I actually tried to buy something with Ethereum and it was a pain in the ass

5 min readMay 3, 2022

When I finally tried to use the new world currency it was pretty annoying

I was trying to buy an NFT on OpenSea (as a curiosity — don’t worry I haven’t lost my mind). As a ‘digital native’ (and computer science graduate) I thought this would be easy.

It’s not.

First I had to install the chrome plugin for Coinbase, where I already have an account with ETH in, so I assumed it would be the easiest way. Coinbase is basically one of the new web3.0 tech platforms that aims to become the new big tech/FAANG in this supposedly decentralised #WAGMI world of crypto. We need this type of centralised interface because the tech is just unusable or dangerous otherwise.

Next I had to use Coinbase Checkout to connect my Coinbase Account to my Coinbase Wallet, a three step process that at every point could have been a phishing scam. I was continually needing to check I was still on a https coinbase.com link and sometimes that wasn’t possible since I was within a Chrome extension. Remember — I grew up on the internet and would consider myself a savvy user. And this process was not just unclear but unnerving. And this is the premium UX for web3.0.

I had to input my ‘recovery phrase’ — the most important phrase in crypto. This is like a password that is generated when you create your wallet, can never be changed and can never be recovered if you lose it. Naturally you end up writing it down somewhere insecure and prone to loss like Apple Notes or a sticky note on your screen.

Since the recovery phrase is so important I was hesitant to input it. The term recovery phrase itself suggests this is something only to be used in an emergency, it sounds like a last resort like a 2FA backup. But seemingly it’s not — it’s the only way to access your wallet until logged in, then you are asked to set a password. Think if it like enabling Face ID on an iphone once you’ve signed in to your banking app.

Next I moved a load of ETH out of my Coinbase Account to the Coinbase wallet using Coinbase Checkout. This was free as I was within the Coinbase network- a great example of how centralised tech has huge benefits, but it still took a lot longer than moving money in Paypal.

I wanted to send 5k USD but that was over some sort of limit, which was not revealed. So I tried 3k and that worked — although it doesn’t look like I receive 3k, even when sending to my own wallet, within the Coinbase eco-system.

Then I found out that to actually buy something priced in ETH on OpenSea you need to convert it to something called WETH aka Wrapped Ether. Why I have no idea.

To do that I had to use the ETH mainnet i.e. the actual Ethereum network. Doing that means paying ‘gas fees’ (transaction fees) to the network, which vary with usage. Then followed a rather frustrating process of trying to calculate the net amount I could transfer whilst paying for the transaction.

Trying to guess the gross amount to enter to be able to convert ETH to WETH to actually be able to do something with it

Eventually I settled for a round 5k USD to convert — btw confusingly the price for everything I’m doing here is always shown in good old fashioned fiat currency. Great for me — but I thought USD was going to die in 2022 (that’s what I keep hearing in Miami).

Beyond the transaction fee / network fee / gas fee there is also a ‘slippage tolerance’ which is basically how much the market can move before the transaction is cancelled, like a limit order. All this new phrasing for old concepts is part of the conceit of web3.

Since I saw a warning that ‘gas fees’ were unusually high I was put off doing anything. The gas fees could have been caused by yesterday’s sale of a load of ape cartoons.

However, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to continue the next day.

I had my WETH (“wrapped ETH”) and was ready to buy my first NFT on Opensea.

After putting in a bid I had to go through these steps to place the order.

Now, I work in e-commerce and the one click checkout is no longer just the gold standard but what everyone expects. It seems like we’re going backwards here. I lost track of the steps.

If you look at the first and last screens you’ll see some pretty confusing code, including reference to a ‘Nonce’. Fun fact, Nonce is slang in British English for a paedophile.