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Man the crypto markets have been killing it for 3 months straight, nothing but up up up.. I made 3% on my investment overnight.
I feel like with the recent addition of crypto pay to paypal, plus Starbucks taking cryptocurrency and a few other major retailers this trends isnt going to change, if anything it is going to accelerate.
I really feel like we are on the verge of crypto breaking out to mainstream and seeing it as a payment method everywhere in the next year... Now is absolutely the time to start investing in crypto.
@v4ngu4rd yes, but before i give a full answer what do you mean platform here? Are you talking about the buying/selling, the storage of it? the trading from one token to another? The using it to buy goods directly without needing to convert to fiat? Or all of the above? (generally each of these questions uses a different tool that all interconnect).
Oh and another question for me to be able to give you a good answer...
Do you plan to hold just one or two cryptocurencies? Or are you interested in holding a large variety of them for the purposes of investing?
The reason i ask is because there are different wallets (hardware, or software) that are suited for different scenarios.. hardware are way more secure but if you plan to spend your crypto like money they arent convenient they are more suited for storing large amounts (like a bank). I keep a software wallet with a tiny bit of just one crypto on my phone, this is my spending money. Then on my hardware wallet I have like 20 or 30 different cryptos stored and kept at home (with the backup in a safe at the bank).
@freemo i have a software wallet already, my attention is currently on Monero but i never had more than 3 crypto per time, I'm not a power user and thia is still not my dominant money choice for now, that's the reason
@v4ngu4rd Ok so as far as I’m concerned there are a few options here that I use, one depends on where you are located.. ill go through each and mention the pros and cons.
The choices
Coinbase - This is the most popular of the options. Its main strength is that it makes it very quick and easy to deposit and withdraw cash. It uses ACH to link bank accounts so moving from crypto to cash is sort of instantaneous. While you can buy crypto with cash up to 25K per day instantly you have to keep the crypto in coinbase for a few days before transferring out, but the crypto starts earning its interest right away.
It also lets you exchange between cryptos and withdraw without any fees. Also if the crypto you buy has staking (it gains interest) they do this for you automatically when its in your account without the limitations of real staking (such as a cooldown period to withdraw after staking).
The big downside here, however, is that have a very limited set of cryptos you can buy and trade so if you want to deal in some of the less well known cryptos or tokens, or especially if you want to get in on new tokens just coming to the market then you dont have the option here.
gate.io - This is a proper exchange. To get money into the exchange you have to do a traditional wire transfer, which is the same way you get money out. Which means 1 - 3 days either way and is slow. On the plus side they have absolutely the largest variety of crypto coins and tokens to pick from. I find i use this service more than any others simply because more often than not its the only service I have access to that has the coin I need.
Fees are very low which is a plus, but since it is traded like stocks (you put a price limit) be careful you price your trade close to market price or else you can loose a big percentage just because you made a bad offer (selling a coin way cheaper than its worth).
Keep in mind also that you dont have to buy into this with fiat and do the wire transfer at all. If all you want to do is trade one crypto you already hold for another (say you bought them off coinbase for example), you can do that instantly. You can transfer your existing crypto into your gate account in minutes, trade it, then immediately transfer it back out, so it is very fast and affordable to exchange cryptos on the market.
Binance - This is similar to gate.io but I dont recomend it if you are in the US, its only really a decent option outside of the US and even then gate has a slight advantage IMO on the choice of cryptos. Basically in the US you are restricted to using binance.us which has a very small selection of cryptos, outside of the US you can use binance.com which has a fairly large selection of cryptos (though gate has a bit more).
The one advantage that might sell you on binance is they offer a credit card that is backed by your account. So you can literally spend cryptos anywhere a credit card is accepted. But I dont think they offer this on the US site.
uniswap - Uniswap is worth a mention because it is an exchange that exists entirely on the blockchain and is decentralized with no company controlling it or making profit off it. The way it works is people add “liquidity” to uniswap by offering pairs of tokens to the system and anytime someone makes a trade they get a percentage. So its a nice way to make a sort of “interest” off of your crypto. On the flip side you can use it to exchange your own cryptos with people without going through a proper exchange.
Two downsides to uniswap. First its only for exchanging ethereum or ethereum tokens, you cant trade ETH for bitcoin for example. However there are identical systems for other non ethereum chains that support tokens. For example BNB is a totally different cryptocurrency that like ethereum supports tokens. For exchanging BNB tokens you can use pancake swap.
One word of caution, uniswap and things like it tend to charge a flat rate between about 30$ to 50$ worth of crypto. Therefore it is only really an economic option when you are exchanging large quantities of coins.
Trezor live - One final mention. In the trezor live software that you use to manage a trezor hardware wallet (highly recommend you use one), there is a window where you can exchange tokens and coins with other people right in the GUI, you can also buy coins with your credit card in the GUI. So this isnt a bad option. However the selection is limited.
@freemo firstly, great, thanks for the long answer, this will be a sort of a 'how to' to me, this needs a bit of study but is certainly interesting.
I will look coinbase and gate.io for sure, it seems they're a great pair to start with..
I'm out of the us, Europe, don't know if I'd be able to switch completely to crypto but for sure it's worth a try at least
@v4ngu4rd I dont hold any monero, so I dont personally feel its a great investment choice. That said its price has spiked along with every other crypto the last 3 months, so i could be wrong. Obviously you invest in what feels right to you.
I'd like to get into crypto as a medium of exchange but I can't find one that is a) not wasteful of energy, b) fairly distributed, c) private, d) stable, e) actually decentralised (you'd be surprised) and f) not super expensive to transact with like Ethereum (preferably one that will stay that way too).
What I do is use a bank called revolut. They allow me to instantly exchange between fiat and crypto at no fee. This is my day-to-day spending. So i keep a few hundred as USD, then a few thousand as ethereum and only move my ethereum to USD when i need it. Then spend with my bank card.
If you want to spend with your crypto directly then you can use binance.com if your out of the USA to get a bank card backed by crypto, or you can get crypto.com as well. Or you can just use paypal or companies that take crypto directly.
As for actual cryptos that meet all your criteria, sadly we are still on our way to some of those goals with a clear path and timeline but not all there yet. The reason being the coins that truely match all your criteria are new and in development so not really supported to buy things which seems to be limited to only the most popular coins like ethereum or bitcoin. But they will be major players very soon.
Ethereum is probably your closest match as they are transitioning to proof-of-work so they will soon satisfy point and are ok-ish on your other points. However I'd keep an eye on cardano, it is still in development, though stable as a currency, and right out of the gate seeks to satisfy all your requirements. Just needs to get a bit farther along before it becomes mainstream enough hat you can buy things with it directly.
Keep in mind im investing, so im betting onw here things are going. I am not trying to say cryptocoins **are** mainstream yet, but they are very clearly breaking through to mainstream now and headed there quickly. So from an investment standpoint they are the no brainer choice. From a consumer standpoint they arent the best yet but are very quickly getting there.
@freemo you're right i didn't specify, what i mean is if you could suggest a good trading broker, some relatively practical and 'certified', with the option to cash out to fiat as well
@freemo do you have any platform to suggest on which invest on these assets?