Buying Ethereum
The predominant blockchain where most NFTs are created is on the Etherium blockchain. You will need Etherium crypto in order to operate on the Etherium Blockchain.
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The predominant blockchain where most NFTs are created is on the Etherium blockchain. You will need Etherium crypto in order to operate on the Etherium Blockchain.
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In this section we are jumping ahead a bit and assuming that you're choosing to buy, sell and create on the Etherium blockchain which is the largest marketshare of all NFT sales. There are other blockchains and for each of those you will need to buy the native coin for that network to enable your transactions. You can read more about Choosing a Blockchain here.
Basically you will need Ethereum coins to pay for the transactions on the Ethereum Blockchain. The costs of those transactions vary greatly depending on the cost of "Gas" which goes up when the network has more transactions.
Gas is the term given to the cost of the processing fee for a transaction on the blockchain. The more active the blockchain and the more transactions that are currently being processed the higher the Gas fee.
Timing your purchases, conversions and transfers of assets to when there are low gas fees is important to avoid paying high Gas costs. Use the Ethereum Gas tracker to see the latest Gas fee estimates.
Find out the current Gas prices by checking Etherscan.io/gastracker
There are hundreds of marketplaces for buying crypto but only a few that are trustworthy enough to recommend.
For US based Artists the easiest place to start is with "Coinbase" you can buy crypto with your credit card and the set-up is fairly easy and only takes a few minutes to a few days to verify depending on your online bank.
Coinbase also has great tutorial videos about getting started as well as learn-to-earn offers where you get free crypto for completing educational tutorials about new coins coming to market.
The lowest fees for purchasing Etherium on Coinbase are for Bank (ACH) Transfer. But you should plan for 1 week for the funds to arrive before you can actually buy something!
A Bank or ACH transfer uses your Banks routing number and account number - it will cost ~$15 and take 5 days to become 100% available. Debit card purchases are ~$30 and are quicker to access funds.
Another great marketplace is Crypto.com