Bitcoin Forum

Hello,

Complete newbie since a week and a bit overwhelmed by surprise.

Bought crypto coins for the first time ever last weekend in a mood.
Without reading anything, just a gamble you could say.

Opened an account and downloaded the Coinbase app.
Bought quiet a lot of one type of coin and now I’m stuck.

There’s so much to read that I don’t know what to do at all.

some questions.....
1. Is Coinbase ok to keep a whole lot of crypto coins/value on?
2. Is Mycelium a good wallet to transfer my coins to?
3. If I wanna take my profit on Coinbase can they instantly payout the amount I want or does it take time?
4. Can I avoid the fees somehow or have less fees as they are big amounts which surprised me to be     honest!

Any suggestion or advise whatever  would be nice, I’m reading quiet a lot but can’t seem to choose because there’s so much info in several directions.

Thanks in advanced

1. You shouldn't store large amounts in online wallets or exchanges.
2. Not sure about iOS but for Android, it's the best wallet out there.
3. They will make the payment instantly (or a few minutes) but when it will arrive all depend on the payment method you're using and your bank processing speed.
4. If you're referring to the network fees, you can lower them but your transaction will take time to get confirmed. As for the exchange, you can look for exchanges that has lower fees, but that's pretty much it, you can't lower them.

What are you referring to with 'taking profit' ?

Withdrawing the funds to your own wallet ? This takes a few minutes until they broadcast the transaction. Additionally the time it takes to confirm the transactions (this depends on the amount of transactions in the mempool and the fee paid by coinbase).
Overall this can take between 5 minutes and a few hours until you have your balance confirmed in a wallet.

If you refer to selling your crypto to get fiat profit, you can do this instantly. Just sell your crypto via limit order or market.




Trading fees? No, only if you use another exchange.
Withdrawal fees? All exchanges have withdrawal fees. They have to cover multiple transactions (Consolidating deposits, moving to and from cold storage and your withdrawal itself). There are exchange which charge more and less than coinbase.


This forum here is a good place to get started.
There are tons of threads and guides which are helpful for beginner.


And as OmegaStarScream said.. don't use an exchange or an online wallet for storage.
If you can afford (i.e. if the costs are not half of your crypto holdings), get a hardware wallet. They store your private keys isolated and never release them.
If you can't or don't want to buy one, a desktop wallet would be the best way to go (e.g. electrum).


And if you at some point need help, feel free to ask. There are a lot of people here ready to help you out.

First of all many thanks for the quick reply’s !

I’m referring to FIAT indeed as it comes to a payout. 

So a save way to secure my assets is to transfer them to my Mycelium wallet, assuming this will cost me fees again?

Paying out means transfer them back to Coinbase first with fees?

Eventually I’ll be selling them back to Coinbase, at least for me its an easy choice.

Yes, you have to pay a transaction fee for each transaction.

But fees on the bitcoin network are lower than withdrawal fees from an exchange.
Mycelium lets you choose the priority of your transaction. If you are not in a hurry, a few sat/B would be enough.

Assuming you want to cash out a portion of your holdings, you will most likely have 1 input and 2 outputs. With a fee of 3-4 sat/B that would be ~ 0.07$.
If you want a faster confirmation, you can always increase the fee (e.g. 30 sat/B, which results in 0.70$). That's the cost for a legacy transaction (address starting with 1..). If you use segwit (address starting with 3.. or bc1..) you will save roughly 30%.

You should visit Mycelium board (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=231.0) for know more details. I have seen couple of complaints there peoples facing trouble with fund. So if you read that borad you might be aware about problems of this wallet. On addition you might use electrum in order to keep safe your fund, it's easy and simple to use.

And obviously you have to pay fee whenever you wonder to transfer your fund to other wallet. You are wondering to sell through coinbase then you might sell it, but if you wondering to hold coin on coinbase then don't do it if its large amount. If amount is small you might keep for small duration since eventually you have to transfer your fund coinbase. Otherwise it's not safe wallet for hold long time.

Mycelium does not have any problems.
Occasionally there might be connection issues, but funds never have been stolen through a bug/vulnerability or similar.
People who have lost funds stored in mycelium were at fault themselves. No security measurements, shared seeds, etc..

I am using mycelium for several years now and never had any problem (except once there was no connection to the server for about a day; but not a security issue at all).


Do you have any real 'problems' in mind ? Or is this just sciolism ?

Not really, since I had not use it ever. I asked to visit that board because, I think OP is new user and he should know what problems would face on near future, that's all. If you have full experience before use any wallet then it will be very easy to resolve issue if you face trouble.

Since you are using Mycelium during long time and you had not face any issue about funds, so OP might use as well. I am using electrum and looks very easy to use, that's all.

I’m not having bitcoin but XRP so what I’ve googled so far I’m a bit limited in using a wallet.

Came across a wallet called Trust and reading some reviews.

Anyone experience with it or suggest another wallet to store alt coins ?

I hope its Bitcoin otherwise you risked a lot.
Take a break for a moment now, read everything from this topic, then read even more, some short summary how bitcoin works, how to keep your coins secure and why mobile phone is bad idea to store them.
Good luck you will need it!

Bitcoin and XRP has different wallet, if you transfer your xrp to other wallet make it sure that the receiving address is XRP too.
I didn't tried yet the Trust wallet but as far as I know it is open-sourced wallet and you are the one who keeping your private keys which is the best, just like Coinomi or Jaxx wallet.

Just make sure for every wallet you use, BACKUP your private keys/seeds and never share it to anyone.

If you ever exploring some wallet, make sure that it is the original one, lot of fake cryptocurrency wallet nowadays, make  sure you verified them and always ask if you don't know.

If you want more discussion about different wallet, you can visit on this section: Bitcoin Forum > Bitcoin > Development & Technical Discussion > Wallet software (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=37.0)

usually mobile wallets (which Trust wallet is one) are not recommended for storage specially long term.
checking the wallet, it seems like it is newer and less popular than the alternatives.
looking for the source code was a little disappointing. all i could find were two dead repositories that are archived:
Andriod https://github.com/trustwallet/trust-wallet-android-source
IOS: https://github.com/trustwallet/trust-wallet-ios
both of them are from 2018, so for nearly a year they either didn't release any new version or the new ones are considered closed source.

CryptoLeon, you say: "Bought quite a lot of one type of coin...", and depending on how much you invest in fiat maybe it is not smart that you hold that coins in any desktop or mobile wallet. Regardless of how such software is good, or how you protect your device, you can always be hacked.

if you have $50 or something like that in XRP, you can play with any legit wallet that supports that coin, but if you want better security solution then a hardware wallet is the best option. Cost of such a device is from $30 to $150 depending on the manufacturer and model, and most popular are Ledger and Trezor.

https://www.ledger.com/
https://trezor.io/

That´s the way to go.
Ledger support XRP and many more coins (more than 20 blockchains + 1000 tokens). It is really safe, and if you have more than $500 in cryptocurrency, it certainly is worth.

Alternatively, you can store a your XRP in Coinomi wallet (That´s the only mobile multicurrency wallet I ever used, and I wouldn't recommend any other).
Download from google play or apple store only.

It's not advisable to store your crypto assets on an online wallet
Yes, Mycelium is a good wallet to save your coins own since you own your private key
Selling your crypto assets to Fiat on Coinbase takes hours/days here in my country but it may be different in other countries
It's not possible to avoid the fees

It’s going to be the ledged as they support XRP and really good reviews.

What if you loose the hardware wallet ?
I’ll try to read on their website but for sure some tips on this forum about it.

If you lose the hardware wallet you can recover your funds in any other wallet, like coinomi or a new ledger nano, just by inserting your seed (24 words).

There is no problem at all in losing your wallet, as nobody can access your funds using your wallet (unless if they know your PIN).

Your coins are not going to be stored in your wallet, but in the blockchain. Your wallet is just an app with your private keys and an interface that allows you to access your coins, which are stored in the blockchain.

As long as you hold your private keys (i.e. seed) with yourself in a piece of paper, there is no problem in losing your device.

Refer to this article for further details on the procedure to follow in case of loss device or pin: https://support.ledger.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000609933-Lost-device-PIN-code-or-recovery-phrase

Besides what @bitmover stated above, know that if someone does get hold of your device, they have a maximum of 3 attempts to enter a valid pin before the device is reset to factory settings (thus impeding access to your crypto using the device).

The key is really to have the 24 recovery sheet (or alternative) well hidden, and there are plenty of posts around that suggest how to go further than simply hiding it well (which is normally good enough to begin with).   

If you are extra paranoid, you can have 2 Ledger devices and clone them so as to say (simply by restoring the same 24  word recovery of the first unit onto the second unit). I’ve personally done that, storing each them in different physical locations. There is no real need for this though, it’s just that I like to have my off-site stuff pin protected.

@DdmrDdmr
I ordered the Nano X with the backup.

@Bountyhonter
Reading it can take days or hours to transfer it in to fiat again.
During that transaction the value of the crypto changes. I assume and hope that it won’t effect the transaction in anyway? The price you sell is fixed I mean regardless the action that’s going on in the mean time.

Yes, that's correct, your transaction won't be affected.

With all these ambiguities for newbies, is it logical to continue talking about bitcoin becoming mainstream!?

The bitcoin transaction could take up to several hours/days when there is a spike and/or your fee is too low.
However, with a good wallet (e.g. electrum) you will be able to bump your fee. This can ensure that your transaction will get confirmed faster (for a higher fee, of course).

The conversion into fiat itself doesn't take much time. 




The BTC/USD rate doesn't matter when you are transacting BTC. 1 bitcoin will always be 1 bitcoin.

All clear so far then, I’m settled.

Waiting for the Nano X to store my crypto on and than it’s just waiting.

Thanks all for the great advice and tips !,

I’ll give a chance for people to reply if they have some last tips and will be closing the topic soon then.

Once again thanks !