An exchange platform is a market place where you can buy or sell crypto-currencies.
Although most trading places share the same basic features, each has its own specificities. Here are some key elements to make your choice.
What are the advantages of a trading platform?
- You get your crypto-currencies quite quickly and the amount you will receive will of course depend on the amount of your investment.
- Does not require any special technical knowledge (just knowing how to use a web browser and using your credit card).
What are the disadvantages of trading platform?
- Investment required (payment by credit card or bank transfer) to obtain cryptocurrencies.
- You must know what you are investing in and therefore require knowledge (on the cryptocurrency that interests you) to best support your judgment and avoid the risk of unnecessary losses.
- Risk of volatility and loss of your initial bet in the event of a fall in the price of purchased cryptocurrency.
- Know how to manage your emotions which is not easy when you do not have some notions of trading and a good knowledge of the market.
In general the exchange platforms require supporting documents (identity card, passport, proof of address, …) to confirm your identity.
How to chose witch cryptocurrencies to buy?
I would advise you already to choose the main cryptocurrency with which you intend to trade. Preferably projects in which you believe, for which you have sufficiently informed you, solid projects in short! You limit to about ten cryptocurrencies is already a good start. Nothing prevents you to further diversify your portfolio, but after that may be complicated to manage!
Some criteria to make your choice of cryptos
Overall if you are not sure, you have some “safe values” (if you can talk about safe value in cryptocurrency): Bitcoin, Ethereum, Classic Ethereum, Litecoin, Monero, Dash, Zcash …
I have deliberately omitted Ripple from this list because it is not a decentralized crypto. This is the crypto banks, for summary.
A small list of criteria to consider:
- Cryptocurrency having reached parity a coin = one dollar or more. It is a good indicator but it is far from being the only one to take into account.
- Real utility, payments in stores, smart contracts, anonymity, decentralized cloud storage …
- Proof of sustainability over time (Bitcoin has been in existence for nine years now)
- A defined and limited quantity (no inflation)
- Decentralization. This is the essence of cryptocurrencies but not all of them …
- Eco-system developed. Number of users, associations and companies linked to the project.
- Ease of use and proxy. Applications available on many platforms / operating systems.
Why to Hold cryptocurrency ?
If you intend to hold your cryptocurrency. Without ever trading, buy them, then put them on a nano ledger if possible. It will of course try to buy your cryptos at the best prices. But even a professional trader will have a little trouble orienting you. Simply because the cryptocurrency market is so volatile that you can never really predict anything. Apart from perhaps a general increase in market valuation over the long term. Since this has been happening for 9 years now with the arrival of bitcoin.
If this is not possible, download the official wallet of each currency on your pc. In light version if you do not have a 450 TB hard disk and a 100 Gbps connection. Store them in these portfolios. With of course backup these portfolios on usb key or external hard drive not connected to internet.
If there is no light version (without downloading all the blockchain) of your cryptos. Divide them in several exchanges, to limit the risks and of course activate the authentication in two steps (2FA) on each of the sites.