Singaporean Talks Money

Sunday, 3 October 2021

Setting up a FTX account to buy cryptocurrencies

If you would like to give FTX a try, you can sign up using my referral link where you will get 5% of your fees back. You can read up more on the referral benefits here.

I have been looking for alternative exchanges especially so when there is low commission. I think FTX is one of the exchanges that provided a pretty competitive rate. Its okay to have various exchanges although make sure you remember the passwords. With what Binance.com is facing, restrictions in various countries, it is good to have a few exchanges to allow transfer of assets if required. What I do is that I purchase Etherum, Bitcoin and stablecoins and then transfer them to either Hodlnaut or my cold wallet although I also hold small amounts on exchanges. Seedly came out with an article on the different exchanges available and I think it is really helpful.

So let's talk more about FTX:

Setting up of account and KYC

Setting up of the account was very straight forward and fast. Similar to other exchanges, you will need to provide a copy of your ID for verification. My account was all set up within a day and everything was very smooth. I like that the 2FA is using the Google Authenticator app.

No deposit fees but look out for withdrawal fee (Fiat)

There are no deposit fees for fiat but do note that for fiat withdrawals below $10,000 in value, there will be a $75 fee. For cryptocurrencies, users will pay the blockchain fees for all ETH, ERC20 tokens unless they have FTT staked.

Adding the bank account details to DBS/POSB ibanking for transfer

Adding of your bank account details can be done under the transfers tab where you can go to DBS Remit and overseas transfer. There is a very comprehensive guide from sgcrypto where the steps are clear and easy to follow. Once set up, you can transfer over USD to FTX for your purchases.

Buying and selling

The website might seem a little overwhelming at first (at least for me) but if you have experience buying stocks, it will be easier to navigate. If not, just make sure to focus on every word you are reading. For me, I don't margin and have to deposit cash in before making a purchase, so once you have deposit your fiat in, go to 'markets' then to 'spot', you can either find for the cryptocurrency that you are planning to buy, if you are facing difficulties in that, you can directly search in the search bar for it. Then once the options appear, you can choose the trading pair that you like to buy in.

After you have selected the trading pair, you can then scroll down and there will be buy and sell. You can then key in your orders, setting it as a limit order or market market. How much you like to purchase and so on.

Really interesting as there is much more cryptocurrencies available for purchase compared to Gemini and the platform even provides tokenized stocks where you can purchase Tesla, Google and so on. For now, I only utilise the spot function to purchase cryptocurrencies but will explore around and see. I know that Gemini has 10 free withdrawals per month but the fees on FTX is significantly lower so I will have to try and see which I prefer. For me, currently I am leaning more towards FTX just because of the variety.

If you would like to give FTX a try, you can sign up using my referral link where you will get 5% of your fees back. You can read up more on the referral benefits here. I would say that FTX is really a solid exchange and even the FTX token is within the top 30 cryptocurrencies. Hope the video gives you more insight as I share on the platform.

You can also find me on

Affiliate links/Codes:

► How I Protect My Bitcoin using Ledger (20% discount code): Get your ledger from HERE (Using my affiliate link will help me where Ledger will pay a small incentive that's not from you but from them) - USD$25 discount coupon: THANKS-SHLRTVJ or THANKS-V35SSK5
► How I earn interest on my Crypto (Hodlnaut): https://app.hodlnaut.com/signup?r=_JF037Nb0 Get USD20 equivalent for your initial deposit of at least USD1000 on any of the supported asset by using my referral link
► Where I Buy my Cryptocurrencies: Gemini (Receive $10 of bitcoin after you buy or sell $100 after signing up using my link)
FTX: https://ftx.com/#a=41877278 (If a new user signs up with my referral code, I will receive 25%-40% of their fees, and they will get 5% of their fees back)
► Where I buy my stocks
FSMone Referral: P0364886
Tiger Brokers (Free stock and commission free trades, check out more here)
Interactive Brokers (Open an account today and start earning up to $1000 of IBKR Stock for free!*Terms and Conditions apply)
► Google Pay: v89ph61

Friday, 1 October 2021

Buying Cryptocurrencies using Gemini | Setup & Transfer USD to account

I have created a Gemini account as I do use Binance to buy cryptocurrencies and with MAS clamping down on the SGD payment options, I decided to switch to Gemini. I do also use Binance.sg and Coinhako but both incur a higher transaction fee and limited coins for Binance.sg

The creation of account was pretty simple, you can use my referral link if you like to create an account after reading/watching my video. So the creation of account is pretty simple as you can use My Info to allow them to take the required information. After which, Gemini will need to verify on their side. For me, verification is pretty simple but if they are taking too long, you can always contact their support through this form to expedite the process.

After setting up and getting validated, using your laptop, you can change your trading interface to Active Trader mainly because of the lower commission. The interface is more advanced looking but I like that you can set limit orders. The commission is 0.35% for ActiveTrader.

Do take a look at the video as I will show how you can switch it.

Depositing USD into account

My Investment Machine has a very detailed step by step method to add Gemini's bank account into your DBS/POSB overseas transfer list. Do remember to always double check the receipient's bank account as it might change time to time and also the comments to put as Gemini relies on that to determine which account to fund.

Transferring from DBS to Gemini

I used to thought that I need to do a currency exchange via my DBS Multi-currency account but it seems that DBS now allows overseas transfer from any account with competitive exchange rates. I tried with a small amount first and accidentally used my POSB everyday account to transfer SGD 100 to Gemini which they helped me to convert to US$73.49 and I received the funds in Gemini soon after.

Why I wanted to transfer USD instead of SGD is because there are much trading pairs available for USD than SGD where the trading pairs for SGD is only BTC or ETH.

Putting in your orders

So putting your orders in is easy if you have deposited USD in, just search for the cryptocurrency that is a trading pair example, BTC/USD or LINK/USD. You can set a limit order meaning what prices would you like to buy in at which to me is great.

I also show in the video on how you can make your purchases.

Why I opened a Gemini account

I have all along been using just Binance both SG and .com but just wanted to also have another exchange to buy from partly due to the MAS Alert list and SGD dominated payments are taken out. I loved the P2P function previously where we can use paynow or Google Pay but too bad. Gemini has been great so far for me and I haven't transfer out any holdings yet but I love that there are 10 free complementary withdrawals monthly. If you like to sign up for an account, you can use my referral link where as long as you trade $100 or more (or 100 USD equivalent of your domestic currency) within 30 days of commencing account sign-up, both accounts will be credited $10 (or 10 USD equivalent of your domestic currency) worth of bitcoin. For safety sake and just as a back up as well, I have also set up FTX. I will be covering that in the next video so do watch out for it.