06/02/2021
Investing in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies can seem imposing.
How do you go about buying it? What about hacking? You've heard of people forgetting their password or losing their bitcoin in a rubbish dump.
Believe it or not, buying bitcoin is the easiest part of the process. Purchasing bitcoin from a reputable exchange it not really that difficult. It's what comes after that requires a lot of research.
A lot of people in New Zealand will have heard of the Christchurch based exchange, Cryptopia, that was based on south Colombo Street. Their exchange was hacked for $20 million in 2019 resulting in loss of funds for clients.
This honestly can happen on any exchange. While some are fairly secure and should be able to be trusted for short lengths of time, we do not recommend keeping your assets on any exchange long-term.
As the saying goes in cryptocurrency; not your keys, not your bitcoin.
What's meant by this is that every cryptocurrency wallet has private keys. When you hold your cryptocurrency on an exchange, the keys to your wallet don't belong to you, but to the exchange. Sure you can still login and access your holdings, trade them and move them around, but the future is never certain. There's always the possibility of a hack, or a government shutting down or preventing access to exchanges. This is perceivable even in New Zealand.
We highly recommend hardware wallets with backup security phrases to restore them in case of theft, destruction by things such as a house fire or any other freakish event.
A major part of the BISC service is to teach our clients how to securely transfer and store their assets. Once you have learned the methods, and know all the ways to buy, transfer and store your assets, you'll sleep well at night knowing that there is no way you can lose them.