I find it strange that the first step to acquiring units of a decentralised currancy like Cardano involves a centralised exchange site.
Is there any way of acquiring ADA directly from the Cardano network with fiat currancy?
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Hello @uda2684
Yes you can. Usually it would be peer to peer transaction if you find some one who wants to sell you ADA. Also, you need to trust that person. You can use your PayPal or E-transfer to buy from individuals.
If you go on eBay and search under ADA “Mining” contracts you may even be able to use a Credit Card. They call them mining contract leases since they can sell service on eBay but they can’t sell crypto.
Keep in mind that price will be higher due to 10% to 14% eBay and PayPal/Credit Card processing fees as well as mark up. Here are some examples:
Centralized exchange is just easier and way cheaper, until enough people adapt crypto, then you’ll be able to get it anywhere. For now, not enough people have and use crypto in their daily life to warrant any investment into wide spread OTC exchange.
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Also there is an automated way of doing the P2P fiat transaction, at lower but still significant markup: the Bisq DAO as a starting point, which is able to assure crypto buying with fiat based on an amount of Bitcoin kept in your account as collateral for all further transactions. Not much liquidity there (leading to a wide “spread” & further markup), mainly in Bitcoin with a bit of Monero, but then you can swap for ADA with a not-too-centralised & no-KYC service like Changelly (basic, not Pro):
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Ok, buy buying ADA from someone else sounds a lot more risky that using an exchange. Also, in essence it is passing the acquisition of ADA to someone else. It principle, then there are three ways:
- Converting fiat currency to ADA (via an exchange or P2P)
- Converting other digital assets (BTC, ETH, etc) to ADA (also via exchanges or P2P
- Earning ADA directly. I think this is the future for all crypto currencies: earning ADA (or other digital assets) in exchange for work. That’s when smart contracts are going to be very useful (or essential?).
I’m no expert, so that this as my five cents.
Cheers,
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it will be a hell of a lot easier with smart contracts i believe
Strange this post got so few replies …
I don´t get it either …
Even the peer to peer needs someone to first use centralised exchanges to buy crypto to then sell it back to fiat.
I want to be able to send my EUR from my bank account to a personal EUR wallet. And then exchange to ada.
Why aren´t there decentralised exchanges or marketplaces where you can send your Fiat currencies to ?
How is the economy ever going to change without a solution to this ?
Still so many questions and I find no answers …
How should that work technically? You will always need someone running the bank account, where you transfer your EUR to and you will always have to trust that someone at least a little bit.
Sure, DEXes could offer that service, if they want to have the administrative, KYC, and tax hassle for it. They are not that decentralised up to now, anyway. But it won’t be that different from the exchanges we have now.
I’d love to have an on-ramp that does not also support proof-of-work chains and all the other not so nice sides of crypto, but, no, an interface to the fiat system is not possible without an interface to the fiat system, some centralised entity that you trust to deposit your fiat to and that you trust to give it back to you if you change back.
Should the economy change? How? Exactly?
If the people who for some reason believe that fiat should go for good are right, you won’t need exchanges anymore, because everything is done in cryptos and fiat currencies are gone.
If they are not, but cryptocurrencies will still be somehow successful, we will hopefully get more less shady exchanges in the future, maybe even your usual bank, which is probably more reputable than 90% of the actors in crypto space. But there will have to be exchanges that you will have to put limited trust in.
The “With cryptos you don’t have to trust.” is a pipe dream, anyway.
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You are literally describing centralized exchange account.
That’s how it works. You send fiat money to your account on crypto exchange and then exchange it for crypto.
As long as you hold any fiat money like EUR or USD you are part of current centralized system. There is no way to remove EUR from centralized finance and make it digital before converting to crypto.
Crypto is not trying to change fiat economy. Crypto is trying to be an alternative to fiat economy. Since they are two different systems any interaction or bridge between them will have to include both sides.
The whole point of crypto is for people that do not trust or have access to current monetary system to be able to participate in global economy. The “trust” part is already lost in fiat, this is why crypto movement even exists. It’s not that you have to trust crypto like a blind sheep, it’s about not trusting fiat anymore. In crypto just like anywhere else in life you need to be careful and learn about the pitfalls this new system brings. Then you decide if you want to be part of one system or other (or in most cases some mix of both systems.)
Theoretically it is possible to run custom encryption protocol that is purely peer-to-peer, undermining your government, avoiding taxes, and ignoring legality.
Theoretically it is possible the curator of Silk Road enjoys life in prison without parole and the tens of thousands of BTC the U.S. government seized from that project went entirely to humanitarian efforts.
Honestly assess the history regarding cryptocurrency and then reflect upon additional history like Executive Order 6102 in 1933 and everything since abandoning the gold standard in 1971 …
After a month or more of that research contemplate how the most easily traced asset with a history of confiscation, scams, and hacks in its short existence is going to change the economy in your lifetime.
If your research included YouTube then don’t worry about forming an opinion 
Hi Dinodude,
It sounds like your IQ is +150, mine is not. Same feeling when I hear Charles talk. Listening to every word but I do not understand you sorry. I did not do research. I hope to get easy answers here from people that did.
If we want to adopt crypto, all of us need to understand the benefits. And damN I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS. By the way: if I can´t find my answers easily it means things are not clear.
I don´t want to use centralised exchanges but there is no alternative.
How are cryptos bought or acquired in the first place actually ? How and from where does coinbase and binance purchase their altcoins ? Why can´t we directly swap fiat for ada from whatever source ? Or is it possible but not very known ?
it also feels wrong that you need fiat to buy crypto. Isn´t that continuation of inequality ? The rich have access to most ada ? In other words : open doors for centralisation ? (Eg few cryptobanks having all crypto ?)
And then Staking that money earns you 5% annual return … on 1mil ada ? Or on 100 ada ?
Is it actually the only way forward having central banks piling up reserves of crypto, ´earning´ taxes and … ok going to far here with my thoughts.
Sorry man for wasting your time, hope I was not rude in any kind of way! Appreciate your patience.
Best regards
Pieter
Thank you for your response HeptaSean
Thanks Neo_Spank for your response
I thought I was making a funny.
I am slightly above average IQ at best and probably was a few drinks into not needing to be online when I thought that post was funny. We’re all just humans … that does not excuse behavior but it does provide some color. As to context which is ultimately what you crave that would require knowing why you do not want to use centralized exchanges, how you believe cryptocurrency solves inequality, etc (Five Ws - Wikipedia)
Yeah, learning can suck. Especially when what you learn challenges what you believe. Entertaining contradictions to what you think you know is always a valuable thing to consider. Like if someone told me with sincerity that snails are better pets than cats I would hear them out. Not because I agree, but because I disagree, and therefore have something to learn!
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You do not buy from the exchange, but the exchange is a marketplace that enables you to buy from a previous ADA holder.
They got the ADA from the initial sale at the beginning of ADAs lifetime, as rewards from the reserve, as Catalyst funds from the treasury, or bought them from one of the people getting ADA that way or from IOG, Emurgo, or the Cardano Foundation who also got part of the initial ADA.
Initial distribution is described here: https://cardano.org/genesis/
You can surely try to find someone who sells you ADA peer-to-peer. Binance even has a platform for that: https://p2p.binance.com/ (They do not have ADA right now. I’m quite sure they had at some point.)
You could try to find someone who pays you for a job directly in ADA (or another cryptocurrency) and then you can try to find a grocery store that sells you food for that cryptocurrency.
I’d also find a cryptocurrency that tries to do something like universal basic income very interesting. But for that we first have to solve the identity problem (and blockchains cannot do that alone), because paying basic income to wallets, where each person can create an arbitrary number of wallets, cannot be a solution.
But at the moment, crypto space wants to be a place, where people who already have some wealth can find a safe haven, a store of value, or a place to gamble for some more wealth. That’s how it is.
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That was a very constructive answer, thank you HeptaSean