How I Paid Off My Tuition With Crypto

First off, yes the title may be a bit misleading. There’s no feature (yet) for colleges where you can pay with Bitcoin or Litecoin, but there’s a way to thank cryptocurrencies for its help to get you through your education.

Secondly, this isn’t the kind of article where you’re guaranteed to pay off your tuition or any kind of debt, this is just a story of what I did and how you can benefit from it too!

So I’m in my third year of college and trying to get through without holding any debt. I’m near the end of my college fund, and I learned all about the fad on Bitcoin last summer. I heard the same success stories like you, so I thought to myself ‘why can’t I be like them?’

You guys remember the whole argument on how Ripple will never become $2.00 in 2018 and how it’ll stay at the 24 cents it was in the fall? Well, I took the chance of investing in it to get something out of it, since everyone else is basically a millionaire in today’s world. Long story short, the few bills I had became grand bands and I was feeling like 50 Cent.

Right away, I knew that Ripple would drop so suddenly just like any other cryptocurrency, so I had only one option to execute: cash out your winnings and leave the casino.

I thought ‘man, I can do so much with this money!’ But it wasn’t like I had enough to buy a Lambo, not at all. Yet, it was enough to make a 21-year-old feel accomplished. There were many things I could have done, like travel to Europe for a week-long trip before classes began, or invest in something else and take the chance. Instead, I went into paying off my next semester’s tuition and left the rest in my bank account. The smart thing to do if you’re in the same state as me.

You’re probably wondering how I did it. It wasn’t difficult, nor was it simple. The problem with how people portray crypto investing is that they think it’s just like regular investing. The small thing they forget are the private keys that come with your wallets, the personal identifications you have to submit and wait a whole week, and hundreds of encryption codes that you must know before the timer runs out.

For the rest of this article, I will write about what I used and how you can do the same for yourself shortly. So I began by using coinsquare.io, similar to Coinbase, except for the fact that you can invest a whole ton of dollars and cents rather than having a limit. Check it out! The registration may take a while, but it’ll get you to where you want to be eventually.

I’m going to use Ripple as an example since I used it, but what you must understand is that you can’t just buy Ripple. Ripple’s parent coin is Bitcoin, so you have to purchase Bitcoin to purchase Ripple, you get it? Just like when you have to get into a McDonald’s washroom but you have to get through McDonald’s first. Buy a Big Mac meal, then you can access the restroom. Buy Bitcoin, then you can trade for Ripple.

So now you have Ripple (circa October 2017). You’re waiting for the numbers to go up, and then BOOM — you’re rich by the time the New Year hits. Great, you’re virtually wealthy, how do I cash out on Coinsquare? I go to the Withdraw Funds tab and click on Direct Deposit. After the bank account information is validated, you’re set to take out the moneys. But remind you, there’s a certain percentage that is taxed when withdrawing, so you won’t get the exact number of funds that you had on the net. I hope you still made some sweet cash!

For your information, I know I just used Ripple as an example, but this is not actual trading advice, meaning that I’m not telling you to purchase Ripple, you’re risking your own money. Best is to study these kinds of things and to keep yourself up to date! Before I wrote this article on Hacker Noon, I wrote another one that explains how I began listening in on the crypto community. Check it out here or on my profile!

I hope you all make something out of this and subscribe! I’ll be writing up weekly blogs on what I’m learning about myself, so we’ll both learn on-the-go.

Till next week, cheers.

How I Paid Off My Tuition With Crypto was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.