Coinbase and the steps to buy Bitcoin back in 2017

A guide to buying Bitcoin on Coinbase: the steps described in 2017

Sign up on Coinbase, verify your ID, link a card or bank account, and buy. That is the process described in the opening post of this thread, published when Bitcoin was hovering around $4,000 and the cryptocurrency craze was beginning to spread beyond tech circles. The text promised 8 euros in bitcoins for making a first purchase through a referral link. The promise rose to 9 euros in the same post, with no explanation for the change. Details like that, small and contradictory, define an era when everyone wanted in and hardly anyone fully understood what they were getting into.

What Coinbase requires to open an account

The initial form asks for your first name, last name, email and password. Then comes verification in four steps: confirm the email, add a phone number to enable two-factor authentication, upload a photo of your ID, and link a payment method. That payment method works both for buying and for withdrawing. The money first lands in a euro wallet and from there is converted into Bitcoin, Ethereum or Litecoin depending on what you want to buy. The structure of separate wallets —EUR Wallet, BTC Wallet, LTC Wallet— is one of the quirks of the system that the opening post details.

Bank transfer or card: the fee that makes the difference

The opening post's recommendation is clear: use a bank transfer. For credit or debit card payments, Coinbase charges a 3% fee. By transfer, only whatever your bank charges. That 3% gap is, in practice, the first real cost of any cryptocurrency purchase and the argument that separates those getting in seriously from those doing it out of curiosity. With Bitcoin at $4,000, 3% means $120 for every bitcoin bought. The figure is not trivial.

The debate that never ends: bubble or revolution?

Throughout the thread, the discussion drifts toward the classic question. Some argue that a bubble is something ephemeral and that Bitcoin has been running since 2009, which breaks the definition. On the other side, the argument that twenty years of the housing bubble also seemed eternal. The price has given ammunition to both camps: Litecoin went from 34 to 45 euros in a single day, and from 35 to 59 euros in a few weeks. Ethereum was trading around $378. Bitcoin hit $18,000 and then moved around $15,700. Every correction was, to some, the beginning of the end; to others, a buying opportunity.

The anecdote that sums up the moment

One participant says he deposited 5 euros to verify his bank account and forgot to include the reference number. Seeing no confirmation, he repeated the transfer. The second one verified the account. The first, he says, still has not shown up. It is the kind of incident that explains why mass cryptocurrency adoption was not instant: the operational friction, the poorly explained steps and the lack of clear support. With Bitcoin approaching $8,000 in November 2017, that kind of detail mattered less than the rise. But it was still there.

Where the analysis was left

The thread ends with Bitcoin at all-time highs, the global cryptoasset market approaching $300 billion, and a German bank warning that it could become worthless within seconds. Both things were true at the same time. Nobody knew which would weigh more.