ‘Sell’ and enter the amount you want to cash out. Once you’ve done that, simply enter ‘Sell Bitcoin’ and your funds are being transferred to your bank account.

how to send money from coinbase to your bank

Disclaimer: This is not trading or investment advice. The above article is for education purposes only. Please do your own research before purchasing or investing into any cryptocurrency.

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