Getting started with trading crypto on Gdax

Sep 23, 2017

updated at: Oct 2, 2017


It's September 2017 and it's still not that easy to buy Bitcoin, Ether or any other cryptocurrency. Let me show you how you can start trading the big three cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ether and Litecoin on Gdax without fees or commission.

NOTE: Coinbase and Gdax are the same company. Coinbase is the wallet you will use and Gdax is the trading platform.

Get a Coinbase wallet

First of all we need a wallet to be able to deposit funds so that we are able to buy some cryptocurrencies. Go to, fill in your email address and press Get Started.

Fill in the needed fields and continue as you will see Coinbase will send you an e-mail. Go to your mailbox and open the link in the mail now the real authentication comes. First of all you need to have a valid phonenumber so Coinbase can send you an authentication token. The next step is uploading the passport/ID.

If you are in a another country then where your bank/phone is registered, for example I live in Belgium but I registered in Czech Republic, you must do an additional step. I will enlighten it later.

Next you will need to verify a payment method, you will need to send money to a given bank address with a given phrase. They will ask you for a SEPA amount, it can be anything you want, if you are unsure like I was in the beginning just send 0.01 euro. It took me 2 days to get the money verified.

Uploading passport/ID

This is a tricky part because it must be all readable and clear. The easiest thing you can do is to do this via webcam and take pictures with it of your ID. If it does not work at first fear not, on my first try I failed so many times I needed to wait 24 hours to retry again, hope you can do better!

Change country

So if you are not in your home country. Skip the remaining steps and go to the right upper corner in the dashboard and click on your avatar. Next go to settings and scroll down. There you will find a button to change the country. Follow the steps.

Depositing money

Now the fun part comes, depositing money on our account! Go to the Coinbase's dashboard and click on accounts scroll down in the main window until you see Euro and press deposit. Now you can upload more money, a good amount to start with (this is purely subjective) is 1000euro.

Always write down the phrase that you are given when you want to deposit money. and double check, triple check, ... the phrase when you send money to Coinbase.

Now if you have received a mail that the money is deposited, mostly within 2-3 days, you can go to

Trading on Gdax

Now we will deposit our money from Coinbase to Gdax so we will be able to trade it. Go to deposit -> coinbase account and get that money to gdax!

Trading without fees

So first of all you can just buy/sell crypto with the buttons you see in the left on Gdax this is how Coinbase makes it's money. There is however a small button limit next to market, press it.

In the upper left corner you can change the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is transacted the most then Ethereum and then Litecoin.

Now you need to set the amount you want to buy and at which price. As you can see there are red numbers and green numbers changing all the time, the red numbers is what people are selling, the green what people are buying. Press the green number closest to the middle this price will appear in the limit window, insert how much you want to buy and press submit!

Do not be nervous when submitting a limit order, you can cancel at any time at the window in the bottom of the screen without a fee. So you can just try and repeat whenever you want. You probably want to do this to find the right price.

If you have bought some crypto just set a sell limit with the price you want to sell it for and wait till it sells.

Good luck with trading crypto!