CryptoGram_0021: January 25, 2018

DON'T PANIC: Radar Relay, Ledger Wallet, & Peace of Mind #CryptoGram

Getting into it...

This morning, i made my first trade using the 0x protocol. I logged onto to Radar Relay, plugged in my ledger wallet, wrapped up some ether to trade with (ETH -> WETH), then traded some ether(WETH) for some BLOOM (BLT). During this process i confirmed multiple on train transaction with my ledger and when i was done, i had never actually moved any tokens out of my ledger. TALK ABOUT PEACE OF MIND.

Let me go into a little more detail about the process:

First, I am not sure what all exchanges function with ledger, but i know that Raday Relay does. Here is the app site:

https://app.radarrelay.com/ZRX/WETH

Overall, there are more and more decentralized exchanges popping up, here is a good website to track those that use 0x protocol:

https://0xtracker.com/

Most exchanges will let you use metamask, which is a very cool service, but it doesnt feel quite as secure as trading directly from your ledger. Either way, here are links to both those services:

https://metamask.io/

https://www.ledgerwallet.com/apps

Finally, you can monitor all your addresses that you use for trading ETH tokens on etherscan. I find this very useful for peace of mind as well. Basically, you set up a free account, add your public addresses to your watch list, than tell etherscan you want email notifications whenever anything goes to or from those addresses. IT JUST LIKE RECEIPTS! its amazing! Here is the website, although if you are reading this post, something tells me youve heard of it...

https://etherscan.io/

So first, I brought up RR on my browser, then chose to open the wallet using a ledger, I then logged into my ledger with my pin. After that I selected that I wanted to use ETH as a trading token, this included a smart contract in some way so I selected my gas price and confirmed this on my ledger. Then I had to change some ETH to WETH so that it could function as an ERC 20 token. (ETH does not meet ERC-20 token standards, Wrapped ETH, or WETH, does and they are interchangeable on the relay.) I had to set my gas price and confirm this tx on my ledger as well. After that I selected a market - WETH/BLT. I then selected one of the available orders, (Because I didn't want to wait,) and hit the purchase button. I once again selected the gas price and confirmed on my ledger. Shortly after that, My wallet had my BLT in it and the remaining WETH that i didnt use.

All tx were confirmed on Etherscan, and I am a happy camper. It was quite amazing and it is good to know that this process will only get easier, especially considering that I really enjoyed the current experience.

Reflections on this:

Interacting with the ethereum blockchain and making decentralized trades without ever having to use the copy/paste button was quite incredible. More so, the peace of mind i feel knowing that I performed all those tx and i never had to give up my private key or put it online. It was all signed directly with the ledger. This is incredibly powerful and secure.

Now that this exists, I am not sure I will ever trade ETH tokens in another way.

####SO,

The only thing missing is conversion to FIAT. However, a quick trade back to ETH and a move to one of the functioning exchanges such as coinbase or gemini, and i am back in FIAT currency. Hopefully that will suffice until i can start paying for pretty much everything I need in tokens.

In Brief, this is another first big step in secure decentralized exchange.

I hope it is one of many, and i encourage everyone to pick up a hardware wallet from Ledger and do some trades on RR.

Thanks for reading,

-libertyhound

State of The Market:

For new readers:

Cryptogram is my personal journal of thoughts about cryptocurrencies and related topics.

Purpose of CryptoGram:

Currently in the crypto space it can be difficult to remember what you have discussed or been thinking from one week to the next. The rapid development of, and many changes in the space keep everyone on their toes. Now that I have been financially involved in the space for roughly a year, I realize that I would love to have my thoughts from 2017 written down somewhere. I believe having this information will help me stay focused, avoid repeating past mistakes, and hopefully help some other people, (anyone who decides to read this,) from making those same mistakes.

Briefly, I need a place to record my train of thought and that place will now be dubbed "CryptoGram"

My thoughts on the structure of this post are: