A Beginner’s Guide to Investing in Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency is gaining a lot of interest lately, especially with Bitcoin making its biggest comeback since 2017. However, investing in them can be intimidating to many. For one, getting started isn?t always simple as some exchanges are only available to people in certain jurisdictions. Buying and holding cryptocurrency on the open market is also not as straightforward as it is with other kinds of assets. Here?s everything you need to know to start investing in cryptocurrency.

Find an Exchange and a Wallet

If you want to start buying cryptocurrency, you will first need to find an exchange. And to store your coins, you will usually need a wallet. We say usually because you have exchanges out there like Shakepay that will store them for you.

While it makes things simpler for you if you?re just getting started, it would be wise to get yourself a hardware, or at the very least a secure mobile wallet. Also, if you?re going to let an exchange hold your funds, you have to make sure that they will allow you to move them to a private wallet easily.

You'll also notice that some exchanges will accept fiat to crypto transactions while others are crypto to crypto only. While crypto exchanges will often have advantages as far as convenience goes, they are also centralized, which means that they have a lot of money going through their hands every day. This is an issue if there's a security breach or foul play.

Learn Your Coins

The second thing you have to do is go beyond the big names and really start to learn about crypto in depth. So, learn the differences between transactional cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and those that are supporting projects, and look at who is behind the project and the opinion people have about them in the community.

You should also consider investing in coins you actually believe in. If you believe the future of crypto is through collaboration rather than disruption of the financial system, you can go with institution backed cryptos like the XRP. If you believe in the future of decentralized apps and smart contracts, then Ethereum and other Ethereum like coins like Tron could be more your speed.

Look at whether the coin is filling a need in the market. You should also never invest in a cryptocurrency without reading whitepapers. This will give you a clear idea of what it?s trying to do, but also give you a sense of how serious and professional the team behind it is.

Embrace the Risk

People in the community love to think of some coins as stores of value, but most are way too volatile at the moment to be qualified as such. Know that a large portion of crypto investing is speculative, so you have to be ready for the roller coaster ride. The only piece of advice we could give you would be to watch out for bubbles and consider investing when the price is relatively stable and low.

Investing in cryptocurrency is an adventure, but one that could pay off. However, we must say that the future does look bright, and there?s no reason for crypto to go anywhere anytime soon.