What is the Best Route to Get Fiat (USD) into the LEO / HIVE Ecosystem?

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I have been following the activities of the LeoFinance community with respect to facilitating bridges across various platforms and exchanges, with WLEO, bLEO, CUB, LeoBridge, etc.

I find this approach (creating and facilitating bridges to other crypto markets) to be extremely strategic and probably the single most effective and impactful, with respect to expanding the reach of the Hive ecosystem.

As such, I want to support and invest in these activities.

I have only been aware of Hive and LeoFinance for a few months. I have been an active participant for the past 2 months. I have, to date, been operating within the ecosystem using only the crypto I’ve acquired here (via author / curation rewards) (currently about 4,000 USD equivalent). I am now ready to bring in outside funds, but I am finding it a bit confusing as to the best way to get USD from a U.S. bank account into the LEO / HIVE ecosystem.

I am looking for processual advice here (not financial, of course).

What is the most expedient way to transfer USD from a U.S. bank account into LEO, CUB, and HIVE?

By ‘expedient’ I am referring to [1] minimal number of steps (i.e. number of discrete transactions), [2] minimal cumulative fees incurred along the way, and [3] the existence of adequate liquidity to handle individual transaction volumes in the thousands (USD equivalent).

These are funds that would be used for long-term investment purposes; so ultimately getting them into liquidity pools or ‘mining’ tokens or the like would definitely be on the table.


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Image Credit: blockchainsimplified.com

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24 comments
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I buy litecoin with coinbase, and then use blocktrades to transfer in.

I am not a trader, and I have not shopped around for the best rates, I use what is the most straight forward.

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I always used Blocktrades on Steemit also, and for the same reasons. I heard the prices were higher, but I felt the convenience was worth it. I completely forgot about using them on Hive...I just remembered them disabling their Steem side and that was it. Thanks!

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(Edited)

For HIVE, probably using bittrex, although not sure how they work with credit cards deposits, I'm not from US. Then you will withdraw it to your Hive account.

For LEO, you can buy it on Hive Engine with Hive, or you can do it from Uniswap with Ethereum. You can get eth from coinbase, send it to your metamask and then buy WLEO on Uniswap. If you like it on your Hive account you will need to unwraped it. Have in mind the high eth fees, and use Uniswap only for large transfers.

For CUB, you migh want to wait for the leo bridge :), or use binance.com with VPN :) to withdraw funds to the BSC neetwork.
Another option for CUB is to wrap LEO to bLEO, and then use these funds for CUB. But you will need a small amount of BNB in that wallet to make transactions. I can send you some :)
More info about setting up the BSC network on metamask and the wraping/unwraping process in the cub docs
https://docs.cubdefi.com/

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(Edited)

You can always see where a token is traded on CoinMarketCap.

$HIVE is on Binance, Huobi, and Bittrex.

So the options are:

  1. As metzli suggested, purchasing something like LTC on another exchange and using BlockTrades. This is the easiest option if you already have an account on a US exchange, and don't want to deal with additional accounts/sharing of your information. You will probably pay a higher rate vs Bittrex or Binance.
  2. Bittrex requires some KYC information, but should allow you to link your account and make direct purchases.
  3. Use a VPN, and make an account on Binance.com. This is what a lot of people do, but how comfortable you are with that is really up to you. This would be similar to step 1, where you would purchase a coin on an US exchange like Coinbase, and then transferring it to your Binance.com wallet and then making a purchase.

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(Edited)
  • Step 1: Deposit money through bank transfer to Binance US. For me in the UK, the deposit is free of charge, 0% fees.

  • Step 2: Buy BTC or USDT on binance, 0.15% fee.

  • Step 3: Buy hive on binance using the BTC or USDT you just bought, 0.15% fee again.

  • Step 4: Withdraw hive from binance to your hive account. Almost free, less than 1 HIVE withdrawal fee if I remember correctly.

You can sign up on binance through my referral link to get a 10% discount on exchange fees: https://www.binance.com/en/register?ref=UYTCJVWC

I get discounts too if you use it.

Other good options are exchanges like coinbase and Kraken, although exchange fees are higher there (0.5% I think) and HIVE isn't listed. So it would require an extra step sending whatever crypto you buy there to binance or to @blocktrades' exchange: https://blocktrades.us/en/trade

Edit - Apparently hive isn't listed on Binance US. And binance global isn't legal in the US. So you have to go with the second way, buying first on an exchange and then sending to blocktrades.

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Thanks for outlining this so clearly and so cleanly.

And thanks for highlighting the fact that the U.S. gov't is restricting our freedoms in this area.

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But if you're a US citizen you can buy on Binance.com by using a VPN connecting from different country.

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(Edited)

Another way which completely avoids centralized exchanges is to buy Splinterlands card packs via credit card or PayPal and then sell the packs for Hive on Hive Engine or open the packs and sell the cards for DEC on Splinterlands and convert the DEC to HIVE on LeoDex.

I used it a while ago to get money out of PayPal into crypto in the lowest cost way (without being killed on exchange rates) - Indeed I made money on the deal by buying the packs with bulk and referral discounts.

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Now that is thinking outside the box!

Thanks for sharing.

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Very interesting. This is a credit card purchase, but may not be recognized as crypto... I am in the US and credit card purchases of crypto are usually blocked...but I haven’t tried in a year...

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Splinterlands is a game and has accepted credit card payments for years.
It also happens to be a blockchain game with tradable NFTs. :-)

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I am pretty impressed with this. I might have to try it just for fun.

Spend $100 Paypal bucks and see how much crypto I get for it...

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This is something I was thinking of too.

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Hey, there @trostparadox
The best way to get crypto from the USA will be:
Step 1:
Buy it via CashApp
You can do research on the app if needed but it is owned by Square Inc very big company.
And you can buy bitcoin for as little as $2 and send it with 0 transaction fees on the blockchain.

If you use my referral code will be grateful.
SWZDCXS

Step 2:
You can deposit your BTC to https://www.binance.us/
And from there buy the Hive you want and bring it to the Hive ecosystem and Buy the Leo from the https://tribaldex.com/tokens

Namaste

@tipu curate

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I checked and binance US doesn't have hive listed.

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Ok, @marki99 you are right on this one :)
I didn't know they support different trading pairs because of the regulations...
In this case https://bittrex.com my be the option...

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(Edited)

Thanks for this suggestion.

I decided to go ahead and get a CashApp account to see about giving this method a trial run.

Getting $1,000 into a CashApp account was pretty easy, using a debit card, and there were no fees.

However, when purchasing anywhere from $250 to $1,000 worth of BTC, the fees were around 1.7%. (At $200, the fees went up to 2%; at $100 they were 2.25%).

However, that is less than the 3% debit card fee Bittrex charges, so I decided to give it a try.

Immediately after purchasing the BTC via CashApp, I initiated a transfer to Bittrex. It took over 30 minutes for the transfer to receive its first confirmation. After 50 minutes, there had been 2 confirmations but the BTC was still showing up as "pending" in my Bittrex account (saying there has only been 1 confirmation).

After 60 minutes, the Bittrex account still shows only 1 confirmation, even though blockstream.info shows 3 confirmations for that transaction.

My conclusion, based on this trial run: a wire transfer direct to Bittrex seems the better option.

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UPDATE: After just over an hour, the BTC finally showed as tradable in my Bittrex account.

I immediately initiated a transfer back to USD. Even though the price of BTC had gone up slightly, the buy/sell spread on BTC left me with 1.5% less.

So, the net fees of getting the USD from my bank to Bittrex (via BTC via CashApp) ended up being just over 3%.

So, debit card deposit direct to Bittrex would've been better (and much faster).

Wire transfer seems to be the better way to go. I'll give that a try tomorrow, if I can find time to get that done.

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@trostparadox
True sometimes the transactions are very slow but it depends, sometimes they go thru for 2 min, I don't know and understand completely what that is based on, but still, it is a good option to purchase BTC...

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