What will I encounter upon setting up a wallet?

Setting up a wallet is a very frustrating process because the crypto world is new. There’s a lot of things that people don’t tell you—it’s our goal in this section to walk you through some of the headaches you will encounter so you know that they are normal and how to get past them. The biggest thing to know is that when opening a wallet you need to set aside about 10 days for setup. Why? Because your bank has to do a process called KYC, or “know your customer.” This can take a while, as the banks are also adjusting to crypto and the processes that they have to do to make sure that YOU are opening your wallet and it’s not someone else scamming you.

For the purposes of this section, we will examine the process of opening a Coinbase wallet, but this process is similar no matter while wallet you choose.

So—opening a wallet. Begin your process by heading to your phone and downloading now one but TWO apps…Coinbase and Coinbase wallet. A frustrating part of this process is that no one really explains that you will need two apps to navigate your crypto—one to hold the crypto (consider it the bank in this situation) and the other to move it around (consider that the wallet in this situation.) Download both apps and you are set to begin.

Fill out registration for the main Coinbase account first (before the Coinbase wallet.) This lets you begin buying, trading and more. This process is simpler than the wallet process, but again, can take 7-10 days because of the KYC bank process.

Once your main Coinbase account is open, then you can really begin to move! You can open your Coinbase wallet app and follow the prompts to connect that to your Coinbase account and then to transfer funds from your account to your wallet. Be aware that you can only buy and trade currencies and NFTs from your wallet—not from your account. (Again, consider your main Coinbase account more of a “bank” along these lines.). While you are signing up on Coinbase you will be given what is called a “seed phrase” or “Private Key.” This will look like a cluster of small words in a square block. It is critical that you write them down on paper and hide it somewhere…do NOT just cut and paste this somewhere on your computer. That can lead to a hacker scanning your computer (while you are on wifi in a Starbucks, for example) for anything that looks like a seed phrase and stealing it. Keep it on paper and keep it somewhere only you would know about. Never share your seed phrase with anyone.

There are a few things to be aware of while going through the process of signing up for a Coinbase account and also a Coinbase wallet. We will list them here in no particular order. First, you will be asked to link to a bank account and for the last four digits of your social. These things will need be given for your bank to transfer funds into your wallet. Also, when beginning registration on Coinbase, you will be hit with verifications, possibly up to 4 times when registering for Coinbase and then 4 more times getting a Coinbase wallet. Just be patient and go through it. It will be worth it in the end. (Side note, the error messages that you get, most of the time, will make NO sense at all. This is something Coinbase and a lot of other exchanges need to focus on fixing.)

The first time you try to buy any cryptocurrency, of any kind, the transaction will simply fail, as a rule. You will have to try at least 2 times. Your bank will be sending verification emails to you post this process, and also your credit cards might get a hold on them if you try to use on within the process. Just grit your teeth and keep going here. Again, the benefits of having a wallet are larger than the downsides…try to stay patient.