The moment my brother @dogguy told me about Steemit, I instantly wanted to invest! Luckily, I had a brother who knew a lot about Bitcoins, and I was able to invest through him. After exploring the site for a bit though, I decided I wanted to learn out how to buy more Steem/Steemit without having to bug my brother every time.
After going through it myself, I realized that it is a complicated process if you haven't done it before. For people who don't have a Bitcoin savvy brother like myself to invest for them, a 'how-to' guide would be very useful. Here are the steps I went through. I hope you find them helpful!
To start with, here is the basic process: Step 1: Convert your money into Bitcoin. Step 2: Use your Bitcoins to buy Steem! (That's it!)
Here are the more detailed steps:
1. First you will need to signup for a website that allows you to buy Bitcoins. I personally used https://www.coinbase.com, because it has been around for a long time and is popular. If you don't have an account yet, it may take a couple of days to verify your identity before they will let you to make a purchase.
2. Once you are signed up for the Bitcoin purchasing website, login and purchase Bitcoins using the site's "Trade/Buy" interface. You can enter the amount in USD or in BTC.
3. After you have purchased your Bitcoins, login to Steemit.com, and open your wallet. Your wallet can be found by clicking on the "Wallet" link under your 'profile' picture icon. (It is in the upper right corner of the Steemit website.)
4. Inside your wallet, click on the drop-down next to "STEEM", and click the "Deposit" link.
5. Decide if you want to purchase "Steem" or "Steem Power".
6. The popup screen will have a "Wallet Address" near the bottom. This is where you will be sending the Bitcoins to make your purchase. The wallet address is the long series of letters and numbers, which is right after where it says "Send Bitcoin To". Copy this address to the clipboard. It is important that you copy the entire address, exactly as it is shown, without missing any of the letters.
7. Go back to the site you used to purchase the Bitcoins, and find the place where it lets you send Bitcoins. Enter in the wallet address that you copied from Steemit in the previous step. Enter the amount of Bitcoins you would like to send, and click the "Send" button to send them to your Steemit account. It will likely ask you to confirm. After that, you should see a success message showing the transaction was completed!
8. You will need to wait a little while for the Bitcoin transaction to confirm on the network. Most sites like Coinbase will show you the status of the transaction. Periodically check back and refresh. Once the transaction is confirmed, it will show up in your Steemit.com wallet!
That's it!
Thanks for taking the time to read this guide. I hope you found it useful! If you have any questions, please feel free to reply to the post.
Hi, thanks for this article. Apparently things have changed. When I click 'buy' I am transferred to a BlockTrades site with an empty UI. What I want to know is, to what address do I need to send the bitcoins I have in my external BTC wallet. Or alternatively how does BlockTrade know where to send it. And how do I get BlockTrade to work.
I posted an updated guide here. I will be updating the link on the "Quick Start Guide" to point to the new one soon.
https://steemit.com/steem/@timcliff/how-to-buy-steem-guide
There MUST be an easier way to buy Steem! Steemit cryptocurrency money exchanges
Rather than go through one or more third parties, why not buy Steem from Steemit.com, or Steem.com? Am I making any sense here??? Or am I being too simplistic here? Am I being an idiot for stating the obvious??
Buying through third parties is very discouraging and suspicious to most normal people.
The steem eco system could very easily set up there own e-commerce payment gateway. Why don't they?
Perhaps tere is strategic brand marketng reason to sell steem through third-party exchanges, istead of diect to customers..
Short answer: regulations. It is extremely difficult and expensive for a legitimate company to sell a crypto currency for “real money” which is why there are so few of them out there. The ones that do (like coinbase) are doing it as their only “thing”. It is not something Steemit could just easily add to their site.
Thats good question demanding aswers expecially We the beginners. Thanks for the prompt.
@timcliff I don't see the deposit link in the wallet. Am I missing it or it is removed? Help
I get it, it is simply "Buy" now. Right?
Correct. The website has changed slightly since I created the guide :)
@timcliff Thank your for confirmation. Learning a lot using steem and investing at the same time :)
Double check that you are logged in, and looking at your wallet. It should say "BUY STEEM OR STEEM POWER" near the top. If you still don't see it, send me a screenshot of what it looks like on your screen.
Just tried all of the steps and set up my account! I just have to complete the final "Additional Account Verification" which requires a form of photo id, and a webcam photo to prove who you are.
We've all gone through it :)
(Everyone that uses coinbase that is.)
Nice article, very simple and easy to understand. Interesting that loading funds must go through BTC. I assume there are no transaction fees for the transfer between wallets, unlike banks. Is this correct?
Thanks! It is. Technically you can use bitcoin, Ether, or Bitshares - but BTC is the main one. I would love to be able to go straight between USD and STEEM.
I'm not an expert on BTC, but I believe all BTC transfers do have transaction fees. When you buy STEEM via the interface on Steemit.com, the fees are already factored in.
STEEM transactions have zero fees though, which is really nice :) Once you have STEEM tokens, you can transfer them to other users without paying any fees for the transaction.
Thanks for your note. At this time, is there a way to buy STEEM directly through USD or do I need to buy BTC first?
You cannot yet buy STEEM directly through USD.
You can buy it with other coins besides BTC though. Usually I use USD to buy Litecoin (LTC), then LTC to buy STEEM (because the fees are much lower, and the transactions are much faster).
Thanks for your reply! What is the most efficient way to buy LTC via USD?
I use coinbase.
Thank You I bought bitcoin from ezBtc & just waiting to receive bitcoin to my steemit wallet
Can I use any wallet, let's say for example: from local bitcoin ¿ or does it have to be coinbase¿
Anywhere you get bitcoin will work.
Thanks this is actually the best and most complete guide for newcomers. Thank you more people need to see this
Thank you for this information! I just purchased STEEM!
Uh oh, I forgot to choose btcusd before sending. I hope they get it okay.
What did you send, and to where?
Tim, thanks for the tutorial. I now have steem power in my account. How do I transfer to another account or cash out? Nothing tells me how, but I am guessing I have to power down to steem and then use the steem to transfer to new location. Is that correct?
jim
Hi @morgan1942 - yes, that is correct. You can check out your wallet here:
https://steemit.com/@morgan1942/transfers
If you power down, it will convert the Steem Power into liquid STEEM. (Your current liquid STEEM balance is 0.000.)
Once it is liquid, then you can transfer it to another user. There is a dropdown arrow next to the liquid STEEM amount where a "Transfer" button is one of the options. You just need to enter the username that you want to send to and the amount, then click "Submit". (You can add an optional memo too, which will show up as a message along with the amount.)
For cashing out, most users will use an exchange. Personally, I use Poloniex and Blocktrades. Many other users use Bittrex. These exchanges will allow you to convert your STEEM to bitcoin (BTC). Then you would use a site like coinbase.com or localbitcoins to convert the BTC into cash. There are a few guides that were written by users in the "Helpful Posts from Steemit Users" section of this page: https://steemit.com/welcome
I haven't converted it into a "user friendly" post yet, but there are a lot of links in the comments of this post which contain info on other things you can do with your STEEM (such as buying items from the PeerPlays store, or paying to have someone design a custom avatar.)
https://steemit.com/bounty/@timcliff/information-bounty-list-ways-to-spend-steem-and-sbd-usd1-sbd-per-qualified-response
If you have any other questions, just let me know :)
Thanks Tim, very helpful. I wanted to be sure I could convert back before I fully funded this account. I will test it with a small amount so I am comfortable with the process. I use Bittrex and Poloniex as I like to split my risks
across several exchanges since I am new at this.
Regards,
Morgan
How do I give rewards?
Sounds good!
When you upvote a post or comment, you will increase the rewards for the post. A lot of times if you don't have a lot of Steem Power, you won't see it actually increase though. When larger accounts vote on things, it has a bigger impact. Even though you don't see it increase though, it still helps. When lots of little accounts vote on something, it adds up :)
It doesn't seem to be working this way now. It sends you to a "Bocktrades Window". The problem is that I don't see "Steem" among the receive drop-down menu. Default seems to be "OPEN.DASH" and I don't know what that is.
Is it working now? I just tried and STEEM is back in the list.
Yes, I see it now. Thanks!
Hello, I read through your guideline and I registered with coinbase but I'm finding it hard to trade (buy/sell) not yet available for my country. What do u suggest I do? Or do you know any other reputable site?
Hmm, I don't know.. Does LocalBitCoins work in your area? Otherwise you may have to Google, or talk to other Steemians from your area.
I find this to be a good tutorial guide. I plan to do investing in the near future. Bitcoin, litecoin, etc they are very new to me, but I'd like to learn and engage...see how it'll turn out for me. I hope to be on the good side of course. Thank you for sharing.
I upvoted You
Thanks 😀
Hello, I'm new here and very interested in purchasing some steem. I would like to use the Changelly website to do it. I'm confused as to what address to use for the purchase. Do I use the memo address on the changelly site for the Steem to be deposited? and is it the private key (starts with "5") or the public memo (starts with "S")?
Sorry, I have not used that exchange before, so I don't want to answer and give incorrect advice. If you use the search in the upper right, there are probably a few guides that people have written specifically for Changelly and STEEM.
Good manual, thanx. But one question. Why is the Steemwallet not real time synchronized like other cryptocurrency wallets? I can see how much Steem I have bought, but not what it is really worth at this moment.
You mean the estimated value? The current implementation uses the 3.5 day average from the witness price feeds.
How to use the "Internal Market"? It is cheaper to buy in the internal market for investment. How will I deposit US$ so I can buy Steem here?
What is SBD?
I got my answer from FAQ. To other newbie like me, SBD is Steem Dollars. :)
The internal market is only for trading STEEM <-> SBD. In order to purchase from USD, you will first need to buy bitcoin. Once you have bitcoin, you can use it to buy STEEM via your wallet.
I figure it out.
I hope steem will accept USD to Steem direct transfer instead of going through bitcoins. Cut the middle man (bitcoin) :) straight to steem.
Everyone wants it. Very few entities can do it though, due to very strict government regulations. In the US it would cost several million dollars for the compliance fees to setup an operation to support it.
Hopefully in the Steem roadmap as the value continue to progress.
Somebody got to do it.
It is not something I think Steemit, Inc. Is going to do. It would need to be some other company that is registered as a money transferer, like Coinbase.
I understand and thank you for sharing.
SBD are STEEM backed dollars. There is more info on this in the FAQ.
@timcliff Thank you sir.
Thanks for this article. It was very helpful.
Thank you for this! That's the one thing about #steemit I don't like, there isn't many resources for us newbies to read and learn how to do all this Cryptocurrency stuff! Thank you!
Yeah, navigating all the crypto-currency / Bitcoin stuff if you are not already familiar with it is tough. I'm glad this guide was able to help!
How do I upvote this post as it's really helped me - thank you
Glad it helped 😀
There is a little circle with an up arrow in it, at the bottom of the post, just above where the comments start.
Hi @timsliff. This did not work for for me. I transferred the bitcoin and I found details under Transaction...but the Steem Power I purchased is no where to be found! Where can go for help?
How long ago did you do the transfer? BTC transactions can often take many hours to confirm.
Transfer was completed 24 hours ago. BTW, thanks for replying!
Do you have the info on the transaction where you sent the BTC to the address provided? If you do, try contacting the user @blocktrades and see if he can help.
Yes. I sent the BTC from my desktop app. Okay, thanks for the advice!
The problem is the fee paid by your wallet is too low for any miner to confirm it on the bitcoin blockchain.
yeah I see....this is the first time I sent BTC....I have lots to learn. Thank you for the response!
so what happens now? is it forever lost?
Many thanks Timcliff. Are you able to tell me why there is a "change deposit address" button in the wallet? I just worry the coins may go missing if I click that . Also are you able to tell me what destTag is please.
The change wallet address will just give you a different BTC address to send your BTC to. It won't do any harm, but there is no real benefit to doing it unless you want different transactions to be tracked on the bitcoin chain with different wallets. Most users have no reason to do this.
I'm not sure about destTag. Where do you see it? If possible, can you send a screenshot?
Hello tim and thank you for this tutorial, so is buying bitcoin the only way to buy steempower?
There are also options to buy with Ether or Bitshares.
Thanks Tim
It sounds complicated, i want to buy steem someone help me.
Here is an updated guide:
https://steemit.com/steem/@timcliff/how-to-buy-steem-guide
really nice
I need a savvy brother or sister!
What's up?
Hi Tim, I'm taking my time here but your page and info is very helpful and I appreciate how you help the community!
Wow! I've been trying to figure out how to purchase Steem Power for two days--read your tutorial and did it in 5 minutes!! Awesome--thanks
Good points in this post. I was about to post a similair thread. Buy low, sell high, it seems so simple but most investors still don't seem to get it :-) I was wondering if anyone of you uses: https://www.coincheckup.com Supposingly they researched every crypto coin in the scene based on: the team, the product, advisors, community, the business and the business model. They even score the coins stengths. Check: https://www.coincheckup.com/coins/Steem#analysis To see the: Steem Investment and research analysis.