How to buy Tezos?

A beginners guide to buying Tezos. It seems difficult at first. But this guide will help you through the entire process.

Easy to understand

Advice on security

No experience needed

Time estimate: 20 min.

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How to buy Tezos: a quick overview.

First, you need a wallet to keep the Tezos in. Next, you can buy Tezos with a credit card, iDeal, or with bitcoin on an exchange. Send these to your wallet. Third, delegate your tezos to earn interest.
1

Create a wallet

You can store your tezos in an offline 'paper wallet', in a hardware wallet, or in a wallet on an exchange. Each has their pro's and cons. We'll cover each extensively.

2

Buy Tezos

You can buy Tezos via a credit card, with bitcoin or even iDeal. We'll show you what's possible in your situation, depending on the country you're from.

3

Receive interest

Tezos is a 'Proof of Stake' coin, which means that the blockchain is secured by the 'nodes' holding tezos. You can delegate your tezos to one of those nodes to receive part of their rewards.

Create a Tezos wallet

Paper wallet

One of the most secure ways to safely store your Tezos is on a paper wallet. A paper wallet is basically a piece of paper on which you write down your private key. If you lose this piece of paper, you lose your coins.

A paper wallet is secure, but, it's not really easy to use if you want to sell your coins.

Hardware wallet

Another secure way to safely store your Tezos is on a hardware wallet like a Ledger or Trezor. These are devices that you plugin to your pc that store your keys for you. You confirm transactions on the device itself. Making it impossible to steal your coins without physical contact with your device.

Exchange wallet

The least secure way to store your Tezos is on an exchange. In the past many exchanges have been hacked and millions in user funds have been stolen. I recommend to only use exchanges to buy coins, and maybe keep a little bit on them to trade. Keep the bulk of your coins in a hardware wallet or offline paper wallet.

Each type of wallet is described further below.

Paper wallets

How to create a paper wallet.

Control your keys, control your coins. A paper wallet safely stored in a vault or safe is one of the safest method to keep your Tezos safe.

A paper wallet is as simple as 15 words on a piece of paper

1

Create a wallet

We're going to create a basic paper wallet. The wallet will be stored on the tezos blockchain and accessible via a web interface. You only need a seed phrase to access it. This seed phrase is your 'password'.

First, go to https://kukai.app/ and create a wallet.

2

Seed phrase

Write down your seed phrase. DO NOT LOSE YOUR SEED PHRASE! If you lose this phrase, you lose your coins. Store it somewhere safely. Do not save it in a Dropbox, Evernote or other online environment. It's best to save it on a piece of paper and not on your computer as computers can be hacked.

3

Public address

Your public address is the address where others can send coins to. When you buy Tezos on an exchange you can send them from the exchange to your public address. You can use a Tezos blockchain explorer to see your balance. Go to TzStats and enter your public address.

That's it?

Yes, that's it. You now have a Tezos wallet, and the way to access it is via an online interface by entering your seed phrase. Make sure you use an interface that is acknowledged by the Tezos foundation. See the list on their site.

Pros

Easy to setup

Secure, if kept offline.

Cons

Not handy in everyday use.

Easy to lose your paper with seed phrase.

Hadware wallets

Hardware wallets

Hardware wallets are devices that look like a USB stick. They contain software that secures your private keys and seed phrases. If you use a hardware wallet you'll never know the seed phrases of your Tezos wallet. Only the seed phrase of your hardware wallet.

When making a transaction you have to confirm this transaction by pushing a button on the device itself. Therefore nobody can access your wallet without physical contact with the device.
You can store multiple types of cryptocurrencies on hardware wallets.

Ledger and Trezor

Currently there are two hardware wallets that have the ability to store Tezos.

Pros and cons of hardware wallets

Pros

Easy to use

Very secure

Cons

They're not free

Trezor Model T
$ 170

Ex. shipping

Supports Tezos

1.100+ crypto assets

Full color touchscreen

Go to Trezor website
Ledger Nano S
$ 59

Ex. shipping

Supports Tezos

1.100+ crypto assets

 

Go to Ledger website
Buy Tezos

Exchange wallets

Lastly, you can also keep your Tezos on an exchange. But, this is not recommended. In the past exchanges have been hacked and millions of user funds have been stolen.

Of course, you need an exchange to buy Tezos, but once you've got them in your account send them over to a paper wallet or hardware wallet.

To create an exchange account. Please visit the exchanges page. There you find the fees of each exchange and an overview on what exchanges you can buy Tezos.

Pros

Good for trading

Fast selling and buying

Cons

Not your keys, not your coins

Exchanges and accounts often get hacked

High risk

Where to buy Tezos?

Now that you have your wallet set up. It's time to buy some Tezos. Don't worry if you've ordered a hardware wallet. You can start with a paper wallet and transfer the Tezos once the hardware wallet is arrived and configured.

Most people buy Tezos on an exchange with bitcoin. But, most beginners have never used an exchange before. Don't worry, we have a step-by-step guide for you about exchanges.

There are ways to buy tezos directly via credit card or bank transfer. There are multiple services who provide this. But, often they are a little more expensive compared buying from an exchange as they charge a slightly higher price per coin.

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Credit card

There are a lot of companies where you can buy Tezos online with your credit card. But some require KYC (Know Your Customer; passport verification), and some charge a larger premium on top of the Tezos price. We've laid out some companies accepting credit cards in an in depth article.

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Bank transfer

Buying Tezos via bank transfer, or iDeal, is getting more popular in Europe. There are some companies in Europe that sell Tezos and accept bank transfer payments. But, most of them require KYC verification. Which means you need to share passport details with them.

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Crypto exchanges

If you're not too keen on sharing your passport information, you can create an account on a cryptocurrency exchange. There are a lot of popular exchanges where you can deposit fiat via wire transfer or credit card. On the exchange you can buy Tezos to send to your own wallet.

Cryptocurrency exchanges have the lowest fees and are the most popular, as you can buy and trade a wide range of cryptocurrencies. We have an article with more in depth information on different cryptocurrency exchanges.

Baking tezos

Earn interest with your Tezos: baking

Baking tezos sounds a little weird. But it's a term they use that has caught on. Basically the tezos blockchain is secured by 'Proof of Stake'. Which literally means that the incentive to secure the blockchain is bigger if the node has more tezos.

Nodes earn a fee for confirming transactions. If you transact tezos, you pay a transaction fee. This fee goes to the nodes who confirm transactions. But, in contrary to Bitcoin, nodes that have more tezos in their vault, will receive more of the fees compared to the nodes that have less tezos in their vault.

This creates an incentive for the network: you have to own tezos in order to receive the fees. The more you own, the more fees you receive.

Baking tezos means that you delegate your tezos to a baker (a node). This baker will therefore receive more fees from the network. Part of these fees are send to you. Therefore earning you interest. You can earn about 6-7% per year with your tezos, while not doing anything with them. Just keeping them in your wallet.

More on baking

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