At this point it’s safe to say that we are in a cryptocurrency craze. Everyone is trading (or holding) Bitcoins. And it’s not showing any signs of slowing down in 2018!

Want to get into cryptoinvesting as well? That’s probably a good idea. However, you have to be careful, because there are a lot of scam websites out there!

So which websites can you trust? Here are 5 websites that we recommend!

A short history of cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrencies are all the rage right now. However, very few people know about their history. It’s time to correct that! How did it all get started?

A group of people called cypherpunks have been trying to create digital money for a long time. These were folks that were interested in cryptography and often had libertarian political leanings. They wanted to be free of the Big Brother which is how they saw the government. Several digital money ideas were conceived and brought to life, most notably B-Money and Bit Gold, but none took off.

In 2008, an anonymous developer (or group of developers) Satoshi Nakamoto published a paper called Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Cash System in which he described a currency that is regulated through an immutable public ledger. He shared his paper with a cyberpunk mailing list. Most people thought this would be just another failed attempt at solving the currency problem.

In 2009, Bitcoin was made available to the public, and Satoshi and early adopters started mining the coins. In the beginning, it was a very small network, and mining was very easy and didn’t require anywhere near as much computational power as it does now. People were raking up thousands of Bitcoins… But the currency was virtually worthless, so it didn’t mean much at the time.

In 2010, the need to put some price on mined Bitcoins became overwhelming, and BTC was priced at mere 0.06$ at first. It was also the year when a developer famously bought two pizzas with 10,000 Bitcoin (today those pizzas would be worth around 100 million… Ouch!). It worked as a publicity stunt for Bitcoin as well as a way to show that it could be used as a real-world currency. Slowly, but surely, the interest in Bitcoin was growing.

In 2011, Bitcoin got enough momentum to attract competitors, and other cryptocurrencies started emerging. Litecoin was among those early altcoins. Today there are over a 1,000 various alternative cryptocurrencies being valued anywhere from virtually nothing to over $1,000 like Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash.

In 2013, Bitcoin price reached $1,000 for the first time… And then immediately crashed to around $300. Many people sold their holdings.

2014 was another bad year for Bitcoin. In January, the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange at the time, Mt. Gox, crashed, and over 850,000 Bitcoins went missing. At the time, those Bitcoins were valued at 450 million dollars, meanwhile today they would be worth around 4.4 billion.

In 2016 Ethereum came close to overshadowing Bitcoin. It’s a cryptocurrency that allows people to enact smart contract on the blockchain. Most famously, it’s used in ICOs, or Initial Coin Offerings, which is a way for businesses to raise money by issuing their own cryptocurrency.

And then, of course, 2017 was the year cryptocurrencies exploded. Bitcoin went over $1,000 again… Then over $10,000… Then over $17,000! Suddenly, Bitcoin was on everyone’s mind. People were using credit cards and taking out loans to buy Bitcoin. The crazy risk worked out for some. For example, one guy took out $325,000+ equity loan to buy Bitcoin, and 6 months later, his Bitcoin holdings were worth $1,910,000. However, it didn’t work out for others, and when Bitcoin crashed from it’s all-time-high, Bitcoin forums were filled with people considering suicide because of the loans they took out.

At the moment of writing Bitcoin is sitting at $11,242, a steep drop from it’s all-time-high, but still a solid price.

5 Best Cryptocurrency Websites

The times when Mt. Gox was the only cryptocurrency exchange are long gone — now there are plenty of them. Plus, cryptocurrency startups are popping up like mushrooms. So which websites are the best ones?

1. Bitcoin.org

Bitcoin.org, which was registered back in 2008 before Satoshi Nakamoto even released his famous paper, is the closest thing Bitcoin has to an official website.

On it, you can learn more about Bitcoin, discover various resources, and find out how you can participate in the community.

2. Coinbase

Coinbase was founded in July 2011.

It is a San Francisco-based digital currency exchange where you can exchange a variety of cryptocurrencies (available in 32 countries) and conduct Bitcoin transactions, as well as store it (available in 190 countries).

3. Coinfloor

Coinfloor is a London-based Bitcoin exchange founded in 2013.

It was the company that launched the first exchange-backed P2P marketplace for Bitcoin called Coinfloor Market where vetted brokers could connect with people looking to invest in Bitcoin. On Coinfloor you can trade Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash for Great Britain pounds using direct conversion between them.

4. LocalBitcoins

LocalBitcoins was founded in 2012.

It’s a Helsinki-based startup. It allows people who are interested in buying Bitcoin to meet with Bitcoin holders in real life and buy Bitcoin with cash. There’s also the possibility to buy Bitcoin using online banking. It’s one of the easiest ways to get Bitcoin out there.

The future of cryptocurrencies

There is a story about how Joseph Kennedy realized that it was time to get out of the stock market.

One day, he sat down to get his shoes polished, and started a casual conversation with the shoe polish boy. To his surprise, the shoe boy turned out to be knowledgable about stocks, and started giving Joseph Kennedy investing advice. That’s when he knew that this was a bubble — everyone had a hot stock tip, even the shoe polish boys.

He then withdrew his money from stock market. Meanwhile, everyone else was investing like crazy, including people who didn’t really have much money to lose. And sure enough, soon the 1929 market crash hit, and people lost everything. No one was issuing hot stock tips anymore.

A lot of people think that cryptocurrencies are a bubble just like stocks were back in 1929. And if you go by Joseph Kennedy’s standards, it appears to be true — people without the slightest understanding of how cryptocurrencies work are taking out loans to invest in things like Bitcoin. Waiters and Uber drivers have crypto investment tips for you. Is it all about to crash?

There are also those who think that we are not in a bubble but at the very beginning of something new and revolutionary. Many people are comparing the situation to the early Internet years of 1990s. According to them, there’s still plenty of room for growth.

Some prominent techies and investors are extremely bullish on Bitcoin. For example, cyber security legend John McAffe is convinced that Bitcoin will hit $1,000,000 by 2020. Meanwhile, investors like Peter Thiel are acquiring massive holdings. So is this a tulip mania of the 21st century… Or the beginning of the revolution that will change everything?

There’s no way to tell. Bitcoin might crash or it might go to the moon. The best thing you can do now is to set aside some money, buy some Bitcoin, and then forget it for a few years.

Conclusion

You need to be careful when investing in cryptocurrencies. Make sure to only invest money that you can afford to lose.

If your entire investment in Bitcoin would be gone tomorrow, would you still be okay? Then you can afford it. Don’t be like shoe shine boys of the past who bet everything on a bubble and then lost it all in the market crash.

Of course, only use trusted websites when dealing with cryptocurrencies. There are so many scams out there that you have to be really careful!

And what will 2018 bring for cryptocurrencies? We don’t know… But we are excited to find out!