How to buy Ripple/XRP - a step by step guide

How to Buy Ripple/XRP

If you are new to crypto currencies then the process for buying Ripple can seem a little daunting, especially as it difficult to buy Ripple 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 Ripple/XRP

At the time of writing (Jan 2018) only a handful of exhanges allow you to buy XRP directly with cash, and the ones that do tend to be too new to trust or have very poor reviews, but the following exchanges exist.

• Bitcoin (BTC) to Ripple (XRP)
• Ethereum (ETH) to Ripple (XRP)

So you need to first buy Bitcoin or Ethereum
Note : I favour Ethereum as its faster and cheaper to transact (bitcoin is slow and transaction fees can be $20 or more)

Buying coins

There are a number of sites selling Bitcoin and Ethereum, 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 coins! Select the Buy/Sell menu and choose the coin type you want to buy Bitcoin or Ethereum (if your unsure go with Ethereum).



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

Exchanging your BTC/ETH for Ripple(XRP)

Now you have your BTC/ETH within coinbase, but you need to swap them for Ripple (XRP). You can do this at an exchange, there are a number of exchange sites, but 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 NEO/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/ETH from coinbase into your Binance account.
Select Funds->Deposits Withdrawals



Find the type of coin you bought on coinbase (BTC or ETH), 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/ETH)



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






Once the coins have been sent they should show up in around a minute within Binance, under the Funds->History section.
They will not be accessible until they are 30 blocks deep (they have 30 confirmation), this can take a few minutes.

Great, you now have your BTC/ETH in Binance, now its time to exchange them for Ripple (XRP).
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/ETH).
• Type the coin you want to buy into the search window (XRP).
• Then select the market

Now you are ready to trade, sanity check that you in the right market (buying XRP using your ETH/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 ETH/BTC for XRP select 100%, (or enter an amount as appropriate).
• Press the “Buy XRP” button.

You have now converted your ETH/BTC to Ripple (XRP), you can see your new balances on the Funds->Deposits Withdrawals page.

Job Done

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.