A lot of people ask me

  • How to buy Cardano?
  • How to stake them to earn rewards?

This guide provides the instructions to accomplish these two things.

Overview

  1. Create an Account on a cryptocurrency Exchange
  2. Proof your identity and residential address
  3. Transfer money to the exchange
  4. Buy Cardano (ADA)
  5. Install Caradno wallet
  6. Withdraw ADAs from the exchange to your wallet
  7. Delegate your wallet to a stake pool
  8. Finish

1. Create an Account on a cryptocurrency Exchange

Create an account on https://kraken.com. It is like creating an account on any other website.

2. Proof your identity and residential address

For AML/KYC reasons, exchanges are required to know who they’re dealing with. This is usually done by uploading the required documentation like a passport, driving license and utility bill (electricity bill or creditcard statement with your address on it). The exchange might need a day or two verify the provided documentation. The duration depends on the workload they currently have.

3. Transfer money to the exchange

Kraken got a bank account in Germany and Lichtenstein, both provide convinient ways to transfer money from within the EU (including Switzerland).

Go to “Funding > deposit” and choose “Fidor Bank AG (SEPA)” Germany or “Bank Frick (SEPA)” Lichtenstein. Transfer “EUR” since we’re using SEPA.

Do NOT use credit card, cause they charge about 50EUR in fees for that.

Kraken will show you the exact information you need to copy paste to your ebanking interface to instruct your bank to send the money. Kraken itself is in the UK, while they have bank accounts in Germany or Lichtenstein (depends on the Bank you have chosen).

The shown IBAN will the same for all customers, therefore a “Reference” is shown, which consists of some “numbers/letter + kraken.com”. When kraken receives money, they need this reference to know that the money is for you and fund your account. Make sure to add this reference in a note field when creating the payment instructions in your ebanking account.

4. Buy Cardano

You’ll receive a confirmation mail as soon your money arrives on kraken. The exchange interface might be a bit overwelming at first. Look for the ADA/EUR pair and buy as much ADAs as you like with your money.

5. Install Cardano wallet

The simplest way is to use Yoroi. Yoroi is available for mobile phones and also as a browser extension if you want to use it on your desktop computer.

  • There are a lot of scammers out there, so make sure to only use official sources to download: https://yoroi-wallet.com/
  • Make sure to create a “Shelly-era wallet”
  • Write down the recovery seed on two pieces of paper (in case coffee destroys one of them) and keep them in two very safe separate places! IMPORTANT!
  • If you click on “Receive” you can generate receiving addresses for your wallet. Create one and copy it to your clipboard, you’ll need it in the next step

6. Withdraw ADAs from the exchange to your wallet

By taking your coins off-exchange, you’re eliminating 3rd party risks (exchange going bust or getting hacked). By having the coins in your own wallet you basically are your own bank.

  • Go to “Funding > withdraw” on kraken for ADA
  • Enter the wallet address you generated in the previous step
  • A some small fee for the withdrawal might occure (<0.5$)

7. Delegate your wallet to a stake pool

After a couple of minutes you should see your ADAs appearing in your wallet. Now it’s time to delegate your wallet to my stake pool.

  • Click on “Delegation List” in yoroi
  • Search for “bitlamp.ch” or the ticker “LAMP”
  • Click on “delegate”

This does in fact delegate the whole wallet. Which means, if you ever buy and add more ADAs to your wallet, they’re automatically staked with the rest of your ADAs and you don’t have to do this step again.

8. Finish

This is it, congratulations! The rewards will be credited to your wallet by itself. Expect the first rewards in about ~15days and every 5 days after that. But it may also depend a bit on when excatly my pool gets elected by the network for the next block creation. By staking with me, you’re also helping my pool to get higher chances to mint a block - so its a win-win.