Aloha all,
I've noticed that a lot of people were curious about trading Bitcoin and other crypto's in Hawaii so I wanted to share how I am currently trading cryto's (in Hawaii) just in case anyone else wanted to give it a go or just didn't know how to start. I wanted to provide some personal experiences I've had with some Cryptocurrency exchanges so you too can decide if they are the right one for you.
Exchanges
I found a few exchanges that made it very easy for me to start trading almost immediately.
Bitstamp and Uphold are the two that made it the easiest. Binance is a great place to trade over 100's of new cryptocurrencys that you should get in on now.
With Bitstamp you can trade between a few major coins at the moment such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, Bitcoin cash and XRP, etc. They will be adding more coins to their exchange in the future but they are a major exchange and will only add major players to their site.
The reason why I like Bitstamp is because they let users from Hawaii participate on their exchange. Unlike a lot of US exchanges..which makes no sense...Coinbase actually kicked users off of their exchange so they could "focus on current users" I know because my friend was one of them, I actually read the apology letter. It was really quite a joke.
Uphold is a nice exchange as well... (was a nice exchange. I will explain)
With Uphold, you have a few different "cards" you can invest in. For example you can have a USD card and fill it with USD from your credit card. You can also have a Bitcoin card. Now you can transfer your USD funds to your Bitcoin card and get the exchange of your USD in the form of Bitcoins. This was another easy way for someone from Hawaii to be able to get Bitcoin.
(DISCLAIMER) - after further use of Uphold, I received an email from their team letting me know that my account had been temporally banned because there was something suspicious with my papers. (most likely to due with the fact that I live in Hawaii.) So as of recently I have been shut out of my Uphold account. BUT it was great to buy bitcoins while it lasted.
Binance is a Chinese based exchange that has over 100's of cryptocurrency's to trade from and they add new ones every day. This is the exchange that I recommend you getting into right now before its too late. Because Binance features so many new and young crypto's, they offer a great chance for you to invest in a potentially big coin! You cannot fund Binance with USD however, you need to deposit bitcoins to start trading. This is why I initially stated the first 2 exchanges so that you could buy your bitcoin first and then deposit it to your Binance account so you can start claiming your altcoins.
Trading
I buy most of my Bitcoin or XRP from Bitstamp. They offer Credit Card buys which is the most convenient option for me because it would would be too much of a hassle and costly to do international wire transfers. Also at the moment I am not making huge trades so Credit Card buys are perfect.
BE WARNED!!
When you make Credit Card buys on Bitstamp you are using Cash Advances on your credit card. So make sure you pay that off quick so you don't end up paying massive amounts of interest.
I used to only buy XRP from Bitstamp but I recently started buying Bitcoin as well and transfer it to my Binance account.
I used to be able to do credit card funding to my Uphold account without using the cash advanced feature of my card. But as I mentioned before my account is temporarily banned. But I do recommend Uphold for bitcoin buying. Mostly because they are a company based in the US.
Then lastly of course I have my Binance account where I buy all of the other altcoins such as XLM (Stellar), TRX (TRON), ADA (Cardano), etc. I fund my Binance account with Bitcoin that I get from Bitstamp or Uphold and then I use the exchange to buy other altcoins with my bitcoins.
I also wanted to mention that because Binance is a young company and exchange, it is currently offering a referral program. You can earn a percentage from anyone that signs up under your referral code. The bonus is a one time thing. You get a percentage off of the first buy that someone makes after signing up under your code. Speaking of referral codes....here is mine! 23791873 please don't forget to use my code if you end up making a Binance account. And don't forget to pass your code on to your friends so you to can earn a cut!
Verification
Let me start by saying that because you are dealing with Money and currency and big company exchanges, you better expect that you are going to have to give up a lot of personal information. Put it this way, if you were somehow able to make it big by investing, wouldn't you want your stuff protected and backed?
Now with most of these exchanges you try to gain access to, you are going to have to provide all of the basics like an ID or passport, utility bill, etc. What I did to make it easy was I saved the files I needed as far as pictures and such so that I could easily upload all the necessary files when prompted instead of having to take of bunch of pictures on the spot and having to find bills from all over the place.
Uphold was the fastest to get verification done. Within a few hours I was trading away.
Bitstamp took a little longer and they asked more questions. I have a feeling it is because they are not a US based company. It was still fairly quick to get verification from them and I was making credit card buys quickly and easily.
I haven't completely verified my Binance account yet so I cannot speak as to how easy or difficult it is to get verified by them.
I really hope this write up helps someone out in the world of crypto trading. If anyone has any questions please don't hesitate to ask. Ill try to help as best as possible!
Thank you for reading
-Fooks808