Well if you have landed somehow in this article it would be fair to assume that you are already convinced about the potential long term benefits of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. At this stage you are wondering what will the easiest and safest way to purchase some coins and store them until you decide to sell or trade them for a profit.
How would you go about this process will vary to some extent depending on whats your plan- whether you are interested in some short term trading to book quick profits or you plan to hold them for a longer term till it either appreciates much significantly to the range of 10x to 100x of your investment or it gets adopted mainstream like credit cards and banknotes are today.
This article is focused mainly for long term investors as that is my personal approach, coz I feel short term trading of crypto is way too risky and unpredictable.
For purchasing coins I prefer Coinbase over other exchanges like Binance, eToro, Coinmama, Bitpanda etc etc. Main reasons for this preference is that Coinbase is the biggest and most reputable exchange so the risk of a fraud is minimal. Additionally they place high importance on security which is really important consider how many exchanges have fallen prey to hackers in recent times. It has a very easy to use interface and can be used via a laptop or a mobile. The only drawback I see is commission they charge is a bit higher than other exchanges but I think it is worth the security they provide and for a long term use it doesn't matter much. Here my advise will be to buy in blocks of 200$/€ at a time as they charge higher commission rates for lower purchases.
If you use the link below to buy coins you will get a bonus worth 10$/€ ->
https://www.coinbase.com/join/pradha_zc
Some people complain that Coinbase supports a very limited set of cryptocurrencies, but I don't think that's a drawback as Coinbase conducts detailed due diligence before making a coin available on it's platform for trade. This filters out scams and fraudulent coins. Couple of years back Coinbase only had Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin available but since then it has added several additional coins and it regularly keeps reviewing and adding more.
After you purchase the coins on Coinbase they will automatically be assigned wallets on Coinbase server from where you can sell them or transfer to other wallet addresses. If you intend to buy for short term or small quantities this online wallet from Coinbase will suffice. On the other hand if you plan to hold for long term or buy a amount worth more than 1000$/€ then I strongly recommend you to move them to a hardware wallet. As I mentioned before that Coinbase is the largest exchange but even it is not 100% hack proof and theres also the risk that someone might hack your laptop or mobile. A good approach will be to move most of your coins to a hardware wallets and keep a small amount which you intend to use shortly on Coinbase.
This brings us to the next dilemma regarding which Hardware Wallet to buy. From all the options I researched there was common agreement that Trezor Model T and Ledger Nano X are the top 2 choices. However there were major disagreements regarding which is the better amongst these two. Based on my experience Trezor Model T is the better pick despite the fact that it costs about 180$/€ which is considerable expensive compared to Ledger Nano X at 120$/€. As this is a one time purchase for a long term use I think a 50-60$/€ difference does not matter. In terms of touch screen on device and user interface Trezor is quite better than Ledger.
The only drawback in Trezor is that it only supports the following 9 coins on their own wallets and for the rest they will link to an external site linked wallet which may seem complex to manage for a beginner and I was confused at the beginning.
If you are more interested in Altcoins then Ledger would be a better choice for you. I personally have more than 60% of my portfolio in Bitcoin and the remaining is mostly Ethereum and Litecoin so Trezor server me well but I recently got a Ledger as I started collecting some Altcoins.
In case of any other specific doubt or question you have feel free to leave a comment or send me a mail at [email protected]
