Incoming links: Electrum
- buy some at a cryptocurrency exchange. This is the only viable way of obtaining crypto nowadays, since basically all cryptocurrencies require specialized hardware to mine.
- send it to a self hosted Bitcoin wallet without a full node, e.g. Electrum
- then send something out of the wallet back to the exchange wallet!
- convert the crypto back to cash
E.g.: Coinbase Bitcoin hello world.
Test buy 2023-04-10 in the UK:
- fee: 0.99 pounds, minimum buy: 1.99 pounds
- bought 10 pounds, minus 0.99 fee, totalled: 0.00039162 BTC (£8.92) presumably after further fees/spread
- bitcoin price on Google on that day: 22,777.54 GBP / BTC
- bitcoin transaction fees were about 2.7 BTC on that day
Sending 5 pounds to wallet
12dg2FaiZLp3VzDtLvwPinaKz41TQcEGbs- network fee: 0.00001989 BTC
- total bitcoin cost: -0.00023928 BTC
- new balance: 15,234 satoshi (39,162 - 23,928).
- total spent: £5.45
- time est.: about 30 minutes
This worked and I received 21939 satoshis (23928 - 1989) on Electrum on one of the outputs of transaction 1177268091cbeaacbcaac5dc4f6d1774c4ec11b4bcffafa555cd2775eafb954c.
Sending 1 satoshi back! The lowest fee in Electron is 1120 Satoshis targeting 25 blocks (4 hours). Let's do it. Failed, server forbids dust, minimum is 1000 satoshi. OK, sending 1000 satoshi, at 1139 fee.