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- 1. How & where to buy Bitcoin (BTC) online
- 2. How to buy Bitcoin instantly in 3 simple steps
- 3. Where to buy BTC easily
- 4. Best exchanges to buy Bitcoin (BTC), reviewed
- 5. How to trade BTC
- 6. What is the best way to pay for Bitcoin (BTC)?
- 7. How do I store Bitcoin (BTC)?
- 8. Is Bitcoin (BTC) a good investment?
- 9. Is now a good time to buy Bitcoin?
- 10. FAQs
How & where to buy Bitcoin (BTC) online
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Bitcoins are available on a cryptocurrency exchange, which functions similar to a stock trading platform. It takes just a few minutes to buy Bitcoin this way. Follow our quick step guide below.
How to buy Bitcoin instantly in 3 simple steps
To buy Bitcoin you need a smartphone or a computer and an internet connection. It takes 10-15 minutes the first time and you should have some photo ID to hand. Here’s how to do it.
Step 1. Sign up to eToro
eToro is the simplest crypto exchange to get started with. Create an account and supply a copy of your photo ID for verification.
Step 2. Make a deposit
Add funds via a card payment, bank transfer or an alternative payment method. You can start with as little as £10.
Step 3. Buy Bitcoin token
Type BTC into the search box then click ‘trade’. Enter how much money you want to spend and hit ‘trade now’.
Now you own Bitcoin tokens! It’s as simple as that.
Where to buy BTC easily
The overall best exchange to buy Bitcoin token for beginners is eToro .
Here are the top three places to buy Bitcoin, ranked according to their simplicity for beginners, fees, customer reviews, and safety ratings.
Read more about how we rate, rank and review platforms.
Best exchanges to buy Bitcoin (BTC), reviewed
1. eToro. Best for beginners, copy-trading & demo-account
1500
No. assets
$10
Minimum deposit
Crypto
Platform type
Pros & Cons
Overview
We love eToro because it makes it simple to trade crypto at home or on the go. If you’ve never bought cryptocurrency before, then eToro makes it simple to buy 75+ of the leading coins, including the likes of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin. Every crypto trade comes with a flat 1% fee, which makes it one of the cheapest crypto brokers on the market to boot.
As well as being a broker that offers lots of investor protection, eToro offers a very social trading experience. You can easily see what’s trending on the crypto market every day, browse the latest technical analysis about every one of those tokens, and copy other people’s trade suggestions from your desktop or the eToro app.
The fees: You will be charged a 1% fee every time you buy or sell crypto. The charge is included in the market price that’s displayed on eToro. CFD trades may be charged an overnight or weekend fee if you leave the position open.
2. Public. Best for sharing beginner trading ideas
...
No. assets
...
Minimum deposit
Crypto
Platform type
Pros & Cons
Overview
We love Public because it’s a social platform where you can share trading tips and get ideas from other people. Public offers 9,000+ financial instruments, including cryptocurrencies and stocks from around the world.
Alongside a community of other investors all sharing their ideas, Public offers real time news and information so that you can see the full picture before you invest. And the assets don’t just include your run-of-the-mill assets; you can make alternative investments in things like handbags and comic books as well.
The fees: Cryptocurrency trades are charged a 2.5% fee per transaction.
3. Bitstamp. Best for professionals & trading with APIs
1
No. assets
...
Minimum deposit
Crypto
Platform type
Pros & Cons
Overview
We love Bitstamp because it has a proud reputation for top performance over more than decade. Bitstamp offers trading on 75+ cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin, while staking is available on Ethereum and Algorand.
Bitstamp was one of the first crypto platforms to set up shop in 2011 and has built up trust since. It’s designed with institutional traders in mind, so it prides itself on near 100% uptime. It stores 95% of assets in cold storage and offers a sliding scale of fees so that high volume traders get the best rates.
The fees: There are no trading fees if you trade less than $1,000 in a rolling 30-day period. Above that, fees start from 0.4% and decline the higher your trading volume is. There is a 15% charge for staking. Withdrawals are charged a flat €3 fee.
4. Uphold. Best for building long term wealth
...
No. assets
$1
Minimum deposit
Crypto
Platform type
Pros & Cons
Overview
We love Uphold because it’s a regulated and transparent digital asset platform. There are 160+ cryptocurrencies available to hold and trade, along with three fiat currencies; GBP, EUR, and USD.
Uphold’s key features include the ability to schedule transactions to avoid trying to time the market. With a focus on long term wealth building, Uphold also offers the ability to earn rewards of up to 25% on staked crypto, as well as 4% cashback paid in XRP for purchases made with the Uphold card.
The fees: Crypto spreads start from 0.9% and are usually lower than 1.3% for BTC and ETH. Other cryptocurrency spreads are higher. Average spreads on fiat currency are 0.2%. There is a $0.99 fee for transactions under $100 made with the Uphold card.
5. KuCoin. Best social trading altcoin exchange
1
No. assets
...
Minimum deposit
Crypto
Platform type
Pros & Cons
Overview
We love KuCoin because it;s a great place for beginners to trade more than 700 altcoins. KuCoin is a social trading platform with 20+ million investors worldwide in 200+ countries.
KuCoin’s beginner zone offers up rewards up to $500 for new users. The rest of the platform has plenty of features for the crypto enthusiast: a staking service to earn money on your stored crypto, an NFT marketplace, and margin trading features to buy leveraged tokens.
The fees: Trading fees are charged on a sliding scale. Fees are 0.1% on trading volumes below 50 BTC in a 30 day period. Discounts are available if you pay fees in KCS or store more than 1000 KCS in your account.
How to trade BTC
You can trade Bitcoin on a cryptocurrency exchange using a few simple steps. Here’s a quick example that clearly lays out how BTC crypto trading works:
- Monitor the price: Let’s say the price of BTC/USDT is $1. You read the price charts and decide that now is a good time to start purchasing BTC.
- Open a trade: You trade one USDT for one BTC ($1 for 1 BTC).
- Continue to monitor the price: The next day, one BTC token is now worth $2, a 100% increase.
- Close your trade: You trade your BTC token back to USDT for $2.
In this example, you buy and sell Bitcoin, doubling your money (trading). While the steps are simple, executing them in a profitable way is not so easy. You need to spend many hours learning to trade, reading charts, patterns, and understanding markets and margin trading; which you can do right here on Invezz.com.
What is the best way to pay for Bitcoin (BTC)?
The simplest way to buy Bitcoin cryptocurrency is with your bank card. However, there are plenty of other options as well. Here are some of the top ways to pay for BTC.
- Buy Bitcoin with a credit card or debit card. Card payments are convenient and instantaneous but you may have to pay a higher fee to make a deposit this way. Binance charges 1.8% for a card deposit and some platforms charge as much as 4%.
- Buy Bitcoin with bank transfer. A bank transfer is usually the cheapest way to buy crypto. Crypto platforms like Crypto.com and Coinbase do not charge for bank transfer deposits, while Binance only charges a £1 fee, and these transactions are more or less instant as they run through the Faster Payments System (FPS).
- Buy Bitcoin with PayPal. Some crypto brokers accept deposits via PayPal. eToro is the best option because it doesn’t charge a fee for PayPal deposits, whereas the charge can be as high as 5% or more with other platforms.
- Alternative payment methods. Crypto brokers often let you pay with other providers or money transfer services, like Neteller, Venmo, or Payoneer. The options vary by broker, though, so check what’s accepted before you sign up.
How do I store Bitcoin (BTC)?
Most people keep their crypto on the exchange they used to buy it. If you only plan to hold onto it for a little while then that’s a perfectly acceptable option. If you want to hold it for years or you own a lot of Bitcoin then you should move it to a crypto wallet.
A crypto exchange is similar to a bank account, in that it means trusting a company to protect your funds for you. A wallet is like your personal wallet, or a safe, where you take responsibility for it yourself. Two of the best Bitcoin wallets to use are MetaMask and the Ledger Nano S.
Is Bitcoin (BTC) a good investment?
Whether it’s good for you depends on your goals and the fundamentals of the project. Here are some key features of Bitcoin and its token to help you decide whether to invest in BTC.
- Bitcoin’s goal is to create a viable currency outside of the control of a centralised institution. Bitcoin is built on a blockchain, a decentralised ledger that stores a public record of all transactions. It is not controlled by any one individual or company, so it represents an alternative to the traditional financial system.
- Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency and is by far the most popular. Bitcoin was developed in response to the 2008 Financial Crisis. The Bitcoin white paper was released in the same year. It has a far longer track record of success than any other crypto, along with a simple aim.
- There is a fixed maximum supply of Bitcoin. There will never be more than 21 million Bitcoin in existence. The Bitcoin code is written so that the incentive for mining new coins is reduced regularly – these events are known as a ‘halving’ – and the final Bitcoin won’t be created until about 2140. But the fixed supply means that it benefits from scarcity that drives up the price.
- You can speculate on Bitcoin, use it as a store of value, or as a means of making payment online. While many cryptos are purely speculative assets, Bitcoin has a practical use as a means of buying things, or as a way of storing your wealth outside of a bank or financial institution. It has been called ‘digital gold’, and it can help to think of it in that way: as a long term store of value.
- Bitcoin has a lot of institutional support. Financial institutions like Goldman Sachs have added Bitcoin to their balance sheets. Many Bitcoin ETFs and funds now exist, which helps to stabilise the price and increase trust. Companies like Tesla and Microstrategy are also famously long Bitcoin and have added billions of dollars’ worth to their own balance sheets.
- Cryptocurrency experiences much larger price swings than traditional investments. While a large stock, like Apple, might only move 2-3% in a day, it’s quite common for Bitcoin to swing 5% or more. You have to be mentally prepared for that sort of daily swing in the value of your investment in order to buy Bitcoin.
- Bitcoin is built on an energy-intensive, Proof of Work blockchain. A Proof of Work blockchain requires ‘miners’ to operate. Bitcoin miners run powerful computers that require a lot of energy to run, which has proved controversial. This form of blockchain is incredibly secure – the Bitcoin blockchain is near enough impossible to hack – but the trade off is large energy consumption.
Use this quick summary of pros and cons to compare Bitcoin with other, similar projects.
Pros
- The original and most popular cryptocurrency
- The total supply of Bitcoins is limited to 21 million
- You can use Bitcoin to buy things online or as a store of value
- The Bitcoin blockchain is extremely secure thanks to its Proof of Work mechanism
- Many companies and institutions have bought into Bitcoin in the past couple of years
Cons
Ultimately, many different factors play into the answer. Cryptocurrency is inherently volatile but you can reduce the risks by investing in quality projects that provide value to the community.
How has Bitcoin (BTC) performed this year?
The current Bitcoin price today is $16,788.40, 73.93% below its all time high of $64,400, which it reached on 12 November 2021. BTC is down 64.83% this year, with a 52 week high of $50,848.10 and a 52 week low of $15,760.
Is now a good time to buy Bitcoin?
The answer depends on the current price and your own investment goals. Put simply, buying Bitcoin, selling Bitcoin, and trading BTC are all the exact same process. It’s really just your personal investing intentions that defines whether now is a good time to invest or not.
- If you’re a trader: as a cryptocurrency trader, your goal is to make money trading regularly. What do we mean by regularly? Hourly, daily, weekly. Traders buy and sell a coin quickly to secure their profit (or to avoid a loss). They don’t #hodl that coin long term in the hopes of larger profits. In this sense, any time is a good time to buy Bitcoin.
- As a long-term investor: a long term investor is not concerned if the price is up or down 10% on any given day. Rather, they care that the price of the native token is overall up months or years later, when they’re ready to sell that investment. So if you’re a firm believer in the foundations of Bitcoin and its decentralised aggregator platform, then a good time to purchase Bitcoin is on any major dip.
In our experience, most newcomers to the crypto market sit between the two. You don’t want to wait several years for a return, but buying Bitcoin and selling it the next day probably isn’t why you’re here either.
Regardless, closely following BTC price news & analysis will help you decide when to pull the trigger:
Bitcoin’s distribution unchanged post-FTX, remains top-heavy with whales dominating
Embattled BTC miner Core Scientific seeking approval for $70M loan from B. Riley
Weekly markets TL;DR: Massive week ahead for stocks, crypto and forex
FAQs
More ways to buy cryptocurrency
Invezz is a place where people can find reliable, unbiased information about finance, trading, and investing – but we do not offer financial advice and users should always carry out their own research. The assets covered on this website, including stocks, cryptocurrencies, and commodities can be highly volatile and new investors often lose money. Success in the financial markets is not guaranteed, and users should never invest more than they can afford to lose. You should consider your own personal circumstances and take the time to explore all your options before making any investment. Read our risk disclaimer >
Navigation
- 1. How & where to buy Bitcoin (BTC) online
- 2. How to buy Bitcoin instantly in 3 simple steps
- 3. Where to buy BTC easily
- 4. Best exchanges to buy Bitcoin (BTC), reviewed
- 5. How to trade BTC
- 6. What is the best way to pay for Bitcoin (BTC)?
- 7. How do I store Bitcoin (BTC)?
- 8. Is Bitcoin (BTC) a good investment?
- 9. Is now a good time to buy Bitcoin?
- 10. FAQs