Dabbled in Cryptocurrencies for the first time

Happy Diwali or Deepavali!

To celebrate the festival of lights, I announced that I have begun my journey into the world of cryptocurrencies.

I have been late into this game but it is better to be now or never.

I am not encouraging everyone to try out cryptocurrencies because I believe it is a form of speculative "investment" aka gambling.

Unlike financial instruments such as  stocks, Reits or bonds, cryptocurrencies do not have underlying fundamentals or assets as collateral backing and are mostly unregulated albeit being a more secured form of digital asset compared to cash and coins. 

However, if we occasionally bought Toto, 4D or other forms of lotteries that are forms of gambling to test our luck, I believe it is of little harm if we only allocate a small percentage of our net worth or liquid cash into Cryptocurrencies to test our luck too.

Afterall, high risks offer high returns at the expense of losing all money.

To begin with buying cryptocurrencies in Singapore, we have to register for a cryptocurrency exchange account first. 

There are many crypto exchange accounts to choose from, of which many are unregulated by MAS. The only regulated crypto exchange by MAS is Independent Reserve. Gemini and Crypto.com are the other popular exchanges which are granted exemption from MAS from holding a license under the Payment Services Act for a specified period of time. Not to mention other popular exchanges such as Coinhako, FTX, Huobi Global that also offer great platforms and low costs but not yet regulated in Singapore.

I decided to open accounts with Crypto.com and Gemini to try out cryptocurrencies. The account opening process was smooth and seamless. For Crypto.com, it was required to take pics of NRIC and for Gemini was using Singpass to retrieve personal info. I managed to get both accounts up within an hour.

The next step will be to fund the accounts. I then realise there is a payment middleman called StraitsX XFER used for digital asset, B2B or C2C forms of payments. So I also opened an XFER account which is to be linked to our bank account. This XFER account can be used to integrate with the crypto exchanges account to transfer funds from bank account using Fast at no fee.

For Crypto.com there is no fee period of 30 days for using credit or debit cards to buy cryptocurrencies upon account opening. I tried adding my Citibank and Stanchart credit cards but the bank rejected the transaction. In the end, DBS credit card was accepted and I tried using it to buy my first crypto coin, which was Cardano (ADA) at $2.76 each.

I then checked my Crypto wallet to see the 10 Cardono coins being deposited there.

Upon sign up of Crypto.com account through referral link, there is a free USD25 in the form of CRO coins paid to both referral and new account holders when the account holder deposit $500 to buy CRO Crypto.com tokens and stake it for 180 days for a debit card. By staking different amounts, we can get cards of various tiers. However, the 111.64 CRO tokens worth USD25 is already reflected in my wallet though yet to be unlocked.

I will continue to monitor other promising cryptocurrencies i.e. XRP, Doge, Holo, Matic and possibly nibble them. I will also purchase and hold $500 of CRO tokens to get the Ruby steel card and unlock USD25 worth of CRO tokens.

For those of you interested to sign up for Crypto.com exchange platform, you may use my referral link here. We both can get USD25 worth of CRO tokens when you stake $500 of CRO tokens for a Ruby card or above.

I am excited to begin this journey into Crypto. The excitement is like stepping into a Casino.

Thank you for reading. Stay safe and be strong as always. 

With love & peace, 

Qiongster