Before we begin, let's answer one question:
Who is this for?
This tutorial is aimed at crypto beginners. Possibly people who have had their first experience with crypto by signing up to this website. I will explain everything in an easy and simplistic way. I will show screenshots of every single step that is required.
So let's begin with the
Introduction
Maybe you have heard the news that Bitcoin Cash (BCH) will (possibly) have a hard fork and that if you hold your coins in a wallet which supports the new Bitcoin Cash ABC coin, you will get these new coins for free.
Free crypto?
Yes, that's right, but we have to transfer our Bitcoin Cash to a wallet that supports receiving the new free crypto which will be called Bitcoin Cash ABC. Of course, we will keep all of our Bitcoin Cash. So, we will keep what we already have and get some new ABC coins in addition. Sounds good, right?
Where is the catch?
Maybe the fork will happen, maybe it won't. Nobody knows yet.
If the fork happens, we will receive the new coins if our Bitcoin Cash is kept at Binance. Coinex and Atomic Wallet also support the new coins, but in this example I will show you the process for Binance.
If the fork won't happen, there will be no new coins and therefore, we didn't gain anything. But we also didn't lose anything.
What is a hard fork?
That's not so important for beginners to know, but it basically means that a new coin is created. Bitcoin Cash is basically split into two coins. One will keep the name Bitcoin Cash, the other will be called Bitcoin Cash ABC. That's a silly sounding name, I know...
What this means for you is that if you own 1 Bitcoin Cash coin before the hard fork happens, you will own both 1 Bitcoin Cash coin and 1 Bitcoin Cash ABC coin after the fork happens. (If you have 0.5 Bitcoin Cash before, afterwards you will have both 0.5 Bitcoin Cash and 0.5 Bitcoin Cash ABC and so on.) Once you receive the new ABC coins, you can either keep them or sell them.
The problem is that you can only receive the Bitcoin Cash ABC coin if you hold your Bitcoin Cash at an exchange which supports the new coin. Binance is one of the few that does that. And it is well-trusted. That's why I decided to transfer my Bitcoin Cash there. After I receive the new coins, I can keep the new coins on Binance and I will send my Bitcoin Cash somewhere else.
I would claim that is everything a beginner needs to know about this hard fork. For a more in-depth explanation of a hard fork I will give you a link below the article. You can click it and read more details about it if you're interested. But it's not required to understand what a hard fork is in order to receive the free ABC coin. π
Why this tutorial?
As the process of sending Bitcoin Cash from read.cash to Binance turned out to be more complicated than I expected, I wrote this tutorial for beginners, so that you won't accidentally make a mistake. A mistake could result in losing your Bitcoin Cash which we want to avoid, of course. After all, we are transferring the Bitcoin Cash to Binance, because we want more crypto, not less, right?
Four more quick questions and then the tutorial begins.
Why Binance?
Binance is one of the few exchanges that support the new Bitcoin Cash ABC. And they do everything that is necessary to get the new coins for you. Therefore, if you want to receive the new Bitcoin Cash ABC coins for free, you just need to transfer your Bitcoin Cash to Binance.
Note that you can also use Binance to convert your Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Cash ABC to fiat money (US Dollar, Euro, British Pound and others) and send it to your bank account if that's what you want to do after the fork.
Do I have to pay fees for sending the Bitcoin Cash to Binance?
Yes, there is a tiny fee. When I sent more than $20, I had to pay a fee of about $0.001. read.cash takes that fee into account automatically and will show your available balance reduced by that tiny fee. So don't worry about it.
By the way, Binance does not charge any fees for receiving your Bitcoin Cash.
When does the fork happen?
The fork already happened on November, 15th 2020. But if you transfer your Bitcoin Cash to Binance after that date, you should still get the free coins.
Do I need to do anything else in order to receive the new coins?
No. Binance will do everything for you. This official announcement from Binance is the source of this information.
In fact, the information was correct. Binance has credited the new coin to my account already (November, 17th).
The tutorial starts here
Note that the fork already happened. However, as far as I know, you will still receive the Bitcoin Cash ABC even if you send your Bitcoin Cash to Binance even after the fork happened. I have already received mine.
1. Create a Binance account
This is really quick and easy. No passport or identification required.
Just click this link and sign up with your email address. Binance will send you an email containing a verification code. That is to make sure that you used the correct email address. It cannot get much simpler than this.
If the above link does not work, just go to binance.com and create an account there. If you like to support me and they ask you for an referral ID during sign up, please copy this code: U6HWRH37. You will not have any disadvantages by doing that and I will get 20% of trading fees if you use my referral ID -- which will probably not be much if anything at all, but still better than nothing. π
2. Send the Bitcoin Cash to Binance
This is a bit more complicated. Therefore, we will do it step by step with screenshots.
i) On the main page, click on "Wallet" and then on "Overview".
ii) Click on "Deposit".
iii) Now choose "Deposit Crypto"
iv) Now we type "BCH" into the box that is labeled "Coin". Once you see "BCH Bitcoin Cash", click on that.
v) That is how the page should look like.
Within the red box is your Binance Bitcoin Cash address. Click the icon to the right of the red box in order to copy this address.
vi) Unfortunately, Binance uses an old format for its Bitcoin Cash address and read.cash uses a newer format. That's why we need to translate the old format into the new one.
We do it by using the website https://cashaddr.org/.
Click the link and paste your Binance Bitcoin Cash address into the first box that says "Legacy Address". (Make sure that what you paste is exactly the same that the Binance website says.)
The cashaddr website creates the output in the box "CashAddr Address". Copy that address now. It starts with "bitcoincash:".
To double-check the results we received from the website, you can use https://cashaddr.bitcoincash.org/
Make sure that both websites give you the same result.
vii) And now we are ready to request our payout from read.cash. Click onto your balance and select "Send my money".
viii) Paste the address from the cashaddr website into the box which is labeled with "To address". In the above box, we can specify how much Bitcoin Cash we want to transfer. As this is our first transfer, I chose a really small amount. Just to make sure that the process works. Once I knew that everything was correct, I send the rest of my Bitcoin Cash using the same method.
ix) And now we have to wait about 20 minutes before we see our payout in Binance.
Don't worry if it takes a while before you see anything. If you followed all the steps correctly, everything will be fine.
You will also get a notification on Binance about the received payment and after about 20 minutes, you will see the transaction in the "Transaction History".
Note that when you select "Wallet" and then "Overview", Binance will tell you your balance in Bitcoin, not in Bitcoin Cash.
Did we accidentally convert our Bitcoin Cash into Bitcoin?
No, don't worry. You can confirm that the Bitcoin Cash we sent remains Bitcoin Cash in Binance by selecting "Wallet", then "Overview" and then "Withdraw". Now we enter "BCH" into the search box and select Bitcoin Cash.
There you see, that you actually received the exact amount which you sent. Therefore, we did not lose anything and nothing was converted.
x) Now we just wait for the fork to happen. Once it is done, we should be proud owners of the new Bitcoin Cash ABC coin which we can either keep or convert.
Feedback
Thank you for reading. Was everything easy to understand? Were all steps described so that you could follow along? Do you have any further questions?
Please let me know in the comments!
Optional Reading: What is a hard fork?
To learn all about it, check out this article by fellow author @CryptoWordsmith.
Reading this only now because i decided to start on Binance journey today. π Thabk you for the amazing guide. It helped me a lot!
P2P is now possibe with Binance and an online wallet here in the Philippines, so I wanna try it out.