Preface

Definition of a Cryptocurrency Wallet

Cryptocurrency Wallet Address and Keys

Types of Cryptocurrency Wallets

Cryptocurrency Wallet Risks

Summary

Preface

The most heated debates are surrounding the digital assets, their stores of value, blockchain and secure cryptocurrency wallets. As you probably remember, a virtual currency (a cryptocurrency, in other words) is not stored on desktop computers or laptops. It exists only within the high-tech blockchain framework — a distributed ledger of records, identical copies of the aforementioned pieces of data kept by many people all around the world. So a crypto wallet cannot be labeled as a bag of digital gold, it is factually a blockchain access terminal.

A thing that confirms that you can perform operations with the crypt recorded in it on you. If the registry indicates that you have 0.001 Bitcoin, then it will be displayed in your wallet, and you can do something with this amount: exchange it for another cryptocurrency or transfer it to someone. The given analytical writing is devoted to the topic of what is a crypto wallet, types of wallets for storing cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, ZCash, Ripple, Chainlink, Tether USD, etc. and the risk associated with the coin or token storage.

Definition of a Cryptocurrency Wallet

Let us get to it! What is a crypto coin wallet? A crypto wallet is a software app that allows virtual currency users to store, send, deposit, receive, buy, HODl, sell and retrieve their coins, tokens, and other digital currencies and assets alike. Likewise, you can purchase a physical object (a private hardware wallet like Trezor or best performing TrustWallet, CoinCover or Free Wallet multicoin devices) if you prefer privacy and security no matter what. After creating a crypto wallet, you can generate an address for each cryptocurrency you need in it. For example, this is how the address for the Ethereum cryptocurrency of its creator Vitaly Buterin looks like 0xab5801a7d398351b8be11c439e05c5b3259aec9b. The keys to your success are just in your crypto wallet!

Cryptocurrency Wallet Address and Keys

A similar combination that your wallet will generate will need to be specified every time you desire to get a transfer from someone in the selected currency. If you still got questions as to what is a crypto wallets and alike, then you should be aware that a cryptocurrency wallet is just a bunch of public (open) and private keys, nothing else more. The former one is not secret, it is available to the public in free access, and is utilized for identification when performing transfers, for instance, in Dogecoin (DOGE) to or from COinbase or CryptoPay.

There exists such a thing as a key seed phrase – a sequence of 12-24 simple English words (for example, infant, run, outdoor, mutual … and so on). This is “Plan B” for accessing the wallet if you suddenly forget or lose the standard passwords and appearances. The wallet of your choice will be generated automatically when you start using it. The seed phrase cannot be shown or shared with anyone. At a minimum, you need to write it down on paper and hide it in a safe place. As a maximum – learn by heart.

Types of Cryptocurrency Wallets

Broadly speaking, cryptocurrency wallets can be either very simple in use or else very complex and contain a lot of satellite features to satisfy the needs of a demanding cryptocurrency wallet user, be it an investor, trader, miner, borrower, among others. In essence, what is a wallet for crypto? Well, in layman’s terms, it is a universal key to a digitalized world with zillions of opportunities to manage the financial portfolio at the touch of a single button. The central and defining types of cryptocurrency wallets you can select from are categorized as follows:

–          Software wallets;

–          Hardware cryptocurrency wallets;

–          Paper cryptocurrency wallets;

With these in mind, let us briefly discuss each type what is a wallet crypto can offer. Paper as well as hardware cryptocurrency wallets possess strong security measures and protect form malicious attacks performed by cyber hackers. The defining point is that both these types of what is a crypto wallet functionalities are stored not online but offline. However, their total number of useful functions is limited and there exist risks of losing or destructing the thing. 

More than ten years ago, online digital currency wallets took a plunge and made their way to the crypto universe. They have managed to offer a quick, easy and smart way of managing and monitoring virtual assets. But the flipside of the hot wallets is that the software is prone to malicious cyber attacks, user account manipulations, and the user does not own the private keys, which n its turn poses serious security breaches.

Going further, crypto wallets can be categorized into custodial and non custodial digital wallets respectively. In the realm of traditional finance, a custodian is an agent who keeps records of the client’s assets and ensures their safety, but the client himself or another structure on his behalf can directly manage it.

In the crypto world, things are a little simpler. A custodial wallet is a wallet that is registered, for example, on a crypto exchange or in some other intermediary service. It is convenient to manage it from the web interface, the login and password pair can be quickly and easily recovered, but simultaneously, the service provider knows your identity and has a direct and free access to assets – after all. It is they who are in the control of the private key, not you as an individual. 

An intermediary can freeze assets by court order or lose as a result of a hack in its infrastructure. A non-custodial wallet, along with its “contents”, is entirely your property and responsibility. No service will help if you forget both the access password and the seed phrase: the funds will remain on the blockchain, but nothing can be done with them. This is the solution you require to choose for storing cryptocurrency – at least the main part of the assets. 

Cryptocurrency Wallet Risks

Experienced crypto investors choose online storage as temporary. For long-term investment, cold safes are more reliable. For security purposes, it is best for crypto wallet holders not to open emails from phishing companies masquerading as real ones when receiving email. Which crypto wallet to choose Each cryptocurrency wallet is designed for a specific purpose. Some of the crypto storages do not work with certain programs and devices. When selecting a cryptocurrency safe, you should find out if crypto wallets support the operation of the cryptocurrency you need. 

For example, the latest versions of crypto wallets are multi-currency oriented, which is more cost-effective. Earlier versions only saved one type of coin. In order to use a crypto wallet, it is best to study the instructions. The reliability of a virtual currency wallet feature is ensured by:

–          Public and private keys;

–          Multiple levels of protection.

t is not necessary for beginner cryptocurrency traders to have a hardware safe. At first, you can get by with online storage. How to create a crypto wallet The way to create a safe for storing cryptocurrency depends on the type of storage. The easiest way to create a crypto wallet is to open a vault online with two-factor authentication. This makes the user account more secure. To do this, indicate the address of the email address, linking to the phone number. Then you should come up with a strong password. “Cold” safes are purchased at well-known trading floors.

Conclusion

The choice which virtual currency to choose for storing and managing your digital assets is huge and it is entirely up to you to select which type or types of the service you are about to select and use in your everyday life, However, always pay scrupulous attention to the security of your finds and do not trust anyone when it concerns your financial stamina and welfare.

The post What Is a Crypto Wallet and How to Make a Wise Choice appeared first on Hashing24.com/blog.

Intro

Defining the Concept of Miner Extractable Value

MEV Strategies

Rising Popularity of MEV

Conclusion

Intro

The cryptocurrency market is skyrocketing and the ascending market cap curve goes up unstoppably — the capitalization index has exceeded the $2 trillion threshold. Only since the beginning of the year, this figure has grown by 180%. No less impressive results are shown by the decentralized finance (DeFi) segment. Its TVL is $181 billion, up more than 500% year-to-date.The popularity of smart contract applications opens up additional revenue loopholes based on market inefficiencies, architecture specifics of Ethereum and other blockchain systems, and DeFi’s widespread automated market maker mechanism with its inherent slippage and intermittent losses. One such loophole is Miner Extractable Value (MEV), to your knowledge. Factually, this is the bare profit that a cryptocurrency miner can make by adding, excluding, or reshuffling transactions in accordance to personal preferences in the blocks of a smart contract. With this in mind, the given analytical blog article illuminates the quintessence of what is MEV (or, to be more precise, what is Miner Extractable Value in its essence and its pluses and minuses), the reasons of its notoriously famous hype among virtual currency miners in the Binance Smart Chain and Ethereum blockchain networks and its negative effects on the blockchain ecosystem.

Defining the Conceptuality of Miner Extractable Value

With the crazy upward moving trend of DeFi projects and non-fungible tokens, MEV has turned in to a relatively new risk for users. This concerns not only high fees for users who pay the so-called invisible tax, but also about the sabotage of consensus by miners competing for additional profit. Many projects are building various tools to neutralize the harmful effects associated with MEV, including the completion of virtual currency transactions at a more or less suboptimal conversion rate. The development of second-layer scaling solutions and the launch of ETH 2.0 with a completely different consensus mechanism can effectively counter MEV.

Cryptocurrency miners are constantly adding transactions into sequentially linked blocks. Although blockchains guarantee the absence of double spending, it is not at all salient that these TXs will be located in the block position itself in the same order. Therefore, virtual currency miners are competent to earn additional profits by utilizing the chance to arbitrarily amalgamate the consecutive order of TXs. This core feature awards the possibility to gain the Miner Extractable Value.

Prior to being added in to an Ethereum block and verified on the network, the altcoin TX is accredited to a widely susceptible mempool. In the layman’s terms. It is a gigantic set of TXs pending for network confirmation. In this mempool, MEV specially programmed bots are looking for lucrative possibilities to generate some income, for example, from arbitrage transactions or alternatively from the liquidation of undersecured loans.

MEV Strategies

It is not rocket science: there exists a cornucopia of active and functional MEV strategies thus far. Each and every demand a clear ordering of TXs: for instance, their placement before and / or instantaneously after executing bulk orders on unregulated virtual currency exchanges. An arbitrage possibility appears regularly each time the cost of a virtual currency differs on different platforms. The fundamentals for such differences may be triggered by insufficient liquidity of coins and impressive sizes of TRs that affect their capitalization in the not so distant perspective. Arbitrageurs buy virtual currency on the site where it is cheaper and put it up for sale where it is hyperbolically expensive. Such TXs contribute to the kickback of coin or token values to the equilibrium state. Similar transactions are possible, including those taking place in-between DEX and regulated platforms. The main types of MEW strategies are outlined right here:

–          Frontrunning;

–          Screening;

–          Sandwich;

–          Uncle bandit.

First and foremost, frontrunning is the mechanism of introducing a new TR into the working line in the nick of time before the kernel TR. For instance, a trader makes a high volume deal with ether on some DEX. The operation is gigantic in its volume and it is capable of boosting the total cost of the Ethereum altcoin in the coinmarketcap statistics page. By identifying the corresponding TR in the middle of its progression in the mempool archive, the automated and programmed script is eligible to make a reasonable profit: make a purchase of Ethereum at an insignificant price just before they get their hands on a big volume of ETH, having the prime aim to subsequently sell the virtual currency at a costly price after its growth.

Screening. The programmed software initiates TR 1 to the blockchain at a lower gas cost by contrast with the TR2, which is in progress at the moment. Thus, TR 1 finishes right after TR 2 within the identical block. Case in point, with regard to liquidation strategies, bots place TXs in sync with the price oracle when it is updated to stay ahead of the competition. Or an order to sell an asset is performed without any delay following a sharp price spike of a coin triggered by a previous large purchase.

Sandwich is a symbiosis of the previously mentioned frontrunning and progressive back screening. In this type of scenario, a lumpy order for buying is detected in the smart mempool, and stemming from this, the robotized software submits its front-running order prior to it with an aim of buying virtual currencies at a much lower cost.

Uncle bandit. This is a more or less advanced type of attacking: the robotized software implements a “sandwich operation” with reliance on the data located in the uncle block. The latter, in fact, serves as a storage point. The core benefit of miners over the remaining part of the market players is obvious, conditioned that it is they who can detect the so-called uncle (neither a cousin or nephew) blocks in the first place.

Drawing a parallel with the conventional marketplace, it is worth considering that similarly arbitrage and frontrunning are by no means new phenomena in these scenarios. Backscreening in conventional and trifle markets is usually associated with mechanisms that allow trading firms to fulfill orders momentarily right after certain events. Dark pools are also in existence when it concerns conventional marketplaces. By and large, we can assign the title of closed platforms for trading assets that are not available to ordinary investors. Buyers and sellers on such platforms are able to submit orders without disclosing sensitive data about them to the wide audience. Since not only miners but also other market players participate in such operations, MEV is being grossly deciphered as the Maximum Extractable Value In this context.

Rising Popularity of MEV

With reference to the MEV-Explore service sites, for over two years, market participants have extracted over $1 billion worth of MEV (that is impressive!). The explosive nature in MEV mining, also known as the “invisible tax”, has caused multiple virtual currency miners to launch their own robotized software. In March 2021, the large Ethereum pool Ethermine from the Austrian company BitFly implemented an MEV arbitrage strategy the prime aim of which was to compensate for the loss of virtual currency miners’ income followed by the activation of the London hard fork. 80% of the earned profits were distributed among the pool participants. The top MEV transactions with the ATH indices (excluding the not so significant figures):

–          Liquidation ($3,264,587.08);

–          Arbitrage ($2,848,770.92);

–          Liquidation ($2,202,264.97).

Independent analysts note that as early as April 2021, up to 30% of blocks in Ethereum contained transactions related to MEV strategies. Probably, by now, a significant part of the top 10 mining pools and large solo miners use one or another MEV solution, for instance, the most popular MEV-Geth flash programmed software. As the popularity of blockchain based technologies is on the considerable crest of hype, arbitrage possibilities expand and useful instruments for conducting related TXs develop.

The destructive nature of MEV can be evaluated from both perspectives, positive and negative. A lot of researchers, developers, experts and analysts believe that the very phenomenon of MEV is poisonous and toxic for the users in the blockchain ecosystem. However, every cloud has its silver lining and everyone can gain maximum profit when the golden opportunity is on the horizon. By simply resorting and mixing the virtual currency transactions in the mem pool one can absorb a great deal of useful information and afterwards, make big things happen in the crypto universe. This all is limited to a person’s imagination and creativity, whereas the digital universe grants an awesome access to the digital transformation and flexible technologies.

When the best and market oriented prices are located, the protocol itself performs the orders for buying or selling tokens in batches. At a first glance, it looks for CoWs trading orders: if there exists a perfect match, a smaller trade is being fulfilled to a larger order accordingly. GPv2 then searches for the most preferable liquidity on other DEXs to complete the remaining order executions.

A negative effect of frontrunning is the completion of trading at a sub-optimal conversion ratio. Over time, more complex miner-intensive transaction reordering strategies may proliferate. Currently, alternative DeFi ecosystems are actively developing: Binance Smart Chain, Solana, Polygon, Terra. A natural question arises: are they perfectly suitable for MEV, or are such operations peculiar only to the Ethereum ecosystem?

Many projects are doing their best to lessen the impact of MEV. The one that is undeniably worth mentioning is Flashbots. The firm’s personnel have developed tools to circulate MEV and address data inconsistencies in the ledger. Besides, they are actively developing the Flashbot Alpha solution, which implements a closed bidding bid mechanism to prioritize TXs. In fact, it is an upgraded Ethereum format of Geth.

Conclusion

The meteoric upward trend of the DeFi segment is not purely associated with hacker attacks and fraudulent schemes. One should keep in mind that a more or less new risk for clients of unregulated platforms is MEV (now you know what is MEV, its major differentiating factors, its impact, both negative and positive, etc.). A kaleidoscope of innovative solutions are being built and transformed to counter the MEV phenomenon.

The post What is MEV? Additional Profit for ETH Miners appeared first on Hashing24.com/blog.

Intro

What Is Bitcoin?

Why Do People Invest in BTC?

Important Factors to Consider Prior to Purchasing Bitcoin

Where to Buy Bitcoin and Other Altcoins?

Alternative Venues for Purchasing Bitcoins

How to Purchase Bitcoin Online?

Conclusion

Intro

Whatever the case, the pioneering Bitcoin cryptocurrency has demonstrated its meteoric growth for over 14 years and it is widely used as a means of payment in every corner of the world. At the date of writing, its total market capitalization is valued at $574,256,564,779 and occupies the first place in the crypto charts. The people’s involvement with Bitcoin as the “golden digital standard” is all conquering: some people are affected by its gigantic volatility and they speculate on crazy price swings, some use it as a store of value in order to boost and diversify their financial portfolios, while others are mesmerized b its decentralized nature and anonymity. One way or another, the best performing cryptocurrency has firmly made its path in our lives, however the problem outlined as “how can I buy some Bitcoins and where to do this fast and safely” is bothering the minds of millions of people. Let us briefly discuss the issue “how can I buy Bitcoins” and provide some basic recommendations on where and how to do this.

What Is Bitcoin?

It is needless to describe the popularity of the BTC crypto in our days, but one thing that is worth going in to more detail is the concept of Bitcoin. Let us step it up and get to know it closer. To put it clearly, Bitcoin is a virtual currency that operates on a P2P basis using the blockchain technology without any centralized issuing or controlling authority. Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, made it available to the wide audience back in 2009 and since then, it has become the trend-setter in the crypto universe. The crypto uses the Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm to mint new coins into mass circulation. The minimum unit of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency is named after its creator, — Satoshi. The circulating supply of Bitcoins is limited to 21 million units and roughly every four years, the mining reward for minting new BTC coins reduces by half in order to avoid inflation. The key features of Bitcoin that attract all the interested people from all around the world are:

–          Decentralized nature;

–          Privacy as well as fundamental fungibility characteristics;

–          Highly speculative digital asset;

–          Relatively fast Bitcoin transaction processing due to the implementation of Lightning Network;

–          Excellent financial portfolio diversification because Bitcoin is viewed as the golden standard in the world of crypto;

–          Buying and selling Bitcoins has become an easy walk due to its widespread use, popularity, hype and accessibility;

–          Hard capitalization and limited supply;

–          Irreversible transactions and anonymity;

–          Great liquidity and network scalability;

–          Highly resistant to censorship and control by the governmental bodies.

Why Do People Invest in BTC?

Undoubtedly, there is something mesmerizing in crypto investments, especially choosing Bitcoin as the main financial portfolio diversifier. A few decades ago, everyone was mad about stocks, gold, metal, oil, futures, bonds, derivatives and so on and so forth. Now the trending investing position has been occupied by decentralized virtual currencies, whereas the youngsters are overwhelmed by Bitcoin and altcoins fueled by inevitable social media driven future perspectives. The greater the people’s involvement in cryptos, the more the Bitcoin market capitalization expands and its value is on the rise. Here is a short list of the main reasons why people decide to make a step forward and get in to the realm of BTC and other virtual assets:

–          Speculative perspectives. The cryptocurrencies are volatile by their nature and it brings endless opportunities to make incredible profits in a short time;

–          Due to its programmed scarcity, Bitcoin is oftentimes used as an inflation hedge to secure investments;

–          Many people like the very trend of Bitcoin and they purchase, sell and swap (exchange) crypto to stay mainstream;

–          Educational purposes. People are amazed by the blockchain based technologies and want to get to know about the digital ledger, immutability, storage, online exchanges, crypto wallets, online crypto payments and P2P BTC purchasing;

–          The BTC mining market is overburdened with propositions to make passive income with cloud based BTC mining. A decade ago or so, solo BTC mining for beginners was very easy and it was possible to mine BTC with a regular desktop PC. However, the situation has drastically changed and crop adepts flocked the cloud based mining sector. Stemming from this, people invest in BTC mining to earn passive income and multiply their gains in the due course of time.

Important Factors to Consider Prior to Purchasing Bitcoin

Before investing your capital in purchasing Bitcoin or any other blockchain based coin or token, it is a prerequisite to conduct a scrupulous investigation and get prepared in advance. This is of utmost importance because this way, you can avoid scam projects, problems with regulators and taxation. save, protect and multiply your investments, store, HODL and transact freely crypto in any direction you deem it is necessary, among others. The more you know and the greater efforts you take with precautions, the smoother your crypto experience will be. Let us get started with outlining the key factors before buying crypto.

Choosing Exchange Service

There are virtually hundreds of crypto exchange service providers offering to buy Bitcoin and altcoins at fair prices like Coinbase, Binance, Switchere, Paybis, Kraken, etc. However, you should decide which crypto exchange or trading platform you are about to use for purchasing crypto, at the same time paying special attention to website usability, fees, exchange directions, licensing, regulation, security, customer loyalty programs and genuine customer reviews.

Security

Use secure Internet connection networking in your everyday business life. Never use public internet connections for your financial transaction processing and/or deal striking. Besides, make sure to check if the site’s architecture and infrastructure are well protected and your user account will not be compromised in any event. Always get familiarized with the security and privacy policies of the service provider and ascertain that offline crypto wallets are deployed by the chosen provider. Anyhow, if the private keys are not yours, you are at risk of losing your money at any moment. Check out is the website implements two factor authentication (two step verification), inactivity logout periods, wallet addresses whitelist. The more you know, the more you can control the process of managing your cryptocurrency portfolio.

Fees

By all means, the fee structure and policy can play a pivotal role in choosing a reliable brokerage firm to buy Bitcoin online. The crypto exchange services charge different commissions for their services, varying from deposits and withdrawals to trading and liquidation fees. In fact, this is the budget forming income for crypto trading platforms. Different providers charge fees depending on their reasonability, secure architecture, personnel involvement, legal stuff, salaries and business integration policies and marketing strategies. Nonetheless, always double check the fee details and make your own calculation after your order payment because certain platforms may charge unreasonable hidden fees with an aim of making additional profit. Let us demonstrate how different platforms charge for their service provision:

The figures are presented for illustrative purposes and may slightly differ. However, as you may judge from the commission details, the percentage can greatly differ from one exchange to other conditioned by geography, legislation, usability, greed and trademark recognition.

Ease of Use (UI and UX)

The final decision to use a particular platform to buy, sell or swap Bitcoin or other virtual currency may be greatly impacted by the smart ease of use of the exchange services. The majority of companies invest tons of money into developing a user-friendly interface with intuitive navigation and multilingual website localization. Of particular interest is a nifty mobile application made available by progressive crypto platform for a toll-free usage. They may contain versatile price alerts, charts, graphs, order books, built-in account balance features as well as staking, lending, borrowing, Bitcoin cloud mining services, instant crypto-to-crypto swaps, just to name a few.

Versatile Payment Methods

A wide choice of available payment options for buying the first and most popular decentralized asset is astonishing. A person can choose the most preferable way to pay for his or her crypto purchases or online sales, starting from conventional VISA, Maestro, Mastercard, American Express, Electron bank cards (credit, debit, prepaid personalized and non-personalized cards) ending with region-specific payment methods, e-payments and wire transfers. It allows for more freedom in managing and controlling the financial portfolio and it factually boosts the liquidity of the crypto industry. For illustrative purposes, let us view the number of available payment options in different crypto exchange platforms:

As far as you can observe, the difference rate is paramount and it is also worth getting familiarized with the trading pairs available for instant buy and sell orders. The thing is that the richer the choice of crypto trading pairs, the more liquidity it can bring to you and your trading strategy. As of lately, a lot of crypto trading platforms started to issue their own branded crypto card for online payments with real time conversion rates on the Internet. The more a platform can offer to its users, the more attractive it becomes to crypto beginners and seasoned professionals alike. Finally, crypto oriented sites add more and more features to their sites with an aim of attracting new users, among which are staking, P2P lending, over-the-counter desks, DeFi projects and NFTs, just to name a few.

Licensing

In view of the increased interest in crypto transactions, anonymity, decentralized nature of blockchain technologies by fraudsters, terrorists, scammers and cyber criminals, the situation dictates that the activity of crypto trading and exchange platforms must be regulated to a certain extent. The more platforms report about their turnover and transaction activity, the less the risk of being deceived by companies with poor reputation. Each licensed and regulated exchange values its brand, trademark and reputation, therefore the risk of scams and unlawful user account manipulations is minimal. The list of popular regulated and licensed crypto trading providers is as follows:

By and large, regulation by authorities and licensing are the signs of a mature approach to business running and iti s purely customer oriented. In fact, regulation does not allow certain governments to avoid applied political, economic and military sanctions and keep on laundering money using the blockchain based technologies.

Taxation

Whatever the case, it is your obligation to know what tax laws are applicable in this or that jurisdiction. The crypto market is largely not regulated, whereas in some countries like China all crypto related operations are banned.

Where to Buy Bitcoin and Other Altcoins?

For experienced traders and newcomers to the crypto industry alike, crypto trading platforms offer a paragon of useful instruments to buy and sell crypto using the trading engine. Traders submit buy and sell orders in the order book and speculate on price swings. For those who want to experience greater risks in crypto investments, a lot of crypto trading platforms like Kraken, Bitfinex, HITBTC, Coinbase and alike offer margin or leveraged trading. To buy Bitcoin with a crypto trading platform, it is necessary to fund a user account and place a buy order (market or limit).

For over five years or so, online cryptocurrency exchange platforms have taken the plunge and are one of the most popular venues for purchasing Bitcoin and other altcoins. You may wonder why it is so? The answer is pragmatic: buying Bitcoin turned out like an easy walk to a shopping center. At the onset, it was even redundant to register an account and go through KYC verification. The main beauty of online crypto exchanges was ease of crypto access and simple user workflow. However, in due course, when the regulatory compliance became stricter, the GDPR, CCD and AML policies were implemented to eliminate any chance of fraudulent activities.

Case in point, over-the-counter trading allows to move large amounts of money without using public order books on crypto trading platforms. This option is suitable for high volume single traders and institutional traders. The minimal entry point may start from a few hundred thousand dollars and the only limit in this case can be the starting capital. A lot of wealthy whales use OTC trading to sporadically transact millions of US dollars worth in crypto.

In its turn, decentralized P2P cryptocurrency exchange platforms like LocalBitcoins allow to strike deals for buying and selling BTC and altcoins without involving third-parties.

Alternative Venues for Purchasing Bitcoins

The ways to purchasing BTC are not limited to trading platforms, online exchanges, OTC trades, or P2P exchanges. There exist a lot of other methods to buy Bitcoin online. One of the most popular ways to get some crypto near your house, workplace, etc. is Bitcoin ATMs. You can insert paper cash in the slot and purchase or sell Bitcoin in real-time. Nonetheless, using ATMs for purchasing crypto is rather costly due to service charges associated with the ATM exchange. The average fee for buying BTC at Bitcoin ATMs is more than eight percentage from the total amount (by contrast, online crypto exchanges charge from four to five percentage respectively). Nonetheless, Bitcoin ATMS can be found in all popular venues like hotels, airports, stores, gas stations, etc. As of today, the United States of America are the leaders in installed Bitcoin ATMs.

As of recently, PayPal has made it available to US residents to buy crypto. Unfortunately, the rest of the world does not have access to the option of buying crypto, which is why its spread and popularity are rather slow paced. Another drawback of PayPal is that a user cannot transfer crypto outside his or her PayPal account. To crown it all, there are very few crypto exchanges that support PayPal as a payment gateway.

Different brokerage firms offer their services including the purchase of Bitcoins and other popular cryptocurrencies. However, the Bitcoin purchases via the brokerage firms are unprotected by insurance. A person may buy futures contracts on BTC and trade the coin right there.

How to Purchase Bitcoin Online?

Let us describe how to buy Bitcoin using different examples. For a starter, we can begin our crypto journey with online crypto exchange platform Switchere. To buy Bitcoin online using your credit card, simply register an account with the Switchere crypto exchange and complete the basic verification tier. The onboarding process will take from 10 to 30 minutes. Once registered and verified, you can use the widget form to enter necessary pay-in details like the amount you want to convert, the payment method and your crypto wallet address. Once you check all the order details and make a corresponding payment, you will receive Bitcoins to your crypto wallet. Alternatively, you can download the Switchere mobile app and purchase BTC using your smartphone.

Regarding the purchase of BTC on crypto trading platforms, let us take Binance as an example. You do the same as with any online crypto exchange: register an account and get verified. Set up your account security options and deposit some funds to your user account. Once your balance is topped up, you can use the trading dashboard and submit orders to buy crypto. Likewise, you can buy BTC using your regular credit card similar to online crypto exchanges. In general, the mechanism of buying BTC is very similar with the rest of payment alternatives. But it is important to take into consideration that you have to store your crypto assets in your personal wallet, preferably in cold storage in order to avoid cyber hacks, blackmailing, account manipulations, or unsanctioned use of your balance.

Conclusion

Drawing closer to a conclusion, be sure to investigate the topic prior to making any financial decisions and do not invest more than you can afford to lose because cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile and you can either gain or lose money in a matter of seconds. Stay tuned for more useful articles on our official blog and join the crypto mainstream today!

The post Dilemma: How Can I Buy Bitcoin and Other Cryptos Online? appeared first on Hashing24.com/blog.