Heard about Cryptocurrency Exchange?
Many people do not buy cryptocurrency because they don’t know how to play around with it. This is why they need to know about Cryptocurrency Exchange — The websites where people can buy, sell or exchange cryptocurrencies for other digital currency like US Dollars or Euro. Most exchanges enforce strict KYC rules that require the user to verify their ID.
Some of the largest exchanges are:
1. Bitthumb (Korea, 500m USD daily volume)
2. Kraken (USA, 200m USD Daily volume)
There are many cryptocurrency exchanges globally that allow people to trade real money for cryptocurrency and vice versa. Most popular for trading is localbitcoins.com.
How does Cryptocurrency Exchange work?
Cryptocurrency Exchanges provide a platform for people to buy and sell crypto.
In the picture on the top (Gemini.com), we can set limit orders to buy / sell bitcoins for a certain price. The exchange will match buyers and sellers when conditions of both the buyer and the seller are met. This is very similar to how forex trading works.
Limit orders allow a trader to buy bitcoins at a price lower than the current price or sell bitcoins higher than the current price. However, these orders will only be executed once another user accepts them. Market orders will just find the best matching limit order.
Besides using fiat currency to buy crypto, you can also use crypto to buy other crypto currencies. Some exchanges trade solely in cryptocurrencies without any fiat pairing.
The Picture on the top shows bittrex.com, where users can change bitcoin into many other cryptocurrencies such as QTUM, NEO Okcash etc on this platform.
To buy the less well known cryptocurrencies, you will generally need to use bitcoin or Ethereum. There is normally no direct way to buy smaller cryptocurrencies with cash directly.