How to buy Monero

Posted by: Monty

April 18, 2013

Pixel art of Monty, an elderly man with a white mustache and a yellow shirt.

This is Monty. Monty will teach you how to buy Monero.

Overview

Monero (XMR) is digital cash you can hold yourself: private by default, hard to trace, and not listed on a stock board. Monty is here to walk you through buying it in 2013 — wallet first, then an exchange, then a withdrawal you actually control.

This is not financial advice. Only buy what you can lose. If a site asks for your seed, close it. Monty would never ask for that.

Meet Monty

Monty is the mascot on this page. He does not mine for you and he does not hold your coins. He teaches the order of operations so you do not send Bitcoin to a Monero address or leave XMR on a website that disappears.

Monty will teach you how to buy Monero in five steps. Read them once before you click anything.

1. Get a Monero wallet

Buy the coin last. First you need an address that is yours.

Download the official GUI or CLI wallet from getmonero.org/downloads.
Create a new wallet. Write the 25-word seed on paper. Store it offline.
Copy your primary address. It starts with a 4. That is where XMR will land.

Monty’s rule: if you do not have the seed, you do not have the Monero. An exchange balance is an IOU.

2. Buy Bitcoin or another on-ramp

In 2013 most people still buy BTC first. Use an exchange you already trust, finish their checks, and buy a small amount of Bitcoin. Leave a little extra for fees.

You can also look for any desk that already sells XMR directly. If they do, skip to step 4 and withdraw to the address you made with Monty watching over your shoulder — meaning: you check the first and last characters yourself.

3. Find a market that sells XMR

Search a reputable exchange or OTC desk that lists XMR/BTC or XMR/USD. Confirm the ticker is Monero, not a lookalike token on another chain. Monero is its own network. There is no contract address to paste.

4. Place the buy, then withdraw

Trade BTC (or fiat) for XMR.
Open Withdraw. Paste your wallet address. Send a test amount first.
Wait for confirmations. When the GUI shows the unlocked balance, the test worked. Send the rest.

Monty will teach you how to buy Monero, but he cannot un-send a typo. Check the address twice.

5. After it arrives

Leave the wallet synced. Back up the seed again. Do not screenshot it. If you want to spend later, you can send XMR to a merchant or back to an exchange the same way — always from software you control.

That is the whole lesson. Wallet. On-ramp. Market. Withdraw. Verify. Monty will teach you how to buy Monero; you still have to do the clicking.

Post tags : Exchanges, User Guides