Introduction: Investing in Cryptocurrencies
The first cryptocurrency to emerge was Bitcoin, built on blockchain technology and likely introduced in 2009 by a mysterious person, Satoshi Nakamoto. At the time of writing this blog, 17 million bitcoin has been mined and it is believed that a total of 21 million bitcoin could be mined. The other most popular cryptocurrencies are Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, Golem, Civic, and hard forks of Bitcoin like Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold.
Users are advised not to put all their money into a cryptocurrency and avoid investing at the peak of the cryptocurrency bubble. where to sell litecoin in nigeria The price has been observed to drop suddenly when it is at the peak of the crypto bubble.
As cryptocurrency is a volatile market, users must invest the amount they can afford to lose as there is no government control over cryptocurrency as it is a decentralized cryptocurrency.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak predicted that Bitcoin is a real gold and in the future will dominate all currencies like USD, EUR, INR and ASD and become the global currency in the years to come.
Why and why not invest in cryptocurrencies?
Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to emerge and since then over 1600 cryptocurrencies have been introduced with unique characteristics for each coin.
Some of the reasons I experienced and would like to share are cryptocurrencies created on the decentralized platform – so users don’t need a third party to transfer cryptocurrency from one destination to another unlike fiat currencies, where a user needs a platform like bank to transfer money from one account to another. Cryptocurrency is based on a very secure blockchain technology and has almost no chance of hacking and stealing your cryptocurrencies until you share your critical information.
You should always avoid buying cryptocurrencies at the peak of the cryptocurrency bubble. Many of us buy the cryptocurrencies at the peak hoping to make a quick buck and fall victim to the bubble hype and lose our money. It is better for users to do a lot of research before investing the money.
It is always good to invest your money in multiple cryptocurrencies rather than one as it has been found that few cryptocurrencies grow faster, some average when other cryptocurrencies go into the red.
Cryptocurrencies in focus
In 2014, Bitcoin holds 90% of the market and the remaining cryptocurrencies hold the remaining 10%. In 2017, Bitcoin still dominates the crypto market, but its share has plummeted from 90% to 38%, and altcoins like Litecoin, Ethereum, and Ripple have grown rapidly, taking most of the market.
Bitcoin still dominates the cryptocurrency market, but it’s not the only cryptocurrency you need to consider when investing in cryptocurrency. Some of the top cryptocurrencies you need to consider:
- Bitcoin
- Litecoin
- ripple
- ether
- Tron
- Civil
- golem
- Monero
Where and how to buy cryptocurrencies?
While buying cryptocurrencies was not easy a few years ago, there are now many platforms available to users.
In 2015, India has two major bitcoin platforms Unocoin Wallet and Zebpay Wallet where users can only buy and sell bitcoin. Users only need to buy bitcoin from wallet but not from another person. There was a price difference in the buy and sell rate and users have to pay a small fee to complete their transactions.
In 2017, the cryptocurrency industry grew tremendously and the price of bitcoin increased spontaneously, especially in the last six months of 2017, which forced users to look for alternatives to bitcoin and surpassed 14 lakhs in the Indian market.
As Unodax and Zebpay are the two major platforms in India that dominated the market with 90% of the market share – which only traded Bitcoin. It gives other organizations the opportunity to grow with other altcoins and even forced Unocoin and others to add more currencies to their platform.
Unocoin, one of India’s leading cryptocurrency and blockchain companies, has launched an exclusive platform UnoDAX Exchange for its users to trade multiple cryptocurrencies in addition to trading Bitcoin in Unocoin.
The difference between both platforms was that Unocion only offered instant buying and selling of bitcoin, while on UnoDAX users can place an order for any available cryptocurrency and if it matches the recipient, the order will be executed.
Other major exchanges available for cryptocurrency trading in India are Koinex, Coinsecure, Bitbns, WazirX .
Users need to open an account with any of the exchanges by signing up with an email id and submitting the KYC details. Once their account is verified, one can start trading the coins of their choice.
Users need to do good research before investing in coins and not fall into the trap of the cryptocurrency bubble. Users need to research the exchange’s credibility, transparency, security features and much more.
All exchanges charge a small fee for each transaction. There are two types of fees – maker fee and taker fee. Apart from the transaction fee, if you want to transfer your cryptocurrencies to another exchange or to your private wallet, you have to pay the transfer fee.
The fees depend solely on the coins and the exchange, since the different exchanges have a difference price module for the transfer of the coins.
Major altcoins other than bitcoin
As mentioned above, Bitcoin dominates the market with a 38% market share, followed by Ripple, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash. Exchanges like UnoDAX, Bitfinex, Kraken, Bitstamp have listed many other coins like Golem, Civic, Raiden Network, Kyber Network, Basic Attention, 0X, Augur, Monero, Tron and many more. If one of the coins suits your portfolio, you need to buy it.
But you need to put money into the market that you can afford to lose as the cryptocurrency market is very volatile and no government has any control over it.
When to buy?
There is no hard and fast rule as to when you should buy your favorite cryptocurrency. But you have to research market stability. However, they shouldn’t be at the peak of a cryptocurrency bubble or when the price is continuously plummeting. The best time is always considered when the price has been stable at a relatively low level for some time.
Cryptocurrency storage method
Before buying any cryptocurrency, one must understand how to keep their cryptocurrency safe.
In general, all exchanges provide the storage facility where you can safely store your coins. One is not allowed to share their user credentials, password, 2FA when holding cryptocurrency on exchanges.
Paper wallet, hardware wallet, software wallet are some of the channels where one can store their cryptocurrency.
Paper Wallet:
Paper wallet is an offline cold storage method to keep your cryptocurrency. It prints your private and public key on a piece of paper that also has the QR code printed on it.
One just has to scan the QR code for his future transactions. Why is it safe? You don’t have to worry about your account being hacked or malicious malware attacking. All you have to do is keep your piece of paper safe in a locker and, if possible, keep two to three pieces of paper folder under your complete control.
Hardware Wallet:
Hardware wallet is a physical device in which you securely store cryptocurrency. There are many types of hardware wallets, but the most commonly used hardware wallet is USB. If you are storing your cryptocurrency in a hardware wallet, the only thing to remember is that you should not lose your hardware wallet as you will not be able to retrieve your cryptocurrency after losing it.
A famous incident where a person mined over 7000 bitcoin and stored it in their hardware wallet and kept it with another hardware wallet. One day he threw the hardware wallet he was storing his cryptocurrency in instead of broken hardware and he lost all his bitcoins.
What can you buy from cryptocurrencies in India?
Most people assume that buying and selling cryptocurrencies is just for investment and getting the high returns in both the how to sell litecoin on trust wallet long and short term. Influencers and Bitcoin investors believe that Bitcoin will dominate all fiat currencies and be accepted as an international currency in the years to come.
Dell is one of the largest e-commerce companies that accepts bitcoin as payment. Expedia and UNICEF are other examples.
In India, Sapna Book Mall accepted bitcoin as payment through Unocoin merchant service. People booked movie tickets through BookMyShow or topped up their phones through the Unocoin platform. According to the report, they have suspended the service but plan to resume it in the near future.
Conclusion:
Cryptocurrency is one of the growing investment sectors and has historically produced good returns than real estate, gold, stock markets, etc. You can buy cryptocurrency and hold it for the long-term for nice returns, or you can opt for the quick profit in the short-term as we are in the Have seen many coins grow over 1000% in the past.
As cryptocurrency is a volatile market and there is no government control over the industry. One must invest the amount in whatever cryptocurrency one can afford to lose.
