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Process of Acquiring Bitcoins
Bitcoins are the most common and popular cryptocurrency. They are relatively secure to use, and the enormous trade volume shows that a lot of people have faith in it. There are a lot of different ways through which you can buy bitcoins. Let’s go over some of them.
Register on a cryptocurrency exchange.
In order to buy Bitcoins, one needs to visit an exchange website that sells bitcoins for fiats or other cryptocurrencies. There are several sites, but the most popular one is Coinbase which has exchanged more than $20 billion worth of cash for bitcoins. The platform also supports exchanges in more than 32 countries. In order to purchase bitcoins via Coinbase or any other exchange, you need to first open up an account on the platform. Oh, and you gotta be older than 18 years of age too.
This will enable you to easily purchase bitcoins, and you can also use your linked financial accounts to withdraw earnings from trades and exchanges.
Once you setup your account and connect a payment processing method, you can continue on to purchasing bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies.
Create a cryptocurrency Wallet
A crypto wallet, like Electrum, acts in a similar fashion to banks. Wallets allow you to store, receive, and send bitcoins to other wallet addresses, exchanges, and people. There are generally two types of software wallets that are commonly used, software and web wallets.
Software wallets can be installed on smartphones and computers, the installation process is relatively easy if you follow all of the instructions carefully.
Web wallets are usually hosted by third parties for you, they are easy to use. However, there’s a little more risk involved with them because you have to trust a third party.
Recommended wallets:
- Coinbase – Can be used to store cryptocurrencies like ETH, LTC, and BTC.
- Electrum – One of the safest wallets. Very secure and difficult to hack. Comes with inbuilt recovery methods, 2FA, and is user-friendly.
- Bitcoin Wallet for Android and Blackberry– a great mobile app. Highly secure and you remain in full control of your bitcoins. Additionally, there is a backup feature.
- Blockchain.info – One of the most popular websites for opening up a bitcoin wallet. All you have to do is check out the site, fill in the requirements and you are good to go. Plus, you can access all of your funds from your mobile app at any time.
- Other wallets Armory and Bitcoin-Qt
The right time to buy Bitcoins
Well, buying bitcoins is always a good idea. However, the market is in a constant state of uncertainty, you can obviously see how wildly the price can fluctuate. It may increase by almost $1000 one day and then drop by $600. It’s a great idea to study some charts and read up on technical analysis skills. Additionally, there are websites like Bitcoin Wisdom and Cryptowatch that can be really useful for anyone trying to get into trading bitcoins.
