Home » Guide How to buy Chainlink (LINK) a step by step guide (2020) 1 How to buy Chainlink (LINK) a step by step guide (2020)

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If you haven’t yet heard of Chainlink then you have missed one of the most interesting blockchain startups right now.

Let me tell you why everyone is talking about Chainlink and its cryptocurrency LINK! And more importantly how to buy Chainlink’s cryptocurrency LINK!

Your smart contracts connected to real world data, events and payments Chainlink website

No one is questioning the potential of blockchain technology. And if you add a smart contract to the mix then you are in the sweet spot of where blockchain’s potential will truly come to life.

And the next technology that can take blockchain + smart contracts to another level of real-world usage is namely the decentralized oracle technology of Chainlink!

You have probably heard about smart contract technology and the likes of Ethereum that have made this essential to their offering. Now I will briefly try to explain why smart contract technology is so important to blockchain’s future success.

Smart contracts are basically a protocol that allows different parties to agree upon a set of rules. Rules that will come into play after certain conditions are met.

For example, I will pay you $270 USD after you send me 1 ETH. Or I will pay for the exact mileage used when renting a car.

Smart contract technology could allow us to have a future where we enjoy products and services which are all operating in an automated and decentralized capacity

Smart contract technology could power any industry, and any product or service. Imagine a decentralized Uber where drivers earn more and customers pays less

Summary of buying Chainlink – step by step

To make it really simple and crystal clear of what the steps are for you to buy Chainlink for the first time we have summarised it all for you here:

What is Chainlink?

Chainlink is working on creating solutions that will connect blockchain data with external data that exists outside of the blockchain. This could be any type of data from other existing products, services, frameworks, libraries, etc.

This connection will work for any blockchain.

With the power of API technology Chainlink can connect to any existing product or service and bring those services and technologies to the world of blockchain.

And similarly, it can take the power of blockchain and make it better by connecting to external data sets.

This is made possible through the decentralized oracles of Chainlink.

What is the LINK token?

Chainlink (LINK) 2.59% $ 8.76 $ 0.226884 ⇣ 8.72 22 Sep ⇡ 9.04

Now, what role does the native token of Chainlink, LINK do?

The LINK token is used to pay Chainlink node operators for their work. This would apply to retrieve data from off-chain data feeds and then making the data blockchain-readable.

Vice versa taking data from the blockchain (from any smart contract call) and connecting it to external data feeds and APIs.

And these node services would apply at all times when a smart contract feature would need to access and use the Chainlink oracles (learn more about LINK in the whitepaper).

Part 1 – best Chainlink wallets to use

LINK is an ERC-20 token, or actually, it is an ERC-677 token which is an extended version of ERC-20 (learn more about ERC-67).

But the important part for you to know about is that like any ERC-20 token LINK can be used with any ERC-20-compatible wallets.

ERC-20, ERC-677, etc are all Ethereum based tokens. Created on the Ethereum blockchain, but used on their respective blockchain projects.

This is highly beneficial for you as a LINK holder, as you can enjoy and use many more crypto wallets built for Ethereum and Ethereum based tokens.

Here below we will briefly mention a few different wallet options you could use for interacting with your LINK tokens.

Remember your cryptocurrencies (LINK, etc) are all stored on the blockchain. But to interact with your cryptocurrencies, i.e. sending and receiving you use a cryptocurrency wallet application.

Wallet option 1 – Ledger Nano S or Ledger Nano X (hardware wallets)

The first option you could go for is to invest in a safe hardware wallet. These types of wallets are devices that add a lot of useful security features to help protect your cryptocurrencies from hacks and thefts.

When you use a hardware wallet you can interact with your cryptocurrencies in an offline-mode. This means that you don’t expose your cryptos to the same type of risks a non-hardware wallet might do.

And two of the best hardware wallets to invest in are the Ledger Nano S and the Ledger Nano X. The X version is the latest model. And it comes with additional storage space and Bluetooth enabled.

They are both great hardware wallets. And you can use other 3rd-party wallet applications with them.

You can send your LINKs to your Ethereum addresses on created via your Ledger device. And to interact with them, you can use either MEW (MyEtherWallet) or MyCrypto.

Learn more about using either Ledger device with Chainlink here and here

And you can buy both Ledger devices here

Wallet option 2 – Trezor One or Trezor Model T (hardware wallets)

Another hardware wallet that you could buy to safely store your LINK tokens is the two hardware devices from Trezor!

You can use either the Trezor Model T or the Trezor One as your main Chainlink wallet. They are both compatible with Ethereum and the Ethereum-based tokens such as LINK!

Similar to the Ledger devices you should use a 3rd-party wallet interface or application like MEW or MyCrypto, or with Trezor Beta Wallet for interacting with your tokens.

Find out more about Trezor’s support for Ethereum tokens here

Learn more about the Trezor Beta wallet here

And you can buy Trezor One here and the Trezor Model T here

Other wallet mentions

Atomic wallet is a good multi-currency wallet for Chainlink + other Ethereum tokens MetaMask is a popular web wallet interface used by many crypto holders MEW (MyEtherWallet) can also be used to generate an ERC-20 paper wallet MyCrypto can also be used to generate an ERC-20 paper wallet

Find more Ethereum-based cryptocurrency wallets in our extended wallet review here.

Part 2 – where to buy LINK

Now we have come to the most exciting part of this guide (at least that’s what I think). And that is to buy LINK at any of the recommended cryptocurrency exchanges and brokers that we will list below.

To make this guide as complete as possible and useful for as many people as possible we will list many different options that suit people with different needs.

For example, people that want to:

Buy LINK with USD

Buy LINK with a credit card or debit card

Buy LINK as cheaply as possible using a bank transfer

Buy LINK using another cryptocurrency at an exchange

To buy LINK with your credit card or debit card you can use these options

Now if you want to buy LINK with your credit card or debit card then you can use either of these sites we have listed below.

They all work in a similar way. And they all accept all VISA and Mastercard.

Coinbase (Buy Chainlink with USD, EUR, GBP here) Changelly (Buy Chainlink with USD, EUR, GBP here) Bitpanda (only for EU users – buy LINK with EUR, GBP, CHF or USD)

If you use this link for Coinbase then you will get $10 worth of BTC for free when buying for at least $100. You can use this to buy more LINK.

You can also swap another cryptocurrency for LINK directly at Changelly’s website

Buy LINK with a bank transfer (wire transfer)

Now another option besides using your card is to make a bank transfer to a site/cryptocurrency exchange and then buy LINK there.

If you do this then you could save on fees when buying LINK.

Here below we have listed a few places that accept bank transfer. And the process of buying with a bank transfer work similarly at both sites.

You first register an account Then you find the bank deposit details. And then you make the deposit, it can take 1-2 days for it to arrive. And finally, you then buy LINK with the money that you deposited

Coinbase (Buy LINK with USD, EUR or GBP) Kraken (Buy LINK with USD or EUR)

Buy LINK at a cryptocurrency exchange

And the last option that we will mention in this guide is buying Chainlink using another cryptocurrency like Bitcoin or Ether at a cryptocurrency exchange.

At cryptocurrency exchanges, you trade one crypto for another. Let’s say you trade some Bitcoins for some LINK. Or some Ethers for some LINK.

It is most common that the trading pairs used with altcoins like LINK to be either BTC or ETH. But that could differ from exchange to exchange.

*Here are some popular cryptocurrency exchanges that currently trades LINK.

*These exchanges have been listed because of their popularity and high trading volume. I’ve used Coinmarketcap.com to check the trading volume

You can also use Coingecko for Chainlink or Go CryptoMarket for Chainlink to find other exchanges that trade LINK and find the best prices in real-time!

Please note that you first need to buy BTC or ETH before you can buy LINK at these exchanges.

So either you already have BTC or ETH, or you need to buy it. You can follow the same advice we listed above to buy BTC and ETH using your card or a bank transfer.

Part 3 – send your LINKs to your Chainlink wallet

Now for the final part of this beginner’s guide to buying Chainlink we should send our LINKs to the wallet that we picked’s address.

Remember coins and tokens are stored on the blockchain but accessed through a crypto wallet

So if you, for example, decided that you wanted to invest in a safe Ledger or Trezor hardware wallet when you would set those up for the first time it would generate an address for you.

This address would be the address that you would send your LINK tokens to. From whatever place you bought them at.

Now LINK is an ERC-20 token that means the address can easily be spotted by remembering that all Ethereum-based addresses start with:

“0x”

And a sample ETH or ERC-20 address could be: 0xUI45EF3F5B8A187998338A2ADA83795FBA2D695E (DO NOT SEND ANY ETH OR ERC-20 TOKENS TO THIS ADDRESS).

Additional information

Conclusion

I hope that this guide to how you buy LINK and then store it safely on the blockchain was clear and easy to follow.

If you do have any questions about the process of buying Chainlink then please let us know. You can leave a comment and then we will get back to you.

If you liked this guide then please make sure you share it so that others can find it and start investing in Chainlink.

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