The image I am using as my profile picture is a punk I own and I have bought it for a very cheap price:
And that is one of the things I love punks for! They are cool as profile pictures and I think everyone eventually will want to own one, but there are only 10 thousand punks, and I expect way more than 10 thousand people to want a punk, so I ruly believe they will sell out and skyrocket in price.
But for that, I am doing my part and will show you how easy it is to own a punk (considering you have enough HIVE currency for it)!
Punks on Hive have been on for a while already, but one thing is not yet intuitive:
YOU DO NOT BUY THEM WITH HIVE!
Then, when you have enough SWAP.HIVE you can buy a punk, but another thing is also not intuitive:
YOU NEED A BROWSER EXTENSION!
So let us tackle one problem at a time and in 3 simple steps you will learn how to buy those punks!
https://hive-keychain.com/
From that website you just choose the browser where you want to use and follow the steps! In case you don't really know which steps to follow, there is this other tutorial on leopedia to teach you exactly that:
https://leopedia.io/how-to-download-install-and-use-the-hive-keychain-browser-extension/
SWAP.HIVE is the HIVE equivalent but on our sister blockchain called "Hive-Engine", this layer 2 blockchain adds smart contracts to Hive and expands the functionalities from Hive, which is the layer 1 where everything is settled. You don't need to know exactly how Hive-Engine works (well, neither do I yet) but their FAQ has lots of useful questions and answers for beginners!
You have many ways of swapping, but sadly most incur fees!
The "official" way to exchange is through Hive-Engine own website:
https://hive-engine.com/
Where you log in and click "Deposit" and choose how much you want to deposit (convert to SWAP.HIVE) but that has a 1% exchange fee:
There is an alternative called Beeswap that costs only 0.25% in fees! So you get more SWAP.HIVE, you can do it at:
https://beeswap.dcity.io/convert
Now with the extension installed and your HIVE properly converted into SWAP.HIVE you can choose and purchase whichever punk you want (as long as you can afford lol).
Also here there are two alternatives! The main one is going to the official website and checking the punks on the market. But the website right now is very new and heavy, it loads all the punks at once, and it lags a lot on my computer, so I built a copy that shows only the cheapest punks, I will also show how to buy there (it is a copy, so it is similar).
So you go to the market at:
https://punks.usehive.com/market
And on the Hive Punk market, you can see all the punks, but the first ones that appear are usually very very expensive!
But you can use the sorting and choose from an ascending (from cheapest to most expensive):
When you have decided which punk to buy, just click on the "Buy for 22" (instead of 22 it says the price, but it is 22 SWAP.HIVE in my screenshot).
When you click the buy button a pop-up from Hive Keychain will appear, where you can accept the transaction, it will be broadcasted to Hive, picked up by the Hive-Engine "side-blockchain" and be processed.
After you buy your punks can be seen in your gallery in the main punks.usehive.com website!
As I said, the website is a bit heavy, especially on older machines. My computer is old and slow so the official market lags a lot and sometimes even crashes!
So I built to myself a tool (website) that only loads the cheapest punks (give or take 1 SWAP.HIVE for flexibility). It is much quicker and snappier for people with bad computers, like me!
Check it out at:
https://cheapest-hive-punks.herokuapp.com/
As you can see, it shows the same punks the main market shows (different order, it considers price and rarity to order), but only the ones ranging from 22 to almost 23 SWAP.HIVE, that is because, of course, I can't afford the expensive ones, so why even load them?!?! hahaha
With this tool, I can slowly but surely buy out all the cheap Punks on Hive until there is none, so I would hurry if I were you! hehe
