In my last post, I wrote about how I managed to get $60 worth of cryptos without changing any fiat money for them.
Since then, I managed to add another $40 worth of cryptos from the sites I'd talked about. So that leaves me with $100 worth of cryptos earned, but lying around the various apps. If you wish to read how I managed to do this, do check out my previous post.
How to Earn Cryptos for Newbies
A natural follow-on question would then be where shall I consolidate them and be able to utilize them? Since we are talking about cryptos here and not any digitial credit/tokens/game currency which can only be used for exchange of items, I was looking for a means to use the earned cryptos as cash equivalent.
Based on my limited research, I can either transfer my earned cryptos into an exchange or onto a wallet.
Wallets?
Recently, there was a write-up contest on PUBLISH0X for the Atomic Wallet. So naturally, I read the various posts written about it. There were also various posts written about physical wallets such as the LEDGER Nano S and Nano X and the proverbial "not your keys not your coins" argument for wallets over exchanges.
For me, I wanted to grow my $100, through both the value increase of the crypto itself, the so called 10x, 100x, 1000x, and through the earned interests as well. At the same time, I wanted to have the flexibility to "cash out" and use the profits. I mean, if I cannot cash out easily, then why bother with crypto "investment" in the first place?
Most service providers entice one with "free crypto purchase with credit cards" and "no or low transaction fees". But what's glaring is that most kept quiet when it comes to transferring cryptos out of the service, be it if the service is a wallet or exchange. Digging deeper, you'll find that one either needs to pay a significant fee to "cash out" or has to have a minimum sum before you can do so, over and above the "cash out" fees. To me, this was a big warning sign not to be taken in by the buying in incentives. The service providers will make it very easy to take your hard earned fiat money, but when it comes to cashing out, all the hassle will start to come in.
I was almost going to opt for the Atomic Wallet, which allows for staking of the cryptos while the coins are kept in the wallet. But what stopped me from doing so was that it doesn't allow the exchange of cryptos to fiat money. You can buy and exchange cryptos, yes, but not sell for fiat money. You have to pay the network fees to transfer the cryptos to a 3rd party exchange like Coinbase, and "cash out" from there.
Exchange? Or Exchange-Lite?
In the end, I decided to go for CRYPTO.COM (CDC)'s app. An exchange lite version. Using a referral code from my friend, I got $50 for staking 50MCO for the Ruby Card. And with the recent fall of MCO to ~$4.30, it costs me ~$215 for the stake, and I get free Spotify and 2% MCO rebate for my spend on the Ruby Debit Card. And since I already had the $100 cryptos earned, I just sent them to CDC and converted them to MCO. I just needed to top up $115 (Zero fees using my credit card!) and voila, I qualified for the card, and the referral gift of $50 became mine to load onto the Ruby card to spend at any merchant that accepts Visa cards. Awesome! Furthermore, CDC recently extended to Sep 2020 the 10% MCO back for some merchants (capped at $50 per month).
Additional Perks Extended to Sep 2020
I immediately top up the card and use it to purchase gift vouchers from my favorite supermarket. With this, I envisage I will break-even next month. Not bad at all.
So, I am very happy with CDC. The app is easy to use and there are many other features that I have yet to explore, such as the earn/stake function and they recently launched their wallet as well. I will write more about this in my next post.
In any case, this post is getting long. But in short, I found my on-ramp to the Crypto World.
Go check out CDC.
Crypto.Com
And if you wish to sign up, do consider using my referral code "urvnn3nua5" to get the $50 when you stake a minimum 50MCO for the Ruby Red (or more MCO for higher tier cards for more perks).
I look forward to hear from experts and fellow newbies out there. Which would you use? Exchange or Wallet? And which one did you opt for?
