Getting Started Part 2: Coinbase to Poloniex - Purchase your first Alt coin

If you are just getting started with Crypto-currencies and you haven't read my "Getting Started" blog post, please do so now.  This post will assume you have completed the steps in the first Getting Started guide.

In this post we are going to move some BTC from Coinbase to Poloniex and then buy some Golem (GNT) coin with our BTC.

First let's move some BTC to Poloniex.  I'll assume you have already funded your Coinbase account with some BTC.  To move the coin to Poloniex you'll need your Poloniex BTC Address.  Let's get that first because you'll need that for Coinbase in a minute.

Click on the "Balances" link on the home page, then select "Deposit/Withdrawal" from the drop-down menu.

Then, when you are on your Deposit/Withdrawal page, find the line for Bitcoin (BTC) and click on the "Deposit" link.  Because you want to deposit BTC from Coinbase we are clicking on Deposit. That will make a window pop open that shows you your BTC Wallet Address.  Make sure you copy the whole address to your clipboard.  Highlight it, then type "CTRL-C" on your keyboard.  Note the first and last few letters of the address so you can check that those are there when you later Paste this address on Coinbase.

Now, go to Coinbase and click on "Send/Receive" on the top nav.  Make sure when that page loads your are on the "Send" tab.  Just fill in the required fields, pasting your BTC address you just got from Poloniex into the "Address" field and entering the amount of BTC you want to send into the "Amount" field.

When you have it all filled out, click the "Send Funds" button and it will transfer your BTC to Poloniex.  Remember that it takes a while for your BTC to be confirmed at Poloniex.  It won't show up until is has been confirmed.  That can take anywhere from 20 minutes to several hours.

To see if it has arrived or not, just go back to the "Deposit/Withdrawal" screen where we were earlier on Poloniex and keep your eye on the BTC line.  The total at the end of the line should change when your BTC arrives.

Once it arrives you are ready to purchase other coins with your BTC.  To do so, click on "Exchange" on the top nav on Poloniex, then click on the "BTC" tab on the "Markets" window.  This tells the system you want to see all other coins they carry with their values expressed in BTC.

You then can click on the coin you want to purchase, "NXT" in our case.  It will load the screen with the chart for NXT.  You can change how that chart is displayed by clicking on different time periods right below the chart, but that is not what we are focused on right now.  Right now we just want to purchase some NXT.

So, scroll down until you see the "Buy" and "Sell" windows.  Because we are looking to buy some NTX, we will use the Buy window.  The fields in that window are smart enough to let you enter your purchase either as how much NXT you want to purchase or how much BTC you want to spend.  Once you enter one of those values and move off of that field, it will automatically recalculate the other fields for you.

Note you can also change the price you are willing to pay.  It first loads with the lowest "Buy" price currently available.  You can enter any price you want.  You could enter a price higher than that amount and that doesn't mean you'll have to pay the higher price.  It just means that is the "highest" price you will pay.   If NXT is available at lower than that price it will buy it for you at the lower price.

Once you have those fields populated with the price you want to pay, the amount you want to buy and/or the amount of BTC you want to spend, click on the "Buy" button.  Your order will be placed almost instantly for you.  If there is enough NXT available at the highest price you offered, your order will be filled right then and you are done.  If it can only buy some of what you want to buy at the price you offered, it will buy as much as it can and it will place an open offer out there for the remainder of what you are trying to buy.

After you've placed your order you should scroll down on that page and look at the "My Open Orders" section.  It will show you if you still have an offer to buy out there or not.  If for some reason you want to cancel your order before it gets filled, you can click the "Cancel" link there and it will cancel it almost immediately.

Below that there is a "Trade History" window that shows all recent transactions of NXT by everyone.  You can click on the "My Trades" tab and it will only show your completed orders for that ticker - NXT in our case.  That is also a good place to look to see if your order was filled or not.

Lastly, you could go back to the Deposit/Withdrawal window and check the line for NXT.  When you order has been filled your NXT will show up on that line.

I have learned that the easiest place to look as soon as you have placed your order is the right side of the screen where it says "Sell".  Above that box it always shows how much of the coin you currently hold.  So if your order was filled, it would show up right there.  That number changes in real-time, you don't have to refresh the page.  So you can also just watch there to see if your order was filled or not.

At this point you are done!  You should be the proud owner of some NXT coin.  You can always check the current price of that coin in the "Markets" window or you can check the value of your account at the top of the "Deposits/Withdrawals" window.

When you are ready to sell NXT, you basically follow this same process but with the "Sell" window instead of the "Buy" window.  After you have sold NXT you'll be holding BTC instead.  You can then "Withdraw" that BTC back to Coinbase and cash out your riches!