The price of the bitcoin again hit a new all-time high on Dec. 3, edging close to $12,000. It’s up more than 1,300% in 2017.
Bitcoin’s market cap is up to $193 billion. For some perspective on how fast it’s flying: bitcoin’s market cap was less than a quarter of that as recently as June.
So, you want to get in?
Even though you may be wishing you bought sooner, it still may not be too late: big believers like Mike Novogratz are predicting $40,000 per coin by the end of 2018.
(Caveat: bitcoin is extremely volatile, with big swings up and down, week in and week out; Yahoo Finance is not dispensing investing advice, just giving you instructions on how to buy if you wish.)
Download a wallet
First, you’ll need a bitcoin wallet.
To be clear, this digital wallet doesn’t hold actual coins (since bitcoins are intangible) and it doesn’t even hold any files. What it stores are your private keys, which are strings of numbers and letters that allow you to access your coins. A bitcoin key looks like this: 01TK23tktk4t5tk678TK9tk.
For extra security, you’ll want to save your keys somewhere that isn’t connected to the internet; cryptocurrency people call this “cold storage.” There are a number of companies now that make hardware wallets for your keys (like a fob, with changing digits every 30 seconds), or you can simply write your key down on a piece of paper stashed somewhere secure in your home. (Just don’t forget where.)
A company called Blockchain (not to be confused with the bitcoin blockchain) offers a free bitcoin wallet you can download, or you can get one from Coinapult, BitGo, BitPay, or any number of wallet providers. Not all wallet providers allow you to buy bitcoins on their site; there are wallets, exchanges, and some businesses that are both. (Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong examines this confusion here.)
Choose where to buy
The simplest place for a newbie to buy some bitcoins is Coinbase, which was an early leader in bitcoin-buying and remains the most popular mainstream option. The site has more than 13 million registered users (more customers than Charles Schwab) with more than 30 million wallets. Coinbase has raised $217 million in funding and is bitcoin’s first “unicorn,” with a $1.6 billion valuation.
When you register for Coinbase, you can get a wallet and buy bitcoins, all in one place, though you don’t have to get your wallet from Coinbase. (Another good crypto site for a first-timer is Uphold, which calls itself a “cloud bank.” The peer-to-peer payments app Circle, which launched in 2013, originally enabled bitcoin-buying but has moved away from that.) Coinbase also allows for buying of ethereum and litecoin.