How to Buy Bitcoin BTC: Quick-Start Guide

By keeping your keys offline, cold wallets significantly reduce the chances of falling victim to hacking or phishing attacks. However, it’s essential to handle cold wallets with caution as well. Losing your physical cold wallet or forgetting your seed phrase can lead to the permanent loss of your assets, without the possibility of recovery.

Given its position as the first and largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin could easily be a sizable portion of those holdings. Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master’s in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology.

Buying Bitcoin: Here’s what to watch for

If you’re comfortable taking custody of your BTC, the safest way to store it is in a crypto hardware wallet, sometimes referred to as a “cold-storage” wallet. And if you’re looking to store it in an extra safe fashion, you could use a bitcoin-only hardware wallet like the Coldcard Mk4. Buying Bitcoin while at the coffee shop, in your hotel room or using other public internet connections is not advised.

Custodial hot wallets include wallets that exchanges like Coinbase or Gemini provide for you. As mentioned earlier, Coinbase also offers a non-custodial hot wallet called Coinbase Wallet. If you’re not ready to put a large amount of money at risk, you can start small and still get a good grasp for how the process works.

How To Buy BTC With PayPal

Some allow users to remain anonymous and are decentralized and don’t require users to enter personal information. All investments involve risk and the past performance of a security, or financial product does not guarantee future results or returns. Securities offered through Robinhood Financial LLC, a member of FINRA and SIPC and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc. Robinhood Crypto and Publisher are not a members of FINRA or SIPC and cryptocurrencies are not stocks and your cryptocurrency investments are not protected by either FDIC or SIPC insurance.

Cryptocurrency exchanges

Record and safeguard any new passwords for your crypto account or digital wallet (more on those below). Like its stock-trading platform, Robinhood charges no fees for Bitcoin trades. Other online brokers that offer access to Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies include Webull, TradeStation and Fidelity. They are cryptocurrency exchanges, brokerage firms, and payment services like PayPal.

We may see a notable rise in BTC’s price come mid-2024, after the fourth bitcoin halving occurs. A bitcoin halving is when the number of BTC awarded to Bitcoin miners every 10 minutes or so gets cut in half. This reduction in the supply of BTC coming to market has historically spurred a rise in price. Beginners to seasoned investors looking to diversify their portfolios have numerous options to buy BTC. While it was once taboo to invest in this alternative asset, more and more people around the globe are now buying and holding it, making bitcoin more of a mainstream asset.

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Hardware wallets provide a secure and private way to hold your bitcoin, which is stored directly on the blockchain rather than being entrusted to a third-party how to use nicehash to earn bitcoin exchange or platform. Fees for purchasing BTC are also high on Venmo, and the fee structure is the same as PayPal’s. These fees are higher than those on most crypto exchanges, especially for purchases under $200. For purchases from $200 to $1,000, the fee drops to 1.8%, and for purchases of $1,000.01 or more, it drops to 1.5%. Keep in mind that certain exchanges and brokerages aren’t licensed to provide crypto services to residents of certain US states and territories. So, make sure the exchange or brokerage you want to use is available in your area before you try to create an account on a particular platform.

However, with Coinbase, for example, there is no limit on the amount of cryptocurrency you can sell. In addition to the trading fee, you may also be charged a withdrawal fee to take your crypto or traditional money off the platform. As The Ascent’s Compliance Lead, he makes sure that all the site’s information is accurate and up to date, which ensures we always steer readers right and keeps various financial partners happy.

Of course, you’ll be able to buy stocks, ETFs and options while you’re on the easy-to-use platform, including Bitcoin ETFs. The fees at various crypto exchanges can differ markedly, so it’s worthwhile looking around to find which offers the best combination of price, crypto choice and service. If you plan to keep it on the platform you purchased it on, you may want to learn more about their storage practices and how they manage customer funds.

1. Some of the most common places to buy bitcoin are through exchanges or trading apps.
2. Emma lives in Bogota, Colombia, where she owns the English-language newspaper The Bogota Post.
3. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site.
4. Some exchanges support instant buy features, which allow you to purchase bitcoin directly from the platform using a credit or debit card or a bank account.
5. Those fees eat into your profits, so look for a way to minimize those frictional costs.

What to look for in a crypto platform?

His work has been featured in The Guardian, International Business Times, Forbes, VentureBeat, CoinDesk and many other top Bitcoin media outlets. Any exchange with a US Dollar trading pair will allow you to sell your Bitcoin for fiat currency. Coinbase Pro and Kraken have USD trading pairs for many popular coins.

Experts say that Bitcoin acts more like a risky tech stock or momentum stock, meaning that it rises when these stocks rise and falls when they fall. That’s not the kind of thing you want from a hedge, which should perform the opposite of the asset being hedged, zigging when the market zags. Mercedes Barba is a seasoned editorial leader and video producer, with an Emmy nomination to her credit. Presently, she is the senior investing editor at Bankrate, leading the team’s coverage of all things investments and retirement. Once you’ve purchased bitcoin, think about your short- and long-term goals. This will help you decide whether to keep it on an exchange or move it to a non-custodial wallet.