You may not know your BTC from FIAT, but now’s the time to take the plunge into the world of digital currency.
The price of the most well-known cryptocurrency, Bitcoin or BTC for short, mushroomed from $900 at the start of last year to nearly $20,000 in December.
Since, the price has plunged to around $11,700, but according to experts, this could be the time buy if you want a slice of the huge profits that have made some investors multimillionaires in the past 12 months.
Bitcoin is the best known, highest value and most available cryptocurrency, with a market capitalisation of $16.8 billion – but not the only digital currency to make huge strides in price.
$900 at the start of last year to nearly $20,000 in December.
Other popular cryptocurrencies out of the thousand or so available include:
- Ether or Ethereum – Soared in price from $13 to $937 in the past year, with a high of $1,222 only a week ago
- Ripple – Just breaking above zero at 44 cents in August 2017. Now $1.13 but topping out t $3.40 just after the start of 2017.
- Litecoin – Barely registered in May 2017 at $2, but currently trading at $246 after striking a peak of $360 in December 2017
Why buy in to cryptocurrency now?
Experienced investors would say buy low and sell high. Digital currencies have seen a lot of volatility in recent weeks, but most seem to have levelled out.
Buying now means purchasing more units, if the price rises, investors make a bigger profit.
One way to buy into Bitcoin is with an electronic wallet.
Wallets let investors buy, sell, transfer and exchange a range of cryptocurrencies held in different accounts.
Effective cryptocurrency management
One of the latest cryptocurrency managers is deVere Crypto, backed by one of the world’s leading financial advice firms for expats.
“Your funds reside in a bank account, separate from the operations account, and fees are transferred daily. Your funds cannot be borrowed to fund operations, nor can they be lent, even for margin trading on the platform,” said a deVere spokesman.
And what is FIAT? A currency which a government has designated a legal tender, but which is not backed by a commodity. The leading Fiat currencies are the US dollar, Chinese Yuan, Japanese Yen, British Pound and the Euro.
