How I finally bought my first MONERO cryptocurrency (complete beginner’s guide)

Argh. Today (22nd August 2017) I was looking at buying Monero again (remember it was on my watchlist of cryptocurrencies to buy) and I couldn’t believe it.

Suddenly, Monero was trading at USD 75, when it had been bouncing around USD 45 for months. (see chart below from Coindesk):

I looked up the news for Monero and apparently it jumped on rumours of being listed on a South Korean exchange:

https://www.coindesk.com/monero-price-hits-record-high-near-100-on-new-exchange-listing/

This would bring extra accessibility to buying Monero so would have spurred demand for punters wanting to get some of the price rise once it did get listed on that exchange. If it gets on that exchange, it will pop. (If it doesn’t, then it might well go down due to not being listed)

Getting a Monero Wallet to receive and store Monero

I looked at Moneroeric and this article on how to use the official GUI wallet from monero.how. I then downloaded the GUI but couldn’t get it to open on my computer.

So the alternative wallet is My Monero, which is a web-based browser wallet. This is only recommended for small amounts of Monero and not for big amounts. I wanted something quick and easy to set up NOW.

I then went onto My Monero and created an account, which was really easy.

Buying Monero

There are two main ways of buying Monero that Monero Eric recommends in his excellent article on buying Monero.

First, you could go onto an exchange like Poloniex and use either fiat currency like USD or EUR and then use these to buy Monero (XMR).

Second, you could use a cryptocurrency swapping site like Changelly or Shapeshift.

I went for the second option because I wouldn’t need to sign up for a laborious ID verification process, like I would have to do with an exchange like Poloniex or Kraken.

So I went to Changelly (not Shapeshift) and opened an account.

Why Changelly? I just got a better feel off Changelly vs Shapeshift. I liked the look of the site more and I think it gives a slightly better exchange rate than Shapeshift. I haven’t done extensive comparisons (for a later post).

I went to change a test amount of BTC to XMR and went through the steps on Changelly:

I entered my My Monero address and payment ID.

Then I went to my BTC Electrum wallet to send BTC to Changelly BUT………

I couldn’t get my wallet to send BTC. ARGH. In a similar way to my Ethereum wallet, the wallet needed to sync before it could do anything.

It wouldn’t sync. To be fair, my internet connection at home is not the strongest, so I’ll try again tomorrow.

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OKAY so let’s try this again.

So following the exact same steps as above:

SUCCESS! On 24th August 2017, I finally bought some Monero.

It’s really not an easy process. Wallets in cryptocurrency world take a long time to sync with the Blockchain.

Even sending Bitcoin from my Electrum wallet took a while for the transaction to be verified by the Blockchain.

Then it finally got to Changelly…..

Then it confirmed the transaction had happened on Changelly, but now I had to wait for my Monero to appear in my My Monero wallet.

Instead of instantly appearing in the wallet, it stayed at a zero balance because it was still catching up with the Blockchain:

So here we wait.

UPDATE: This morning (25th August 2017), despite the wallet still being 46 blocks behind in syncing with the Blockchain, my Monero (XMR) has arrived in my wallet. Woohoo!

In the next posts, I’ll give my assessment of the Monero buying process and of the various elements of the trade.