How to buy NEO GAS - a step by step guide

How to Buy GAS Coins

If you are new to crypto currencies then the process for buying GAS can seem a little daunting, especially as at the time of writing it is not possible to buy GAS directly using your bank account or credit card. However the following simple steps will get you up and running with a minimum of effort.

Security and Due Diligence

You’re going to be sending money/coins or installing software from a number of sites. Before you use a site you not familiar with its common sense to do a bit of due diligence. Firstly check the sites certificate, then Google the site name and check that ‘scam‘ doesn’t feature highly in articles referring to it. Also check review on sites like trustpilot. Start small, don’t just send $100,000’s worth of coins to some site you’ve never used before send a trial $100, then build up as your confidence and familiarity increases.

Buying NEO/GAS

At the time of writing (Dec 2017) you can’t buy GAS directly with cash, but the following exchanges exist.

• Bitcoin (BTC) to GAS

So you need to first buy Bitcoins

Buying coins

There are a number of sites selling bitcoin, the one I use is coinbase
Free Money!
If you use the links to coinbase provided on this page then you will be given a $10 credit when you complete your first purchase (see referral program).

Complete the registration form, then check your email for the verification email (it turned up in the spam folder on my mail client).
You then need to provide a mobile number and type in the the verification code that will be texted to you.


Still a bit of messing around to go, select Buy/Sell, then Add Payment Method
You have 2 choices Bank transfer or debit card, both require you to submit photo ID.
If you choose debit card then you will be subject to a £750 per week limit, and some card handling fees.
You can provide your ID by capturing an image from your laptops webcam, or you will be texted a link to a web site where you can upload a picture fo your ID.
You will also be asked for your address (which must match the debit cards address).

I used my passport as ID, and it validated it within a minute. I’m guessing this was done automatically using the machine readable strip on the bottom, submitting other forms of ID would probably have to be checked manually and may take much longer to validate.


Your now finally ready to actually buy some Bitcoins!

Enter the amount you want to sepend and click Buy, you will notice that the fees are relitivley high for using a credit card. If your funding the account with larger amounts setup a bank transfer payment source.

If your card was accepted then you are now the proud owner of some magic beans (sorry bitcoins). You can see your balance in the accounts section. If you followed the refereal link you wall also see that you were also given a tiny fraction of a bitcoin (amounting to about $10), which is your referal bonus!

Exchanging you BTC for GAS

Now you have your BTC within coinbase, but you need to swap them for GAS. You can do this at an exchange, there are a number of exchange sites, I use Binance.
Create a Binance account, verify your email address (again the mail probably went into spam)



You will also be asked to configure 2 factor authentication (2FA) you will need this later to move GAS to your wallet (So don’t skip it).



If you are not in china this requires the Google Authenticator app installing on your phone, then simply open it and point it at the QR code, the Google authenticator app with then start spewing out validation codes, which will be asked for within Binance whenever you do anything significant.



Your account is now setup and you can transfer the BTC from coinbase into your Binance account.
Select Funds->Deposits Withdrawals



Find the type of coin you bought on coinbase (BTC), and press the deposit button, after a couple of seconds a deposit address will appear.
This is the ID of your wallet within Binance, any coins sent to this ID will appear in Binance.
IMPORTANT : make sure you have selected the correct coin type (BTC)

You can then go back to coinbase and send the coins to this address (again ensuring that you are sending from BTC to BTC).
Again if you are new to this then sending a smaller test amount first is not a bad idea (but note  Bitcoin fees can be as much as £20 per transaction).






Once the coins have been sent they should eventually show up in Binance (Bitcoin transfers can be very slow), under the Funds->History section.
They will not be accessible until they are 30 blocks deep (they have 30 confirmation), this can take quite a while.
Great, you now have your BTC in Binance, now its time to exchange them for GAS.
Open the exchange page (Exchange->basic)

Then in the top right window

• Select the coin type you want to trade (the ones you bought BTC).
• Type the coin you want to buy into the search window (GAS).
• Then select the market

Now you are ready to trade, sanity check that you in the right market (buying GAS using your BTC balance).
The easiest way to trade is to take the market value (explaining Limit’s/Stop-Limits etc is general trading stuff and not within the scope of this article).

• So select the Market Tab
• Assuming you want to trade all of your BTC for GAS select 100%, (or enter an amount as appropriate).
• Press the “Buy Neo” button.

You have now converted your BTC to GAS, you can see your new balances on the Funds->Deposits Withdrawals page.



Job Done, well almost….
You now own some GAS, you now need to decide where to keep them. You can keep them in the exchange or transfer them to your own wallet.

NEO Wallets

With regards to storing you NEO/GAS you have 2 options, leave it with the exchange where you bought it or move it into your own wallet. Setting up your own wallet has the advantage of being much more hacker proof (exchanges are a magnet for hackers, and some of the larger ones have suffered big losses).

The NEON wallet is the one I use, it’s simple and installs on Window/Mac/Linux. Its an open source project developed by city of zion the source code and binaries can be found at github.
Download and install the NEON wallet on your computer.
Run Neon

• Select “Create New Wallet”
• Give it a strong password (Note : you’ll need to type this in to access your wallet everytime you use it).
• Give the wallet a name and hit “Save Key”
• Print the page and keep it somewhere really safe, if your computer breaks and you’ve lost this, then you loose your cash

You now have an empty Neon Wallet setup.
Now lets test you actually have access it it before we send any money there!
Close Neon and re-open it, select “Logon using a Saved Wallet”), and enter the wallet Passphrase.

Transferring GAS to your wallet

If all went well we are ready to send the GAS coins from Binance, to your wallet.
Open Binance, and go to the Funds->Deposits Withdrawals page.


Take your time over this bit…

• Select the Withdrawal button on the GAS entry.
• Set the “GAS Withdrawal Address” (the destination address) to be the Neon wallet “Public Address”
  Hint: on the page you printed this is listed as the “public address” When you are logged into your NEON wallet this is also shown at the top of the page with the label “Your public Neo Address”, the button to the right copys it to the clipboard.
• Enter the number of GAS to transfer
  
• Then hit submit.

Again if this is all new to you, or your a bit nervous about the whole thing, then I suggest transferring a smaller amount first, the transfer fees are very low.



A few minutes later and the coins should be showing in your NEON wallet.

The End

Well done, you have just helped fuel the crypto currency boom/bubble, if all goes well then “this time next year Rodney…”, anyhow I hope this guide helped, and if you used the coinbase and Binance links on the page then we both got a little something back.