HOW TO CREATE A COINBASE ACCOUNT
Welcome to our step by step guide
At www.coinbase.com you get to the page below when you click Sign Up.
After filling in the data you get an e-mail. Log in to your account and verify that you are opening an account.
After verification, select Individual.
After that select the country and enter your phone number.
You receive a text message. Enter the numbers and click on Verify Phone Number.
After successful identification you are in. Congratulations!
This is Coinbase’s homepage. We marked with a red frame the steps that you have to complete to become a Bitcoin owner.
Clicking on Settings you get to the page below. Here you can set your personal parameters. First of all, your profile.
After that go to Payment Methods. You can set how you want to place money on your account. Click on Add Payment Method.
You have two options here: bank transfer or debit/credit card payment. Card payment is limited to 500 € a week. If you want to make a higher payment select bank transfer.
If you select bank transfer enter your bank’s name, IBAN number and SWIFT code. You can usually find them on your bank statement or in your netbank account. If you can’t find the SWIFT code google can help you.
If you selected debit/credit card, you have to select the type of ID that you will upload.
We chose photo ID. As you can see on the picture below you can choose webcam of phone cam. We selected the computer’s webcam (which had to be enabled on our computer).
After that we took a picture holding the front side of our photo ID in front of us (making sure our face is not covered). Then the system asked us to take a picture with the rear side of the photo ID. Then the second image below came up. Then we didn’t know yet that Coinbase did not accept the photos.
For the third time the uploaded images were accepted. The first two times we used the webcam and probably the light conditions were not all right, so we went with the phone cam for the third try. As soon as we selected the phone cam option we got a text message and clicking on the Coinbase image in the message the photo-taking function started (normal and selfie, too). Again, we had to make the front page ID version first (there were two of us present, so we could take pictures of each other, holding the photo ID under our chin), then we repeated this step with the back side of the photo ID. After a few minutes the „verification completed” sign appeared, so we could move on. This process may seem too meticulous but Coinbase does this for our security. So, be patient, please. It’s worth it.
Following that, we entered our debit/credit card data and we made a payment to our account. Like we said, the weekly limit is 500 €.
In order to get our debit/credit card approved, you have to have a 3D secure code. This is an extra security step, it was added to the system recently by banks. If you cannot pay using your card because of the missing 3D secure code, you have to contact your bank and ask them to enable 3D secure code. When that is done you will be able to use your card for payment.
If you select bank transfer, in order to be able to transfer a higher sum you have to make a small sum transfer first. That step takes 1 or 2 days. If they find that everything is all right (why wouldn’t they?) you will be allowed to make larger sum transfers, too.
We are kind of experienced in transfering sums to Coinbase, we have done that at least 10 times to our Coinbase account. As far as we have experienced it, if you start your transfer on a weekday morning it will appear in € on your account on the next afternoon like this:
When the transfer arrives you have to move it from your € account to your Bitcoin account. This is done based on the current BTC/EUR exchange rate. In the Buy/Sell section select Bitcoin as you can see in the picture below. Enter how much Euro you would like to convert to Bitcoin and hit Buy Bitcoin. After that the entered sum appears on the right which you have to OK to complete the conversion. And that’s what completes the process. Now you own Bitcoin.
