This guide will cover the practical basics for crypto beginners: how to acquire crypto currency, swap it for another one and withdraw it. I will not cover here any philosophy of crypto, there's many other articles on that subject, and I assume here reader has some basic information about blockchain.
I'm using mostly Ethereum (ETH), EOS and Tron (TRX), and this article will be about them, although you can apply it for most of other common tokens. I'm from Europe, so I'll be using apps and tools best available here.
When I tell people I dabble in crypto, their first question usually is "Can you withdraw it to your bank account?" Of course you can and I've done it many times, although for a beginner it may seem deterring (in some extreme cases I use 8 wallets and pay fees 4 times to actually get the resulting Euro in my hands...)
This guide aims to give you a clear idea of how to swap fiat currency like Euro to crypto and back to Euro.
Coinbase: your main tool for deposit and withdraw crypto. Very simple to buy common crypto with credit card and you get it instantly. Then you can send bought tokens to your other wallets for free. While making an account you need to send them some documents and wait for account approval, which shouldn't take more than a few hours.
Of course, you can also receive crypto tokens on your Coinbase account, then either trade or withdraw it. Before withdrawing for example ETH you have to trade it for Euro, which is very simple, then withdraw Euro to either your bank account or Paypal.
Buying crypto with credit card and withdrawing is subject to small fees.
Pro tip: You can make an account at Coinbase Pro, where you can buy and withdraw funds by SEPA transfers for free.
A word of advice: Coinbase can't trade TRX, which means you can't trade it for Euro and withdraw it - first you have to swap TRX for another token available for trade on Coinbase (I usually swap it for ETH) using other app - preferably Token Pocket. Maybe there is some provider or place where you can swap and withdraw TRX directly, but I don't know about any usable in Europe...
The procedure is this: Make a TRX wallet and another ETH wallet on Token Pocket, send your TRX to your Token Pocket TRX wallet, swap TRX for ETH using your Token Pocket ETH wallet address. You will receive ETH on your Token Pocket ETH wallet in a minute. Then send these ETH to your Coinbase wallet, where you swap it for Euro and withdraw it. I know, it seems complicated, but after you've done it once it'll be easy.
https://www.coinbase.com/dashboard
Metamask is a great ETH wallet for PC to store, send and receive ETH, it's a simple addon for Firefox or Chrome. Metamask is used by most blockchain games and other apps based on ETH. For mobile ETH wallet you can use Token Pocket.
https://metamask.io/
Tron Link : same as Metamask, only this wallet stores your TRX.
https://www.tronlink.org/ (Chrome only)
Or download from Play Store for mobile.
Token Pocket : amazing mobile wallet that not only stores many different tokens (including ETH, TRX and EOS) and is used by many blockchain games and other apps, but you can very easily swap currency here with minimal fees (sadly not for fiat currency like Euro, only for other crypto). Of course, you can send and receive tokens as well. For me Token Pocket is bread and butter in crypto world, I can't and don't want to imagine my world without it :)
Download from Play Store.
I hope this simple guide will help you to manipulate with your crypto easily - don't worry, it's not too complicated. Just always remember to write down your passwords, private keys and/or passphrases when you make a new wallet, and double or triple check the address where you send the crypto: if you send it to wrong address it's lost forever.
I'll be glad for any comments and opinions, tell me if you need me to add or change any information in this article to make it more practically usable.
Have you done any of the coinbase earn stuff yet? I find thats a good way to onboard people as well, nothing like some free crypto to play around with to start off. Helps ease people into it.
that's possible, but no, I use coinbase only for deposit and withdraw, so don't know about that
You should definitely check it out, I did a post about the basics of it a few months if you want the details. https://peakd.com/coinbase/@fingolfin/some-free-crypto-from-coinbase