!!New On-Ramp!! Buy (not sell) Hive Directly Through PeakD! [Updated]

!! You can now buy HIVE (and other cryptos) in one place, through the PeakD front-end. !!

Since I Joined HIVE in February of last year, one Of My First Questions was: "How do I buy hive?" ... After being explained the arduous process of using CoinBase, and then Buying LiteCoin( LTC ), and then using Blocktrades, in order to introduce new money into the HIVE ecosystem; I was left asking even more questions, as this process was conflicting with one of the major premises of crypto, and one of the main reason why I became interested. .... Removing Middle Men!

In the "simple" and commonly used/promoted process outlined above there is quite a few middle men, which led me to ask rite off the bat about how soon this process will be streamlined, and the middle men will be eliminated from the equation.. The easiest and most common answer was just as easily understand, and it was: "We are still early, there is too little regulation, and too much red tape"

Well Folks!

Today when I logged into my account on peakd I was pleasantly surprised by a new little box at the right side of the screen underneath the live price feeds of HIVE and HBD.. The new box gives us two different options to buy hive: Credit card or Crypto. [Simple swap existed before I think?]
I have no idea who set this up, or which developer to thank.. but I am thankful, and I cant wait to use this method to onboard some cash the next time I have an opportunity to do so.

Lets dive into it, and see what it's like when we click the new button. First, ill show the option to purchase with credit card (although I'd be using a debit card, even though I joked about using a credit card, and then paying it off with the profit..lolz)
I made a collection of screenshots just to show some mock transactions.

I clicked all the buttons, and from what I see: The fee's are the same using all 3 different options. The fee (for now?) is 4.25% for a 1 stop (and a few clicks) transaction from fiat to crypto. AND there is a minimum of $30 & maximum of $1500. I haven't tried to do that maximum (Obviously) yet.. So I'm not sure if there is a daily/weekly limit. There is many different options for the input currency in the drop-down menu, I clicked through quite a few not really know what I was looking at.. I only use USD.. so hopefully the other options work for anyone who needs to use 'em..

Here is the checkout screen

After talking about the different fiat currency options, it made me think that I should show the different crypto options.. and as per usual, that led me down a bit of a rabbit hole.. and the next thing I thought about is: "Which blockchain is the hive coming from, and/or who or where is the middle man"..
At the end of the day, as long as the on-ramp works, and the crypto makes it to the rite place you really dont need to worry too much.. But here is a screenshot to get an idea of how these networks / Dapps are plugging into the Transak platform.. It's Pretty cool to see BSC (Binance "smart" chain) listed next to one of the projects..

The rabbit hole widens..

Getting to know Transak: After poking around on their website transak.com, You can see that in the description of their services, they say that they will handle ALL of the KYC (whatever that means.) , Regulation, payment methods.. etc.. I have to say that this company is pretty fuckin amazing, and I hope that they can continue to provide these services and possibly improve them if/where possible.. And I think if they are a publicly listed on a stock exchange, that it would be a good company to invest in, if you wanted to support them on the fiat side of things.

Here is a breif look at their terms of service link.

[ If you never created a transak account, are you bound by all aspects of their terms of service? ]

UPDATE I shoulda realized this, and mentioned it.. but there is quite an extensive KYC process when using this service.

You need to provide: Photo ID (front & back) .. Social Security Number.. and then varify your photo ID with a photo that you will be prompted to take with your phone or webcam.

I had a bit of trouble trying to get the app to recognize that my face now is the same face that is on my ID, and I had to take and re-take the photo a handful of times eventually taking my hat off, in order to past the last test.
...Now it will take 5-10 minutes until I will know the results of this KYC test...
But apparently my first attempt to KYC was rejected.

Amazing.