Everything on Crypto Investments
Dear Intrachain Community,
Our Intrachain Token Sale is already in fullest swing.
Today, we want to step back from detailed product explanations and explain more general on how to invest in crypto.
Note: We are not providing individually tailored investment advice, but rather providing an opinion.
Are you wondering how to get a piece of the Bitcoin boom? You’re not alone. Buying crypto is so easy, you may not even have to get off your couch! So, let’s get to it: Depending on your needs, there are a variety of ways to acquire blockchain tokens.
The easiest way to buy and sell is, if you already have a bank account at a traditional institution. With a bank account you can send a wire transfer directly to an exchange, buy with cash locally, use Paypal, a credit or debit card, and swap cryptocurrency. But buying crypto is not the only feature to it: you can even work for, and earn bitcoin and ethereum. You see: The market is offering more and more creative ways to turn fiat currency into crypto. This can, for example, include trading gifts cards in for bitcoin.
In our little guide below, we show you various ways to get your hands on cryptocurrency.
Buying cryptocurrency
There are many different options for attaining cryptocurrencies. Below we will go through some of those options, and highlight important details to note on each way of buying, as well as resources we’ve linked to for doing so to help get you started!
- Local Bitcoins: If there are no cryptocurrency ATMs around your local area, you might have better luck finding someone to meet up with in person. Here we recommend the service LocalBitcoins.com (long-standing and reputable) to connect with people in your area.
- Coinbase: Coinbase is the most popular service to buy and sell cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. Available in dozens of countries and across the United States (excluding Hawaii, Wyoming, and Minnesota), Coinbase has continuously operated since the early days of Bitcoin — June of 2012 to be specific.
- Bitcoin ATMs: In the case you need to get cryptocurrency in a hurry: Using a local Bitcoin ATM might be just the service you need! These machines are just like normal ATMs at the bank, but they also work with cryptocurrency. Most accept paper cash and will send you a digital token in exchange. Some will even allow you to sell Bitcoin for local currency.
- Exchange and Trading Platforms:Another option is to use a more traditional exchange. If you have experience trading in the other commodity or stock markets, the advanced interface and ability to trade more frequently will likely benefit you. Reputation and reliability during peak times can vary, sometimes freezing up services completely.
How To Store Cryptocurrencies?
Now that you have acquired crypto, the most important question is how to store them. You have several options which enable you to find your balance of risks.
- Keep them off an Exchange: If you invested not only in Bitcoin but in several Altcoins, there is usually no way around keeping coins on an exchange. You don’t want to get in the trouble of installing, compiling, malware checking, using, syncing and updating the software for every coin you invested in. More as in the process of buying, the trust in an exchange becomes very important, when you store your coins there. There is a long history of hacks and bankruptcies in cryptocurrency markets, most famous the hack of Mt. Gox, which sucked up hundreds of millions of customer’s Dollars. So if you use an exchange to store your coins, you should gather some information:
- Where are they located?
- Are the owners known?
- Since when do they operate?
- Do they provide some audits to ensure you that all the coins are available?
- How do they react to customer’s requests?
For example, for people in the EU, Bitcoin.de enjoys a strong trust level. The exchange operates without loss of customer’s funds since 2011, the owners are well known in the German and European community, and an annual audit by external company checks if all coins are available. This level of trust, however, can rarely be achieved when you hold a lot of altcoins. That’s the risk you need to take.
2. However, our recommendation is to store them by yourself:
The real revolutionary property of cryptocurrencies is the autonomy they grant the individual. This property can be found also and above all when it comes to storing cryptocurrencies. You don’t need anybody. Not to help, and not to trust. All you need is to download a free and open software. Again, you have most options with Bitcoin. For the most famous cryptocurrency, there exist a lot of wallets for every device. This software can be used to receive, store and send Bitcoins. There is the Bitcoin client, the so called full node, which grants the highest level of autonomy, but also requires a lot of time to sync and disk to store the blockchain. Easier to use are thin clients like Electrum. These are available for every device.
However, the downside to this option is that when storing crypto by yourself, it is solely you who is responsible for the safety and security of your coins. If your smartphones fall in the water, your coins could be gone. If you get a malware on your computer, your coins could be gone. And so on.
We hope we could help you with any questions on how to start with crypto. Next week we will introduce our two Intrachain Products. Stay tuned!
Note: It is again important to highlight that we are not providing individually tailored investment advice, but rather providing an opinion when discussing ICOs.
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