Choose a cryptocurrency to invest in. Founded in 1976, Bankrate has a long history of helping people make smart financial decisions. We have maintained this reputation for more than four decades by demystifying the financial decision-making process and giving people confidence in the following actions. While Bitcoin is still the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, it is no longer as dominant as it was in the early days of cryptocurrency.
Other altcoins such as Ethereum and Solana have grown in popularity, making the term altcoin somewhat old-fashioned. Now, with the existence of 15,000 or more cryptocurrencies, it makes less sense than ever to define the industry as “Bitcoin and then everything else. Investing in Bitcoin (BTCUSD) may seem complicated, but it's much easier when you break it down into steps. Investing or trading Bitcoin only requires an account with a service or an exchange, although other secure storage practices are recommended.
Connect the wallet that contains the cryptocurrencies you want to sell and make sure that the exchange you have chosen is compatible with both that wallet and the asset in question. There is a big appetite for cryptocurrency ETFs, which would allow you to invest in many cryptocurrencies at once. Cryptocurrency brokers take the complexity out of buying cryptocurrencies by offering easy-to-use interfaces that interact with exchanges for you. Currently, there are more than 13,000 cryptocurrencies listed on CoinMarketCap, a leading data aggregator for the cryptocurrency market.
If you think that the value of a cryptocurrency will grow in the long run and you don't want the stress of actively trading, then this could be your style, and a good first step may be to learn how to buy and hold cryptocurrencies safely. As noted above, if you buy cryptocurrencies through a broker, you may have few or no options as to how your cryptocurrency is stored. Cryptocurrencies are fungible, so any unit of a specific cryptocurrency is basically the same as any other. For most people, the easiest way to get cryptocurrencies is to buy them, either from an exchange or from another user.
Fortunately, most cryptocurrency exchanges have similar-looking market pages, and you can safely ignore a lot of the information on the page. Depending on the exchange or broker and your funding method, you may have to wait a few days before you can use the money you deposit to buy cryptocurrencies. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is currently reviewing three cryptocurrency ETF applications from Kryptcoin, VanEck and WisdomTree. The average investor will want to exchange USD for cryptocurrency on an exchange and avoid the complexities and investments of mining.
A CFD is a contract in which you agree to change the difference in the price of a cryptocurrency from when you first open your position until you close it. Now, cryptocurrency exchanges have reached a point where they have almost the same level of characteristics as their stock brokerage counterparts.