Almost a year passed between my first and second very small crypto purchases. They were just about equally rough and ridiculous.
The onboarding process for a new community for GenX women in crypto required the purchase of USDC (and MATIC for gas fees).
I documented the steps I went through in order to share them with the founders of the community, in case it was useful. Posting them here for documentation purposes as it relates to my crypto and Web3 journey.
- Create new MetaMask wallet specifically for the community
- Click Buy through browser extension
- Redirect to portfolio.metamask.io and try to buy USDC there. Offers pop up. Change to debit/credit card…connect to bank through Plaid. Read privacy/data sharing warning from US Bank…quit for now as I didn’t like what I saw
- A couple of days later: try to generate virtual credit card number to protect checking account and set transaction limit
- Create new account at privacy.com. Stop process when surprisingly prompted to apply for a new credit card at Patriot Bank in order to continue. Contact support to have new account deleted.
- Revisit MetaMask and US Bank combo to buy USDC. Decide to proceed…
- Redirect to MoonPay offer. I would have had to create another account here had I not created a MoonPay account last summer that I couldn’t ultimately use b/c my local community bank at the time wasn’t available through Plaid. Enable connection to bank.
- Complete one-time-passcode verification process.
- Transaction declined.
- Try credit card instead. (Citi)
- Declined.
- Debit card fraud alert triggered. Reply yes it was me to fraud alert.
- Try debit card purchase again. Success with purchasing USDC through MoonPay!
- Back to MetaMask online to click Swap. Website error message.
- Ultimately realize it’s because no offers are present.
- And not enough MATIC in account to pay swap transaction fees to buy MATIC for future transaction fees. DOH
- Try to Buy MATIC through MetaMask instead. Minimum MATIC purchase is $25.
- Only offer available this time is BANXA.
- Create account with BANXA. Research MetaMask partnership and company. Add sensitive information. Upload driver’s license. Complete live face scan to verify identity. YUCK.
- Transaction declined again. No fraud alert or way to clear/approve future transactions.
- Go to Coinbase to buy MATIC. (Already had a Coinbase account, otherwise, would have had to create yet another account.)
- Add verified payment. Mix of success and error messages with this step.
- Buy MATIC.
- Can’t send out MATIC to new community wallet for four days. (And not sure if transaction really went through as it’s not showing up as pending on the bank side.)
- Eventually, by the end of day four, MATIC is available for transfer. Send MATIC to new wallet and continue with the onboarding steps.
Crypto Purchase #3
- In order to mint an NFT from a Web3 bootcamp I recently completed, I needed to buy more ETH to pay for gas fees. This time I went straight to MoonPay and was able to purchase ETH with my debit card. ($30 minimum unfortunately and $7+ in MoonPay and network fees, which cost as much as the gas fees I needed to mint the NFT.) New ETH showed up in wallet quickly and I was able to proceed without all of the PITA steps above. Much more seamless!!!
If all of this sounds like gibberish, but you’re intrigued and want to learn more, I highly recommend SheFi participation for women and non-binary people. (I recently completed participation in Cohort 8.)
Photo by Pierre Borthiry – Peiobty on Unsplash
