How to Buy Kusama (KSM) [For Beginners]

If you have any interest to buy Kusama (KSM), you will be required to have either Bitcoin abbreviated as (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH) for trading purposes. I have reviewed the major cryptocurrency exchange Binance in this post to help you determine the best sites to buy cryptocurrency using a credit card or bank account. Take a read and get tips on the best cryptocurrency trading.

Step 1: How to create a Binance account:

1.1 Visit Binance’s Website (https://www.binance.com/en)

binance homepage

Sign Up Binance Now

There have been several phishing cases reported over the past years that are imitations to the original site, it is essential to scrutinize the URL to the website keenly. First, be on the lookout for the ‘Secure’ certificate that should pop up in your address bar and that acts as a confirmation of the site’s genuineness. Second, to be extra safe while trading on the platform, ensure to bookmark the authentic site to evade any confusion in future searches.

1.2 Fill in your trading details

You have to fill in your details by going to the ‘’Register” tab found in the right-hand corner of the website’s page and fill in your trading details. For instance, you will need to fill in your mobile number or you choose to use your email address. For the email address, it is necessary to use your main email that you can access easily and the most secure one since you will need it to sign in to your Binance account always.
You also need to choose a strong password for your email; a strong password should comprise a mix of numbers, symbols, upper and lower-case letters. You will receive a 6-digit code via the email you provided as your account’s verification code and for completing the registration process.

1.3 Allow 2FA-Two-factor authentication (Optional)

To make your account more secure you need to allow use of a two-factor authentication after your first log in. Trust me; it is vital to set up the 2FA because it makes your account more secure from any hacking activity!
Every time you log in with the two-factor authentication, you will need to provide a unique code once your type in your email and password. To get your unique code, use the Google authenticator app downloaded into your smartphone.

Step 2: Buying your first Bitcoin (BTC)

buy bitcoin with credit card

To send money to your Crypto wallet account on Binance either directly via your bank account through SWIFT money transfer or you can opt to use your debit/credit card. For this part, I will guide you on how to use your credit card.
Binance previously didn’t allow the use of credit or debit cards on its platform, but the same has been introduced. Binance partnered with Simplex to allow its users to use their credit and debit cards to buy Bitcoin or Ethereum. This has led to faster Crypto transaction speeds, low transaction charges, and more transaction flexibility.
I highly recommend buying Bitcoin first and then trading it for the right amount of Kusama (KSM).
It is easy to purchase Bitcoins via your credit card but I will elaborate on best ways you can do it step-by-step to make sure you understand all the trading nitty-gritty.

  1. Move your mouse’s cursor to ‘Buy Crypto’ tab found on the top bar and activate the dropdown menu. Then choose the currency, For instance, US Dollars, and click the ‘Credit/Debit Card’ to lead you to the next step.
  2. You be led to the next page; in this page you will see options to choose the desired Bitcoin (Select BTC), and the amount you need to spend to buy your choice Bitcoin amount. The total amount you need to spend will be displayed according to the Bitcoin amount you request and the matching market price at that time (inclusive of all fees). However, you can choose to first set the total charge then the system will automatically calculate the order amount for you.
  3. Next, click “Buy BTC. A window that contains all the details of your order will pop up. However, before you confirm your order you need to read the disclaimer and Terms of Use. Once satisfied, confirm your order by ticking the tab and head to “Go to payment’’; click.
  4. Fill in your credit card details and personal information too. Once done, you need to click “Pay now” and give it a moment to verify your details.
  5. You will be required to verify your email and phone number if it happens to be your first simplex payment via a code send through your email or an SMS. Complete the verification process by opening the link in your email and type in the code you receive via SMS. Once you do all the above, you can click “Continue”.
  6. Verification of identity follows next via the use of an official document. Basically upload your identification document photo accompanied by your personal details and click the “Upload Document” tab.

Lastly, your personal document will be approved once verified by the system and an email send to show the confirmation of order purchase. Subsequently, your Binance account is credited with the purchased BTC or Ethereum.

Step 3: Transferring Your Cryptos to an Altcoin Exchange Bittrex

Altcoin Exchange Bittrex

Now, let me guide you on how to purchase Kusama (KSM) using your investment from Binance.
But remember you cannot trade every crypto in Binance you will have to transfer your coins to an exchange that Kusama (KSM) can be traded. So I will guide you to Bittrex which is a famous exchange to trade altcoins. Use the link below to register your new account.

Sign Up Bittrex Now

If you have completed similar processes as we’ve done before with Binance you now are ready to transfer your Bitcoins.

Step 4: Depositing BTC to Exchange

If you have finished creating your new trading account setup at one of the exchanges that trades Kusama (KSM), you will need to transfer your BTC from Binance to that specific exchange. This is done via a wallet system.
You also need to click “Holdings” on the top right menu.
Look for “BTC” from Token section and copy the given “Deposit Address”
This process may be difficult a little bit but don’t worry, it is simpler than a bank transfer.
After you have copied your unique BTC wallet address go back to Binance.
You have to move your cursor to “Wallet” on the right hand side of the topbar and once the popup shows up, click on “Fiat and Spot (Deposit & Withdrawal)”.
Look for BTC in the list and click on “Withdraw” on the right hand side.
Then, you have to paste the deposit address you just copied from the other exchange and select BTC as the transfer network. Then type the amount that you want to withdraw (you may click the Max button if you want to withdraw all).
After you have done the above, click on the Submit button to begin with the withdrawal process. If you need to continue with the withdrawal, Binance may ask you for your 2-Factor Authentication code and also you will have to confirm the withdrawal with an e-mail.
That is all you are required to do, then you should wait for a few seconds so that the blockchain to confirm your transaction.

Step 5: Trading Kusama (KSM)

You now need to go back to Bittrex to buy Kusama (KSM) with the Bitcoins you sent over there.
You need to look for “Markets” and click that button and you will see altcoins list.
On your left side, there is a colum in which you have to make sure you select “BTC” pair and in the search bar type in “KSM”. If you have already moved your coin click on it and now you will see a price table of KSM/BTC in the middle of the page. Then select the “Market” tab as that is the simplest way of buying orders. You can either type in your amount or choose what portion of your BTC deposit you would like to spend on buying, by clicking on the percentage buttons.
When you have confirmed all details, click “Buy KSM”. Now you have just bought your own KSM!

Other Exchanges to Buy Cryptos

The following are other sites you can buy from these exchanges:
HotBit (Which permits US investors)
MXC (This exchange allows US investors)
Bilaxy
OKEx
Huobi Global
On top of the above-listed exchanges, there are some more common crypto exchanges where daily trading volumes and a huge user base is available. This helps to ensure that you can sell your coins any time you want and the charges for the trading are not high. It is recommended that you should also register on these exchanges because whenever Kusama gets listed there it give the traders who have already registered a large amount of trading volumes, that means you will be provided with some great trading opportunities!

Final Step: How to Store Kusama securely in hardware wallets

1. Ledger Nano S

Ledger Nano S Live Crypto Wallet

  • Easy to set up and has a friendly trading interface.
  • Allows use on desktops and laptops
  • Lightweight and Portable too
  • Has been designed to Support most blockchains and a wide range of (ERC-20) tokens
  • Has many trading languages.
  • Designed by a well-established company found in 2014 with great chip security
  • It is not expensive but can be acquired at affordable price

Buy Ledger Nano S Now

2. Ledger Nano X

Ledger Nano x Live Crypto Wallet

  • It made with a more advanced and secure element chip (ST33) than Ledger Nano S
  • Has an easy design that allows the use on desktop or laptop, or even smartphone and tablet through Bluetooth connection.
  • Also Lightweight and Portable and has a built-in rechargeable battery
  • Has a Larger screen
  • Comes with more storage space compared toLedger Nano S
  • It supports most blockchains and wide range of (ERC-20) tokens
  • Provides several  languages for every customer
  • It was designed by a famous company found in 2014 with great chip security
  • Can be obtained at an affordable price

Buy Ledger Nano X Now

If you still have plans to stay at hodl” as some people call it, basically misspelt “hold” (which become famous as time passes) your Kusama for some long time, you need to find ways to ensure it stays safe safe,
However Binance is the most safe cryptocurrency exchange, in the past few years there have been hacking incidents and funds were lost. Because of the design of the wallets in exchanges, they will be accessible always via the internet (“Hot Wallets” as they are called), therefore exposing certain aspects of weaknesses.
Thus safeguard your cryptos by putting them in “Cold Wallets”, where the wallet will only have access to the blockchain(or simply “go online”) when you send out funds,. This reduces the chances of being hacked. For example, use a paper wallet which is a type of free cold wallet. It can also be defined as an offline-produced  pair of public and private address and that you write on a paper for keeping safely with you. But, it is not permanent and may be faced by certain risk.
Thus, Hardware wallet is therefore the best compared to cold wallets. Since they are usually USB-enabled devices that can hold the key information of your wallet in the safest manner. Also they are designed using military-level security and their firmware’s are continuously upgraded by their manufacturers and this makes them extra safe to use.  For example, Ledger Nano S and Ledger Nano X and are most common hardware wallets, you can buy one at $50 to $100 depending on the specifications they have.  I highly recommend these for holding your assets because these wallets are a worthy every penny according to my experience and opinion.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it possible to buy Kusama with cash?

The answer is No. Because there is no way you can directly buy Kusama with cash. But, using marketplaces such as LocalBitcoins to first buy Bitcoin, and completethe rest of the steps by transferring your bitcoin to respective AltCoin exchanges.

How do I Buy Bitcoin from local sellers?

You can go to LocalBitcoins that is a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange. It is more of a marketplace where users can buy and sell Bitcoins to and from each other. Users, known as traders, make advertisements to show their price and the payment method they want used. Then buyers buy from the traders to buy from sellers in a particular nearby region on the platform. LocalBitcoins is after all a good place to go to buy Bitcoins when it is impossible for you to find your favorite payment methods somewhere else. The site’s prices are high and you have you have to be extra careful to avoid conmen.

What are the quickest ways I can buy Kusama while living in Europe?

While in Europe you have the advantage of buying cryptos in an easy and quick way. Because Europe has even online banks which help buyers to simply open an account and transfer money to exchanges such as Coinbase and Coinmama. Such banks which are common as online banks in Europe are Bunq, N26 and Revolut.

Can I use alternative platforms to purchase Kusama or Bitcoin with credit cards?

Yes you can, you just need to visit Changelly which an easy to trade in site especially when it comes to buying Bitcoin with credit cards. It provides an automatic cryptocurrency exchange that gives a buyer the opportunity to exchange crypto fast and buy them using credit card. It has been designed to allow users to have easy crypto buying since it has a simple user interface and provides instructions that are easy to follow too.

About Kusama (KSM)

What Is Kusama (KSM)?

Self-described as “Polkadot’s wild cousin,” Kusama is an experimental blockchain platform that is designed to provide a massively interoperable and scalable framework for developers.

Kusama is built on substate — a blockchain building kit developed by Parity Technologies. Kusama has almost the same codebase as Polkadot — one of the most successful interoperable blockchains.

By deploying on Kusama, fast-paced projects gain access to a highly scalable, interoperable sharded network, with features that are not yet available on Polkadot. To that end, Kusama describes itself as a “canary network.”

The platform is designed to provide a testbed for developers looking to innovate and deploy their own blockchain and can be used as a preparatory network before launching on Polkadot — though many projects opt to stick with Kusama for their final product.

Kusama benefits from a low barrier to entry for deploying parachains, low bond requirements for validators, and is most commonly used by early-stage startups and for experimentation.

Who Are the Founders of Kusama?

Kusama was built by the same team that created Polkadot, a company known as Parity Technologies. Its founder is Dr. Gavin Wood, a world-renowned computer scientist and programmer, who also co-founded Ethereum.

Parity Technologies has an extensive team comprised of some of the world’s most successful blockchain engineers, and has over 100 employees in total spread throughout the world.

In addition, Kusama is funded by grants from the Web3 Foundation, which was launched to help “nurture and steward technologies and applications in the fields of decentralised web software protocols.” The Web3 foundation also supports Kusama with research and community development thanks to its growth team.

What Makes Kusama Unique?

Kusama is unusual among blockchain platforms since it is predominantly built for developers that want to launch bold, ambitious projects, with a fast-evolving pace of development.

It is built on a multichain, heterogeneously-sharded design that uses a nominated proof-of-stake (NPoS) consensus system — an alternative consensus mechanism to the energy intensive proof-of-work (POW) scheme employed by several other blockchains.

This system enables it to perform rapid on-chain upgrades without a fork, and support cross-chain message passing (XCMP) to enable communication with other parachains on the Kusama network.

Like Polkadot, Kusama features on-chain governance capabilities. This on-chain governance is both decentralized and permission-less, allowing anybody with Kusama (KSM) tokens or parachain tokens to vote on their respective governance proposals, which might include putative upgrades, changes to the protocol, and feature requests. This on-chain governance procedure is roughly four times faster than that offered by Polkadot, with a combined voting and enactment period of just 15 days — leading to the rapid pace of development for projects built on Kusama.

The project serves projects that want to hit the ground running, launching updates and improvements without the need to implement a fork to do so — thereby ensuring maximum community cohesion.

Read more about Polkadot (DOT) — which is like Kusama (KSM), but enterprise-focused.

Check out Ethereum (ETH) — one of Kusama’s major competitors.

Brush up on your crypto basics with CoinMarketCap Alexandria.

Visit the CoinMarketCap blog for the latest news, tips, tricks and market insights.

How Many Kusama (KSM) Coins Are There in Circulation?

As of November 2020, Kusama has a circulating supply of 8.47 million tokens, and a total supply of 10 million tokens. Unlike some other blockchains, this maximum supply is not fixed. Instead, it increases at an inflation rate of 10% per year.

The proportion of KSM that are staked changes how the newly minted KSM tokens (from inflation) are distributed. If exactly half of all KSM are staked, then Kusama validators receive 100% of newly minted tokens, whereas if it is above or below 50%, then some of the inflation rewards will go to the Kusama Treasury.

Kusama initially launched as an airdrop to those that participated in Polkadot (DOT) token sale. These were distributed at a 1:1 rate, while those without DOT were able to obtain KSM by using a frictional faucet — this has since been decommissioned. Unlike Polkadot, Kusama has not undergone redenomination to increase its circulating supply.

How Is the Kusama Network Secured?

Kusama is built using a nominated proof-of-stake (NPoS) consensus mechanism.

This uses a network of nominators (KSM stakers) who elect nodes to participate in the transaction validation process. These nominators receive a fraction of the inflation reward if their nominator is selected on the next rotation. Validators that act dishonestly or don’t meet performance requirements can have their stake slashed.

Additionally, Kusama uses a simple queuing mechanism based on Merkle trees to resolve cross-chain transactions. Relay chain validators are responsible for moving transactions from the output queue of one parachain to the input queue of the target parachain — this is a secure, trustless process that uses the same validators on each chain to pass the messages.

Where Can You Buy Kusama (KSM)?

Kusama (KSM) is currently available to trade on dozens of popular exchange platforms, including Binance, OKEx and Huobi Global. The most liquid trade pairs for KSM are currently KSM/USDT, KSM/BTC and KSM/ETH.

To learn more about buying cryptocurrencies with fiat, see our comprehensive guide.

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