How to sell Bitcoin: what to look for and what mistakes to avoid

At the beginning of August, the Ministry of Finance talked about an experiment in buying bitcoins. Our goal was to test in practice how everything works. Now we have checked how to get out of this investment.

In early August, the Ministry of Finance talked about an experiment in buying bitcoin.
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When buying bitcoins, we wanted to show what “pitfalls” in the form of fees and other surprises can jump into investors. The experiment was carried out from the position of a “teapot” – a person who knows absolutely nothing about how to conduct operations with crypto. Then many readers reproached the author for not selling bitcoins and not showing how the money is withdrawn back to the bank account. They asked – I do.

Let me remind you that in August I bought a crypto for the amount of UAH 500, but while conducting test transfers between wallets, I lost part of the amount as a commission to “miners”. At 15:00 on 03.07.20. my balance in the international Blockchain service showed 0.001065 BTC worth $ 11.95 or about 320 hryvnias at the exchange rate at that time. It was natural to want to wait for the growth of the value of BTC and sell the asset, if not with a profit, then at least without a loss.

We had to wait about 5 months, but now the most favorable moment for selling bitcoins has come.

The historical high is the time to sell

On November 24, the value of the first cryptocurrency renewed its all-time high, reaching $19,129,000 per coin. Of course, I immediately thought about selling my small share of the coin.

But you have to act fast in this market! And the speed just wasn’t enough. The price of the crypt immediately went into a “corkscrew” and collapsed to $17,076 thousand by November 26. The reason for the delays was both the indecision inherent in beginners and technical difficulties.

Let’s start with the fact that the mobile application of the Blockchain service did not want to transfer the BTC that was in my account to the address of the wallet registered in the crypto exchange btcbank.com.ua. And it was necessary, because I wanted to withdraw money to my account in Privatbank.

The “send” button just remained inactive, no matter how much I entered the address and indicated the amount to be transferred. And this is what is important. You can’t go wrong with the amount and enter more than you can transfer. The system has the function of automatically calculating the maximum amount of BTC available for transfer, taking into account the network commission. One way or another, something went wrong and the moment was lost.

But bitcoin has become more expensive again! On November 30, the coin reached a new peak, this time reaching a price of $19,684,000. There was a feeling that it was good to count on further growth. Moreover, such positive news as the support of four cryptocurrencies Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash by the PayPal payment system since November 11 has already played its part. As if to confirm this, the next day, December 1, the crypto asked for 4% to $18.87 thousand.

When the price recovered to $19,465,000 per coin by December 3, it was decided not to wait any longer and sell, albeit at a loss. Especially since in this whole story we were more interested in how everything works in practice, and not in earnings. The technical troubles by that time were also resolved. It turned out that unlike the mobile application, the web version of the Blockchain service works properly.

Selling

Step 1.

First I generated a BTC address. It is necessary to accept payments in cryptocurrency. I did it in my wallet at btcbank.com.ua. The address is a combination of more than 30 characters – numbers and letters with different case. The wallet has also generated a QR code that can be used to receive transfers. If such a code is scanned with a mobile application for working with crypto, the wallet address will automatically appear in the sending form.

Importantly! A BTC address is public information that you show to anyone who wants to transfer crypto to you.

Step 2.

In my case, it was necessary to send crypto from the Blochain.com platform to a wallet in the .ua domain, as the latter gave the opportunity to exchange crypto for hryvnia and withdraw it to an account in Privatbank. To do this, I performed several simple operations:

indicated in a special form for transfers the BTC wallet address registered at btcbank.com.ua.

indicated that the maximum available amount will be sent (the system calculates the available BTC amount automatically).

clicked the send button.

After that, the account balance showed that I had 0 BTC.

As you can see, the platform recorded the receipt of 0.001065 BTC on July 31 and the sending of the same amount of crypto on December 3.

Step 3.

Then there was waiting and receiving. The transfer of cryptocurrency does not happen instantly. This procedure is subject to its own algorithms and involves network confirmation. In the case of Bitcoin, 2 to 6 such confirmations may be required, which may take 20-40 minutes or more.

I sent a crypto transfer from Blockchain.com at 11:11. An automatic letter about crediting cryptocurrency to my bitcoin address in btcBank came to my e-mail at 11:34. So, the operation took 23 minutes.

And here you need to pay attention to an important point:
I had 0.001065 BTC in my Blochain.com account

0.00086063 BTC was sent to the btcBank address. And this means that 0.0002 0437 BTC was lost in fees.

Step 4.

Next was the exchange of the crypt for the hryvnia, which turned out to be very simple.

It was necessary to enter the amount to be sold in the “Give BTC” column. The cryptocurrency exchange automatically calculated the amount in hryvnias at the current exchange rate. After clicking the “Sell XXX BTC for XXX UAH” button, a little more than UAH 408 appeared on the balance in hryvnias.

Step 5.

Now it remained to withdraw the hryvnia to a bank account. Having selected the necessary section on the exchanger’s website, I indicated the card number and the amount I want to withdraw. In this case, my goal was to withdraw the maximum amount — UAH 408.73.

At the same time, the exchanger immediately warns that the commission will be 4% and will be deducted from the specified amount at the time of payment.

There are other restrictions! The minimum withdrawal amount to the Privatbank card is UAH 250 at the specified exchanger. If we are talking about cards of other banks, then the minimum withdrawal amount is UAH 500. And this means that your 408 hryvnias. I could withdraw only to an account in Privatbank.

After pressing the “Withdrawal” button, the system sent an SMS with a transaction confirmation code.

The code was entered and the operation was successfully confirmed.

As a result, a payment in hryvnias in the amount of 392 hryvnias 38 kopecks arrived on my Privatbank card, which I was informed about by my Privat24 mobile phone.