After a long and probably arduous process of signing up for coinbase, you will be prompted with the screen below. Daunting at first, this screen is where most people buy their bitcoin, litecoin and ether. I will explain how to buy cryptocurrency using this page but be warned that there are high fees associated with using coinbase  as oppose to GDAX which is also owned by coinbase.

First you want to click Buy/Sell at the top. You should automatically land on the Buy tab. Below that you will select your coin. Below that you will select your payment method. From here you can choose the amount you want to buy in increments of dollars and cents or bits of a cryptocurrency. Then when you click the big BUY button at the bottom, this transaction will take up to a week depending on your bank. You can also opt in for instant buys by giving coinbase your debit card. Users pay a slightly higher fee for instant buys.

“Coinbase offers free transfers of USD, BTC, ETH & LTC between Coinbase and Gdax. “

Now, onto the fun stuff. Avoiding fees and getting into trading.

This is Gdax. Gdax is an exchange. An exchange is just that, a place where people can exchange currencies. Currently you can only trade with USD, BTC, LTC & ETH. Coinbase hopes to add more assets in the future.

Gdax will ask you for a little more information to get your account setup. Once you’re logged into Gdax (with your Coinbase credentials), you will see the screen below. It’s a lot to take in your first time. Coinbase offers free transfers of USD, BTC, ETH & LTC between Coinbase and Gdax.

Below the Deposit and Withdrawal buttons on the left, You see Market, Limit, and Stop. A market order is an order placed at market price where you only choose how much crypto you want. A stop order that is placed after a a currencies reaches a price on which you decide. You want to place a limit order. A limit order is where you choose the price you want to pay for a certain amount of crypto currency. If there is no one willing to let go of their crypto for the price you choose, then your order will stay in the cue until it becomes attractive to a buyer. The same thing goes with selling. These orders fill almost exactly how you type them in.