I remember when I first got started in crypto to actually start using it and moving it around, it was a daunting task. Having self-custody of your digital assets is a new thing and takes some getting used to.
Buying Hive can also be more challenging because it is not available from all exchanges and even some of the bigger popular ones like Coinbase or Crypto.com.
Today I will share with you what I think is the easiest and most effective way to buy Hive with Fiat which I use and that has the least amount of steps to it. There are other ways, and other exchanges you could use and if you want more privacy, you may want to add some extra steps in between but that is not the topic of today's article.
The process will involve sending money from your bank account to the central exchange, in this case, Binance where you would need to create an account to "on-ramp" from fiat.
Once there, Binance has fiat spot markets where you can exchange your fiat with a limit order for crypto. I recommend just buying bitcoin as it is the most liquid and has the lowest or even free fees for trading right now. A limit order just means that you can choose what price you want to accept and not an arbitrarily given one.
To send money to your bank, from the main dashboard, select deposit.
then select Fiat Deposit:
Next, you need to select your currency and payment method. I use bank transfer and select the following:
Next you need to enter the amount you want to deposit. I have entered 100 Euro.
You need to be aware of the fees for depositing, it is 1 Euro for bank transfer. The next screen then confirms the bank details that you need to use to deposit the money, be sure to include the reference that is your name when you do the bank transfer, so that it gets allocated correctly.
Once the money arrives at Binance, you should get an email notification. You can then proceed to the next step to buy bitcoin with your fiat. To do that, we will go to the market screen and then enter a buy order. Once we have bought the bitcoin, we will then convert this to Hive in another market within Binance.
From the main dashboard, the first step is to go to the markets screen by clicking "Markets" as shown above.
From this screen, we want to go to the spot markets screen.
This then allows us to select "EUR" from the fiat box. If you have paid in using some other currency, then select that here.
We can then see that the BTC/EUR pair is shown and we have the "Trade" option available. Click it.
The market trading screen might seem daunting at first, but it is fairly easy to use. I will explain the important things in an anti-clockwise order. The first things to note are that we are in the correct "pairing". This is BTC/EUR. We want to exchange euros for bitcoin.
Next in the larger green numbers, we see the currently traded price. The smaller number next shows "Avbl" which means your available Euros. Once your funds are paid in, it should show 99 eur here.
The next thing is the amount sliding bar. We will slide this to 100% to buy bitcoin with 100% of our funds. The green button then indicates to "Buy BTC" for when we will pull the trigger on our purchase.
The final important box shows the recent market trades, so you can get some recent historical pricing action. As bitcoin is the most liquid markets, that is not so relevant here.
To buy your bitcoin, you now need to check if the price shown underneath your available euros is close to the current price. If it has moved over, then you may want to take the current price again or a price a little below the current price if it is fluctuating in a range.
Once you are happy with your purchase price, you can then move the amount slider bar to the right which indicates 100%. This will then use your full 99 euros to buy bitcoin.
Once your order has gone through, the next step is to buy Hive with your Bitcoin. This is good on Binance because you can actually buy directly here.
On the same trading screen, you can search directly for a new pairing. Here type in "hive" and it will show you the available pairings to trade. We are interested in the final one that shows Hive/BTC. You can click on this.
It is then the same process as before, you check the price is the current one and then move the slider bar fully to the right and you can then click "Buy Hive".
Once this is done, your order should show underneath and 100% filled once completed. You now have some Hive on Binance.
Taking Self Custody
Using exchanges are great for buying and selling any cryptos or swapping out to fiat, but we don't want to store our crypto on the exchanges any longer than we have to. We know what happened with FTX, these guys have no respect for other people's property.
Therefore, we should move our crypto out as soon as we have done our trade and get it into our own wallet. This is a standard procedure with Hive anyway, so this is how you withdraw your Hive to your wallet with Binance.
First, we should go back to the main screen and click wallet and "Overview". This will take us back to the wallet where we can then select withdraw.
The next screen shows you about the crypto withdrawal. Here you need to select Hive from the list of cryptos. Next, you need to enter your Hive account name, so here you can see mine is mypathtofire. Then enter the amount or just click the "Max" button to withdraw everything.
If this is your first time withdrawing to a new address, I always recommend to send a small test amount first to ensure that it is working as expected and no mistakes are made.
There is a small 0.01 network fee that reduces your withdrawal amount. You can then click "Withdraw" to send it to your Hive account. It will pop up a window asking you to verify by email and phone. Once completed, the payment is usually on your Hive account in a few minutes.
You will then see a transfer for your Hive amount, similar to the one above from the binance hot account.
Summary
Using Binance to on ramp is a quick solution because it allows you to use just 1 exchange to buy Hive and transfer it directly to your wallet. Hive is not in the top list of traded cryptos on many exchanges and therefore is not easily available everywhere.
If you are unable to use Binance, another solution may be to use Quick Trade from Blocktrades or use the wallet on Hive Engine to receive your crypto.
Thanks for reading.
Credits:
The title image was created in Canva using image from Hive.io and Mediamodifier/Pixabay
Screenshots from Binance
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