Definitely late to the game, but finally bought bitcoin this week. I've followed bitcoin since ~2010, but it's volatility and financial constraints had prevente

Definitely late to the game, but finally bought bitcoin this week. I've followed bitcoin since ~2010, but it's volatility and financial constraints had prevented any real action. Here are some notes if there are any other holdouts out there: I used Coinbase and Gemini. It was surprisingly difficult to get money into these places, which was a bit frustrating, but in the same sense reassuring that they are playing by the rules. I actually setup on Gemini because Coinbase kept cancelling orders on my debit card (Schwab), and I was able to setup wire transfer with Gemini, and then transfer that to Coinbase to fund the GDAX account. I set out Saturday morning to buy bitcoin and didn't ultimately have any until Monday afternoon when the wire transfer reached Gemini (standard account for ACH transfer is now approved on both platforms, Gemini took 2 days, Coinbase 4). Coinbase has a nice app to monitor accounts and price charts, but it doesn't seem to link to GDAX (their exchange), so you can't get a unified view of holdings in one spot. Gemini doesn't have an app, but has a web application which is annoyingly secure. It remembers a device for 24 hours, after which it requires 2 Factor SMS verification. Security is great, but it's a bit annoying when all you want to do is check account value once a day. Gemini trading volume seemed a bit low, and their API didn't offer any compelling features over GDAX, which is why I've transferred from Gemini to Coinbase (took about 1.5 hours to go through) and then GDAX (Coinbase to GDAX is instantaneous). Both offer websocket feeds and the APIs are well documented. The C# GDAX sample application was last updated in 2015 interestingly, but it still has many useful pieces. Another bonus for GDAX is their fee structure, which is simpler (and cheaper) than Gemini's, maker orders are 0% fees. I've always been intrigued by automated trading systems, but the barriers to entry are so high in the stock markets (data, platforms, high fees, account minimums, day trading rules), to the point where you can't really just 'try it out.' 6 days into this adventure and I'm maintaining my own order book and programmatically making trades with tiny amounts of money. Next step is to work on strategy.