Bitcoin Buying Guide 2021: Best Exchanges for Buying BTC

Bitcoin has several unique features that set it apart from other cryptocurrencies. It was the first to market, inspiring the invention of all subsequent cryptocurrencies. The network has a long history of not being hacked or compromised. Most importantly, its large and active community of advocates, developers, and users have continued to fuel its popularity.

Litecoin is the first spin-off of Bitcoin, as it just copied the codebase and made several notable improvements such as increasing the speed of the network. Other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin Cash or Bitcoin SV are direct “forks” of Bitcoin. However, not all coins are spin-offs of Bitcoin. ETH and EOS, for eg., were created from scratch using their own blockchains and codebases.

The most common way to convert Bitcoin to cash is to sell it on an exchange. There are number of major cryptocurrency exchanges that help facilitate such transactions. You’ll generally receive fiat (government-backed currency such as USD) directly to your bank account. In some countries there are also physical ATMs where it’s possible to convert Bitcoin to cash although there will generally be significant fees involved.

Yes. Holding Bitcoin and using it on a person-to-person basis is legal in nearly every country on earth.

It becomes more complicated when Bitcoin is designated as a currency or commodity. Bitcoin is still a relatively new phenomenon and governments are still deciding out how they want to regulate and potentially tax it. Bitcoin does have the potential to be used for money-laundering or criminal activity so it’s no wonder that governments are keenly interested in regulating it properly.

Many of the world’s biggest countries including the United States, Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom have taken a pro-Bitcoin approach while countries such as Russia and China are more restrictive.

You should check your local laws but for the most part Bitcoin is completely legal.

This is a hotly disputed topic. It’s easy to say that Bitcoin has no intrinsic value because it’s not tied to gold or another precious metal but neither is the US dollar.

Bitcoin is backed by math, which these days might actually be more solid than some government-backed currencies. There’s also a finite supply, which generally helps something become valuable.

In reality Bitcoin’s greatest value might just be its utility. It’s easy to send around the world. You don’t need a bank account to acquire it and the fees are still relatively low. All you need is a computer or a smartphone.

To a certain degree. It’s a common misconception that Bitcoin is completely anonymous. Each user actually has a public key that can be traced through the network back to an IP address or Bitcoin exchange account.

That means your actual identity won’t be revealed but everyone on the network can potentially see every transaction thanks to the transparent nature of the blockchain.

Bitcoin mining is essentially a reward for the people who maintain the network with powerful computers.

Mining Bitcoin serves two purposes: 1. It maintains the network by confirming transactions. 2. It creates new bitcoin, which serves as an incentive to the miners.

As the network has gotten more complex the difficulty in mining Bitcoin has gone up exponentially. That’s why mining Bitcoin is now pretty much limited to huge mining groups rather than individuals. It’s not recommended for individuals.

That’s a challenging question to answer because you CAN make money buying Bitcoin but you can also lose money.

It’s a little like asking, “Can I make money by investing in Tesla?”

There are no guarantees in the investment world and the same goes for cryptocurrency. In fact cryptocurrency is even more volatile with huge swings happening all the time.

Just remember that you should never invest more than you’re willing to lose.