Ok, you have decided to buy an NFT. Now what? Depending on what NFT you want to purchase, and the blockchain that it is going to be listed on, you will need to buy some cryptocurrency.
In this example, let’s say that your NFT is on the Ethereum Blockchain. Your NFT is most likely going to require a purchase in the currency ETH. (For Solana, it would be SOL and Tezos would be XTZ, and other blockchains will have their own native currency).
To obtain cryptocurrency with fiat currency (currency used in the real world), you will need what is known as an on-ramp (just a fancy way of saying a tool or service to get real world money into the cryptocurrency markets). There are two main ways of doing this including:
- Using a Centralized Exchange. These are companies you may have heard of including Binance, Coinbase, Koinly, Gemini, Crypto.com, Kraken, eToro and a raft of others depending on where you live. If using a centralized exchange, you will need to provide your personal information to allow you to trade cryptocurrencies using their services. Having said that, centralized exchanges are the most common on-ramps to cryptocurrency. From here, your cryptocurrency will need to be sent to a non-custodial wallet of your choosing (popular options include Metamask and Coinbase Wallet, but there are others), where you will be ready to purchase an NFT.
- Using payment gateways and including services like Moonpay, Wyre, Ramp Network, Transak for example. Each week, even more services are coming to market, increasing the offerings available and making cryptocurrency more accessible to all. These services allow people to skip the centralized exchanges and purchase cryptocurrency using a variety of payment methods where the cryptocurrency purchased is directly deposited into a cryptocurrency wallet of your choosing. This saves you the hassle of having to transfer cryptocurrency from a centralized exchange which holds your funds to a non-custodial wallet.
Whichever way you go about purchasing cryptocurrency, as long as you have it ready in a non-custodial (cryptocurrency) wallet, you will be ready to take the next steps in your NFT purchasing journey.