Quickest Way To Buy Bitcoin 2017 UPDATED
Bitcoin is dominating the financial world breaking records every month throughout 2017.Ever had a case where you wished you had bought something in the past that eventually went up significantly in value? Perhaps a plot in a low-value district which is now worth ten times more? Well, then you need to see how well Bitcoin investors have done in the past few months alone.
quickest way to buy bitcoin 2017
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In January 2017, Bitcoin hit $1000 and the world took notice. 5 months later Bitcoin doubled its value to $2000, and the media started filling up with stories of self-made millionaires who made their money from investing small amounts in Bitcoin. Another two months after that, Bitcoin shocked the world by tripling its value to $6000, only to increase one month after that to the staggering value of $8000.
While I had first heard about bitcoin in 2011, it wasn't until I watched a documentary and started reading forums about the cryptocurrency that I decided to buy it. It was easy to see how bitcoin could disrupt the entire financial system.
I decided to buy as a long-term experiment and used less than 1 percent of my net worth at the time to buy into bitcoin. Sure, I wanted to make money on it, but if I lost everything, it wasn't going to change the course of my life.
As of this writing, bitcoin is trading at $16,600, which makes my bitcoins now worth $1,148,720. It took me five years working 80-hour weeks to make over $1 million saving and investing in the stock market, but with bitcoin, my coins have increased to over $1 million in 2017 alone. It's by far, without a doubt, the easiest money I have ever made.
On my blog Millennial Money, I've received over 100 emails from readers asking about investing in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. I was even talking to a reader last week who told me he put his entire life savings into bitcoin, buying in at around $11,000. That's a terrible idea.
When the price of anything fluctuates 20-30 percent in one day, it's obviously unstable, so you could lose all of your money very quickly. Especially if you need your money in the next year, don't buy bitcoin. With the insane short-term fluctuations, bitcoin is short-term gambling, not investing.
Litecoin is a good example. Sure, bitcoin has an early mover advantage, but it was created to buy and sell things online securely, which no one is doing right now because the price is so insane and transaction costs are skyrocketing.
You might think that digital wallets are secure, but cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets continue to get hacked regularly. More than $70 million in bitcoin was hacked from NiceHash, a bitcoin mining marketplace, last week.
Just because exchanges like Coinbase have $200 million in venture funding and a nice shiny marketplace doesn't mean that they can't get hacked either. Because there is no central governing body guaranteeing your bitcoin, if you lose it, it can be difficult to get back. If it gets stolen, then you are out of luck. Hacks will continue to happen.
If you do decide to buy bitcoin, I encourage you to buy responsibly. Don't buy using more than 1 percent of your net-worth, and be honest with yourself: Bitcoin is a gamble, not an investment. It's super risky and there are far better places to invest your money securely for both the long- and short-term.
Any investment is risky, but many experts see bitcoin as particularly volatile. Its value can fluctuate wildly from day to day, as Thursday's results show, and, as with the stock market in general, past performance cannot predict future results.
The first step is to download a bitcoin wallet, which holds your "keys," a unique strand of numbers and letters that allows access to your coins. Some wallets grant you the ability to buy bitcoin directly through their site, while others simply serve as storage.
Next, decide where to purchase your currency from. The easiest and most popular way is through Coinbase, an app that allows users to invest, trade and store bitcoin all in one place. Coinbase serves more than 13 million users and is considered bitcoin's first unicorn company, thanks to its $1.6 billion valuation, according to Yahoo Finance.
Using Coinbase is generally seen as straightforward. Once you've created an account, you can attach your payment options. Using a credit and debit cards lets you purchase bitcoin instantly, but they have a cap of $150 per week. Linking your bank account means it can take longer to process transactions but allows you to buy more at a time.
From there, decide the dollar amount you want to spend. Because of bitcoin's high value right now, it's possible to purchase just a fraction of the speculative asset. In addition to the price of the bitcoin, you'll also pay a small fee per transaction.
Once you've connected your banking information to your bitcoin account, it's important to secure it. Enable two-factor authentication using an app like Google Authenticator, rather than your phone number, because hackers only need your name and number to steal from a bitcoin wallet, The Independent reports.
While it's relatively simple to begin investing in bitcoin, is it worth the risk? Conventional wisdom suggests you buy low and sell high. And, regardless, many experts remain skeptical of the cryptocurrency.
According to billionaire Mark Cuban, it's OK to invest up to 10 percent of your savings in high-risk investments, including bitcoin and ethereum. You've just "got to pretend you've already lost your money," he told Vanity Fair, adding that it's like throwing "the Hail Mary."
Bitcoin is a pure gamble, said CNBC's Jim Cramer on "Squawk Box": "It's kind of like Monopoly money. Obviously, there's people who use it. If you ever say anything bad about it, there's like this bitcoin mafia that comes after you. But it is an oddity that has nothing to do with us" as investors.
The Bitcoin system allows six blocks to be mined every hour. Because it gets more difficult over time, the system is expected to generate fewer Bitcoins over time. (It is structured such that, for every four years the network is in operation, half the amount of Bitcoins that were created in the previous four years are generated.) The bitcoin supply is capped at just under 21 million coins. More than 16.7 million coins have been mined as of Dec. 30, 2017.
Bitcoin is a digital cryptocurrency with no intermediaries or banks necessary to conduct transactions. It was designed as open-source software in 2009 by an individual or group known only as Satoshi Nakamoto with the intention to minimize transaction costs and deregulate currency. The cost of a bitcoin has skyrocketed this year. When the calendar rolled over to 2017, the price of one bitcoin was just a shade under $1,000. As I write, the price of bitcoin has skyrocketed to almost $7,500!
This huge increase in price has led some investors to not only some to wonder if they should invest in bitcoin, but even how to invest in bitcoin in the first place. After all, it's not like they can purchase a bitcoin at their brokerage or bank. Heck, one can't even buy a bitcoin at Amazon.com, and Amazon sells everything! With this question in mind, let's look at some different ways investors can buy bitcoins or otherwise gain exposure to this unique asset class.
The most popular way to buy bitcoins is through bitcoin wallets, digital wallets for the exclusive use of bitcoins. There are many different types of bitcoin-based wallets and you need to be very careful to choose something that will best meet your needs. Some bitcoin wallets are device-specific, while others are web-based.
Coinbase is one of the most popular digital wallets used to purchase bitcoins. As with almost any of these wallets, customers must sign up for an account online and then link a bank account. If they just want to buy, a valid credit card number will do. Coinbase accepts Mastercard and Visa. Before any bitcoin transaction, Coinbase shows users the current value of the digital currency in U.S. dollars. When making a withdrawal from a Coinbase account, account holders can choose to have the funds go to either a linked bank or PayPal account.
Since third-party cryptocurrency wallets have been famously known to be hacked resulting in a permanent loss of funds, investors must be careful to properly secure their bitcoin wallets. Remember, bitcoins are not stored in FDIC-insured accounts and most third parties do not offer insurance in case of theft or fraud. How bad is this problem? Last August, Reuters reported that a full third of bitcoin exchanges had been breached.
Security is vitally important in keeping bitcoin accounts safe. Back-ups are critical in cases of computer crashes or stolen wallets. Wallets must be encrypted so anyone withdrawing bitcoins from your account must know a password. Whatever you do, don't forget your password! Many wallets offer two-factor authentication, where a unique code is texted or emailed to you before withdrawals can be made. Bitcoin passwords are also critical as, unlike bank accounts, there is no customer service line to reset your password. Bitcoin.org recommends either memorizing the password or writing it down and storing it in a safe place.
There are other ways to purchase bitcoins; some more exotic than others. Bitcoin Depot, in conjunction with the bitcoin wallet Airbitz, allows users to buy bitcoins with cash at dozens of special ATM locations spread across six states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Texas. After setting up an account, all customers need to do is deposit cash in the ATM and scan a QR code with a special scanner attached to the ATM and, within minutes, the purchased bitcoins will be available in the Airbitz account.
The most convenient way to gain exposure to bitcoins is through the Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC 1.47%). This fund was created so that buying bitcoins could be as easy as buying any stock or ETF share. All people have to do is buy shares through their regular broker using the ticker symbol. Each share represents about one-tenth of a bitcoin. But, as fellow Fool Jordan Wathen has pointed out, this convenience comes at a steep cost. According to his calculations, a share often costs more than the value of the underlying bitcoin. 041b061a72