Getting Started With Nano

At this point in time, it is only the rock-dwellers who have yet to hear about the revolutionary promises of cryptocurrencies. The wild fluctuations in Bitcoin’s value, which recently cleared the $8,000 / BTC mark, are now routinely reported on in the mainstream press. While these reports were initially accompanied by financial analysts and tycoons, dismissing Bitcoin as nothing more than a repeat of the dot-com bubble, there has been a noticeable shift in tone since.

With a raft of legislation and regulations coming into effect across the world, the majority of it being seen as positive for the future of cryptocurrencies, a once cautious public is now becoming increasingly curious about this emerging technology. Not only this, but those who have been hovering on the peripheries are feeling emboldened to take their first steps into this new landscape. Meanwhile, those who got in the game early (and aren’t now Bitcoin millionaires) are within spitting distance of the vindication that many had started to think might never come.

The Problem With Crypto

But while great strides have been made in terms of gaining legitimacy, when it comes to the user experience, cryptocurrencies remain stumbling giants. For the biggest cryptocurrencies, buying them and transferring them into a wallet is straightforward enough, any reasonably tech-savvy person should be able to manage it. When it comes to using Bitcoin, Ethereum et al, however, things get more complicated. When you want to send your Bitcoin to another person, you have to contend with long processing times and unavoidable fees, two things that, for the most part, fiat currencies are free of.

Even if you’re lucky enough to find a Bitcoin-compatible POS system, the inherent fees mean that, one way or another, you will be paying for the convenience of using your crypto. As long as cryptocurrencies come with these caveats, it’s hard to envisage them ever replacing fiat currencies in the way that many of us are hoping for. It is for this reason that Nano has the potential to be such a game-changing innovation.

Enter Nano

Nano is both feeless and as near as can be to instant. When you send Nano from to another user, be they an individual or a business, the recipient will receive everything you send. Without getting bogged down in the technicalities (although the technology behind Nano is certainly very cool), Nano operates on a fundamentally different architecture to other cryptocurrencies. Nano’s unique approach makes it the first cryptocurrency that actually behaves the way that most people assume a digital currency should.

As with all cryptocurrencies, you won’t have any trouble finding adherents who are all too eager to sing Nano’s praises. But, as with all cryptocurrencies, you will also find a fair number of detractors. The fact is, a combination of subjective responses and vested interests means that the waters are muddied for every cryptocurrency if you go purely by personal experiences. What matters is the underlying technology, and with Nano, it’s easy, and quick, to establish the merits of the technology for yourself.

Choosing a Wallet

As with any cryptocurrency, the first thing you will need is a wallet. With cryptocurrencies, your wallet is analogous to a bank account for fiat currencies, but with a few crucial differences. The main difference is that, because cryptocurrencies are decentralised to varying degrees, there are no banking institutions involved. When you send cryptocurrency from your wallet to another, even though you are moving money in a way that feels a lot like a digital transfer of fiat currency, it is equivalent to taking physical money out of your wallet, and placing it into someone else’s.

There are a number of options when it comes to choosing a Nano wallet. These wallets all do more or less the same thing. It is up to you what platform, online, mobile or desktop, you would prefer to store your Nano on. As far as choosing a wallet goes, whichever one you find the most intuitive and enjoyable to use is the one to go for. As per usual, you will find no end of passionate supporters and detractors for each option.

Nano Wallet Company (Mobile / Desktop) - https://nanowalletcompany.com/ 

Canoe Wallet (App / Desktop) - https://getcanoe.io/download/ 

Nano Vault (Online / Desktop) - https://nanovault.io/

There are a growing number of alternatives out there, but these three are tried and tested choices. It should be noted that, in the interests of security, experienced users will advise you to always use a desktop wallet alongside a mobile or online wallet. If you just want to get a feel for Nano and test it out, you don’t need to worry about this. However, if you decide to purchase more Nano with the intention of holding on to it, you should definitely use a desktop wallet. If you’re making a serious investment in Nano, you will want to look into cold storage. That is beyond the scope of this introduction, but you should be aware of it. 

Regardless of what platform you choose for now, make sure that you note down your wallets seed. When you create a Nano wallet, a seed will be generated. This seed is used to access your wallet from other devices, and to recover it should your primary device become inaccessible. Note that the seed is both a username and password rolled into one, this means that only the seed is needed to access your wallet. You should therefore make sure you keep it safe and secure.

Acquiring Nano

This is where things get, not exactly tricky, but a little more involved. The good news is that you can acquire a small amount of Nano for free (at least for now). The Nano faucet, located at https://www.nanofaucet.org, is still giving out small amounts of Nano. All you need to do is find the ‘Receive funds’ button in your respective wallet. This will display a wallet address that begins with ‘xrb_’. Simply copy and paste this address into the faucet, complete the Captcha, and Nano will be sent to your wallet. The amount of Nano will be very small, but it is free, and it will appear almost instantaneously.

This might not seem hugely impressive if this is your first foray into cryptocurrencies, but trust us, this simple action is significant. If you can convince a friend to also open their own Nano wallet, you can ping some Nano back and forth between you both to get an idea of just how fast and easy sending and receiving is. If your friends aren’t cool enough to get in on the action themselves, you can open another wallet yourself and send some Nano back and forth. Because there are no fees, you can do this as much as you like.

But, you might be thinking to yourself, the faucet only gave me a tiny fraction of a Nano! How can I send such a small amount? Good question! The smallest amount of Nano that you can send is 1 raw. 1 raw is equal to 10-24Nano. That’s 0.000000000000000000000001 Nano! At the time of writing the faucet isn’t giving out much Nano (it offers 0.001% of the total supply each time) but it is much more than 1 raw.

Next Steps

If you want to acquire even more Nano, and after witnessing how simple and efficient Nano is, many people are eager to buy more, things get a little more involved. There are two ways you can go about acquiring more Nano, you can either use a fiat gateway, whereby you simply buy Nano using a credit or debit card, or a bank transfer. Or, more commonly, you purchase another cryptocurrency, usually Bitcoin or Ethereum, and convert this into Nano on an exchange.

There are numerous sites you can use to purchase Bitcoin and Ethereum, and a variety of exchanges you can use to swap it for Nano. For purchasing Nano, Coinbase (https://www.coinbase.com/dashboard) is a solid choice, and as that’s the service that this author uses, I can testify to its reliability. Coinfalcon (https://coinfalcon.com) is also a popular choice, and offers a wider range of cryptocurrencies to choose from. However, Ethereum is best ‘entry coin’ for a number of reasons, so unless you have a specific reason for wanting other coins, this extra choice doesn’t matter for now. Without wanting to get side-tracked with a technological discussion, Ethereum incurs less fees than Bitcoin, and can be transferred more quickly.

Note: The above advice assumes that your local currency is Euros, US Dollars, or Great British Pounds (Pounds Sterling). Other regions and currencies might be better served elsewhere.

When it comes to cryptocurrency exchanges, caution needs to be exercised. While the industry seems to have gotten much better at protecting itself in recent years, there have been numerous high-profile incidents of money being stolen from cryptocurrency exchanges. In some cases, this is the result of hacking, in others, it is the exchange owners shamefully making off with their customer’s funds. And, occasionally, poor coding practices lead to issues with customers accessing their funds. Also note that not all exchanges offer all cryptos. You need to check that the exchange you’re considering offers Nano.

Binance (https://www.binance.com/?ref=35344006) are a Chinese cryptocurrency exchange, one of the biggest and most popular exchanges in the world. Binance is also the exchange that I use, so I feel comfortable suggesting others entrust them with their funds. Note that you shouldn’t keep any cryptocurrency on an exchange longer than you need to. You should deposit funds onto the exchange when you want to exchange them, and withdraw them once the exchange has been made.

Serious cryptocurrency traders may well leave a small portion of their savings on exchanges, so they can make trades as soon as the market conditions are favourable. For now though, let’s just move some Ethereum onto Binance, swap it for Nano, and withdraw it to your wallet.

Buying Ethereum From Coinbase

Naturally, the first thing you need to do is to make an account on each of the aforementioned services, and ensure that you have a Nano wallet ready.

If you make a Coinbase account using my referral link (https://www.coinbase.com/join/5b3abc1e46479d05e62da1e6), we can both get some free Bitcoin $10 (£7) if you decide to buy or sell $100 (£76) of cryptocurrency. Or you can find the standard signup page here - https://www.coinbase.com/signup.

Once you’ve registered, you will need to verify your email address. Check your inbox for the verification email and  click the link inside. You can then login, at which point you will need to enter and verify your phone number. You will receive a verification code by SMS, entering this will authenticate your phone. 

It is worth noting at this point that you will have to go through a few extra verification steps for most cryptocurrency services. These extra verification steps are important fraud prevention measures, you don’t need to worry about handing over personal information to reputable cryptocurrency sellers and exchanges. However, you should be extra vigilant and ensure you do your due diligence on every service that you use.

If you are making large investments, you will want to link your bank account as a payment method. But for the small amount of Ethereum that we are going to be purchasing, a credit or debit card is a better choice. 

Choose ‘Buy/Sell’ from the menu bar at the top and you will be bought, surprisingly enough, to the Buy / Sell screen. You will see a selection of cryptocurrencies to choose from, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin. Select Ethereum, then drop down the ‘Payment Method’ menu, and select ‘Add a new account’. You then need to simply enter your card details and complete the verification.

When you return to the Buy / Sell screen, make sure that Ethereum is selected. You will see two boxes under the ‘Amount’ section, one in your local currency, the other in ETH. Enter the amount of fiat currency you want to spend, and you will be shown its value in Ethereum. Once you’ve purchased your Ethereum, it should be available to transfer straight away.

Transferring Your Ethereum

Opening an account with Binance is easy and straightforward. Here is a naked link to the Binance website - https://www.binance.com/. There have been known instances of phishing sites posing as Binance, you should therefore make sure that any Binance links you click take you to the aforementioned URL. Once you have registered, head to your email inbox and click on the link to verify your account.

When you log in for the first time, you will be prompted to enable 2-factor authentication. To do this you will need to download the Google Authenticator app and follow the on-screen options. Note that if you register your Binance account through the app, rather than the website, the process might be slightly different. In either case, you will need to install Google Authenticator.

Once you’ve verified your account and input the Google Authenticator code, you are then ready to begin trading. The first thing we need to do is deposit the Ethereum you bought earlier into your Binance account. In the top right of the page, you should see the ‘funds’ tab. Click on this, then select ‘Deposits & Withdrawals’. You will then see a list of coins, if you are using the app, you will need to press the ‘Select Coin’ button. Navigate to Ethereum (ETH), once you select it and click on the ‘Deposits’ button, a wallet address will be generated. An exchange wallet works like other crypto wallets but, as we explained earlier, you don’t want to leave your funds here for longer than necessary. After you click the ‘Deposit’ button, you should be given a wallet address. Copy this and head back to Coinbase.

Once you are logged in to Coinbase, select the ‘Accounts’ tab from the menu bar. Down the left hand side of the page, you should see a list of your Coinbase accounts, with different accounts for each of your cryptocurrencies. Find your ETH wallet and choose the ‘Send’ option. Paste your Binance wallet address into the ‘Recipient’ field and specify the amount of ETH you wish to transfer.

Hit continue, and you’re done!

Your money won’t appear in Binance for a little while. Transfer times vary according to a number of factors. Sometimes Ethereum transfers in 15 minutes or so, other times it can take a couple of hours. The average transfer time is around 30 minutes, but don’t panic if it takes longer. You will receive an e-mail from Coinbase once they have confirmed the transfer, and another from Binance when the transfer arrives on their end.

Swapping Your Ethereum For Nano

Once you receive confirmation that your funds have arrived on Binance, you’re ready to exchange them. Navigate to the ‘Exchange’ tab and click on ‘Basic’. On the right hand side, you should see an ETH button, click here to go to the ETH tab. In the search box, you need to search for Nano. 

Select the NANO/ETH pair, press the star next to it to add it to your favourites for easy access in the future. After you click on the NANO/ETH fair, you will be taken to the market. Use the buttons beneath the ‘Amount’ field, on the ‘Buy’ side of the screen, to add 100% of your Ethereum (you might end up with a small amount of ETH left over, you can’t do anything with this). Click the ‘Buy’ button to convert the Ethereum into Nano.

You will need to wait a short time for the transaction to process, but you should have access to your Nano pretty quickly.

Withdrawing Your Nano to a Wallet

Navigate back to the’Funds’ tab, and then the ‘Deposit / Withdrawal’ area of Binance, and select ‘Withdrawal’. All you need to do now is to choose Nano from the dropdown box. You will then be prompted to enter the address you want to withdraw to. Choose ‘Use New Address’ from the ‘Withdrawal Address’ dropdown menu. Remember earlier when you got your Nano wallet address to paste into the faucet? Repeat the process, but paste the address into Binance. You will need to confirm the transfer through 2-FactorAuthentication, and also by clicking the link in a verification email.

Withdrawals from Binance should be near-instantaneous, and the funds should be available in your wallet almost immediately.

Fiat On-Ramps

A fiat on-ramp refers to an exchange which allows you to purchase Nano directly with a credit or debit card. This is a more convenient way of acquiring Nano, but fees tend to be higher, and there is often a minimum spend. N.Exchange (https://n.exchange) is a popular choice, but the minimum spend is £50 / $50, and the fees are relatively high. However, it is the fastest and easiest way of buying Nano.

Spending Nano

The number of businesses accepting Nano is growing every day. You can find a complete list over at Use Nano (https://usenano.org).

You can also send some Nano towards the author of this article, or donate some BTC or ETH at the addresses below. All donations are appreciated.

Nano: xrb_3xt996ctuaas1ftqo8i4gk8dugpgzp54foaphtp69qk4rx6b7swoghfzuy33

BTC: 13bb4tL8XmPeEEqpfKrzjGa5XggFtMyULx

ETH: 0x53D7ec687eE3149B9795Bede183D093be87d7eB3