The 3 Best Stock Trading Website for Beginners Offering Bitcoin

Best Online Trading Platform for Crypto 2019

Winson Ng

If you’re looking for some Bitcoin exposure but hate the amount of technical know-how that involves with owning bitcoins, generally you will look for traditional online stock brokers.

Personally I would recommend you to take the time to learn & understand the empowering aspects of Bitcoin as money. Doing so would help you avoid the risk associated with losing your life-savings to bad investment habits & emotion, hacks and your inherent short term mentality.

Having said that, more and more online trading platforms are beginning to offer Bitcoin & crypto trading to their customers.

This is YUGE!!! and is another step towards Bitcoin mainstream adoption. As predicted here in an article I wrote a while back.

If you invested $1,000 in Amazon 10 years ago, you’d make about $20,000 today.

Even Warren Buffett admitted he was too dumb to realize Amazon’s Jeff Bezos would succeed on the scale that he has. He opted not to invest in Amazon when he had plenty of opportunities. He did not understand or appreciate the value of tech.

$1,000 in Microsoft = ~$8,000

$1,000 in Netflix = ~$100,000

$1,000 in Apple = ~$9,000

$1,000 in Bitcoin = ~10,000,000 (Even after an 85% crash in 2018)

If only the majority of investors were patient enough… Food for Thought!

Yes! Bitcoin isn’t a stock, it doesn’t create any earnings for investors.

It doesn’t sell anything.

There’s no employees, CEO or shareholders to report to.

Yet it has a market capitalization of around $100 billion today. (Even after a major correction and with major experts calling it out for dead.)

How does Bitcoin derive its value from?

Well, first it has a fixed supply.

There will only ever be 21 million btc.

People will always try to create substitute coins like Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin gold (BTG) or Bitcoin Satoshi’s Vision (BSV) but we live in an age of brand recognition.

A brand with the power of network effects in today’s society is difficult to displace once it gets its first mover’s advantage.

Bitcoin had a huge head start over the rest of the competing crypto.

Since the supply side of things is fixed, you can sort of expect the future price of bitcoin to be considerably higher over time.

Think about this… There are 35 million millionaires in the world. That means if every millionaire wanted to own an entire Bitcoin, they wouldn’t be able to.

There literally is not enough to go around.

It might make sense just to get some in case it catches on. If enough people think the same way, that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. – Satoshi Nakamoto – January 2009

Contrast that with fiat currencies or the U.S Dollar which the Fed can print more of it over time and label it as quantitative-easing which is a fancy way of saying, “We can print more money and buy the real assets”

Realistically, any inflationary fiat currency will decrease in purchasing power over time. So we can expect Bitcoin to manifest a higher exchange price with almost near certainty.

In fact, the average life expectancy for a fiat currency is just 27 years.

Chris Mack writes:

According to a study of 775 fiat currencies by DollarDaze.org, there is no historical precedence for a fiat currency that has succeeded in holding its value. Twenty percent failed through hyperinflation, 21% were destroyed by war, 12% destroyed by independence, 24% were monetarily reformed, and 23% are still in circulation approaching one of the other outcomes.

The average life expectancy for a fiat currency is 27 years, with the shortest life span being one month. Founded in 1694, the British pound Sterling is the oldest fiat currency in existence. At a ripe old age of 317 years it must be considered a highly successful fiat currency. However, success is relative. The British pound was defined as 12 ounces of silver, so it’s worth less than 1/200 or 0.5% of its original value. In other words, the most successful long standing currency in existence has lost 99.5% of its value.

Given the undeniable track record of currencies, it is clear that on a long enough timeline the survival rate of all fiat currencies drops to zero.

Bitcoin tends to leave a lot of upside to owners or hodlers who tend to spend their money wisely in anticipation of the changes in demand with respect to bitcoin’s fixed supply.

How Bitcoin Is Creating Value

  1. Pre-Programmed Scarcity.
  2. Impossible to Counterfeit
  3. Peer-to-peer direct Transfer of Funds
  4. Public vs. Government monopoly on finance
  5. Highly Secure Decentralized Payment Network
  6. The Network effect

Unlike the transfer of gold or even cash, your bitcoins are transferred every 10 – 30 minutes like clockwork directly to the recipient. And you can do it at exceptionally low fees.

On the Bitcoin network today, you can send $50,000 for an average fee of $3. And the amazing part is that you can transfer any amount, even millions or billions of dollars with exactly the same fee.

To the Bitcoin network, data is just bytes of information, and the computer doesn’t discern $100 or $10,000,000 just the amount of data that makes up a transaction.

Now, compare that to a traditional wire transfer.

The fastest I’ve seen a wire hit is 24 hours. The cost to send money domestically is cheap, no doubt.

But, International wires can eat up 1%-15% of the total amount of money sent.

Once I tried sending $80 dollars from Singapore to the U.S. and the bank charges alone costs $50.

As far as sending gold, it takes 3-14 days domestically and is very expensive. And you’re probably just changing titles to the ownership of the bullion not physically moving it.

So, being able to quickly send money anywhere in the world is a very valuable utility that Bitcoin, the most secure decentralized payment network in the world possesses.

Government control over the wealth of its citizens

Over the years, both gold and cash have been either confiscated or severely restricted through capital controls.

Capital controls are government restrictions on your ability to access or move your money.

You can’t just stroll through airport security and cross borders with more than $10,000 in cash. You sure as hell aren’t allowed to change more than the stipulated amount for a foreign currency.

Unless you declare it, you’re breaking the law.

Even though it’s our money, the government insists we report when and where we’re moving it.

If governments treat their citizens more like customers than like a farmer treat his cows, they wouldn’t have to worry about money leaving their shores for more attractive alternatives.

Highly Secure Decentralized Payment Network

Here you can see how widespread Bitcoin adoption is by looking at the number of computers that are in a Bitcoin network.

9,560 separate computers scattered around the world are running the Bitcoin blockchain.

This is the kind of vote of confidence by the free market that is a tell-tale sign of a highly decentralized blockchain. It’s the only way for us to objectively identify the good from the bad cryptocurrencies.

The network effect is also one factor that always gets underestimated.

‘Bitcoin’ has immense brand recognition and value. This supercharges growth and gives Bitcoin its immense competitive advantage.

For instance, $143 million per day of Bitcoin changed hands in 2016. Today, there’s $10 – 20 billion worth of bitcoins transacted every single day.

You can call it speculation, adoption, manipulation, scam; whatever you want to call it, fact is, this gives out the kind of vibe the internet gave us in the early days.

Associated with fraud, porn and drugs, today, that’s not what the internet is all about…

That is the true test for anything worth while. Revolutionary ideas always face very strong opposition especially when the objective is to disrupt convention.

Before you begin Trading Bitcoin on any of these Online Trading Platforms, consider reading “How Whales, Bots and Manipulators are Beating Crypto Traders on their own turf”

This Is the Wrong Way to Buy Bitcoin

Usually, after an asset falls 85% from its All-Time-High, people leave it for dead and move on to the next hot thing.

That’s what happened with the Tulip and the Railway mania.

But that hasn’t been the case with bitcoin.

Bitcoin is exhibiting a resiliency we haven’t seen since the dot-com bubble bust.

Interest and sentiment is changing, despite its drop from nearly $20,000 at its peak to around $3,450 a few months back. It has since regained momentum to over $5,000 per btc.

According to a December 2018 University of Cambridge study, the number of crypto users doubled last year even though the price has been swimming in a bearish winter lake throughout the year.

Reports indicate that Investors are entering an accumulation phase…

A majority of hungry investors are now looking for bigger profits and will invest in bitcoins if they were recommended to them by a financial advisor.

In the financial field people place a lot of trust on them.

So what happens when you start to have this onrush of recommendations?

Bad advice…

Financial advisors are clueless when it comes to Bitcoin.

Overly anxious investors will demand their financial advisors give them easy exposure to bitcoin.

They want the quick and big profits—but don’t want to go through the process of learning how to setup their own bitcoin wallets and crypto accounts.

In order to cut short the learning curve and to take the easy way out, they hookup their clients with a Bitcoin Investment Trust.

A prominent Bitcoin Investment Trust is the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). The fund tracks the price of bitcoin and gives investors indirect exposure to bitcoin.

But the exposure comes at a cost…

GBTC trades at a 20% premium to the bitcoin it holds. In other words, investors are paying $1.20 for only $1 worth of bitcoin.

As of Oct. 2018, each share of GBTC represented less than 0.0001 bitcoin. That means it would take 10,000 shares of GBTC to own one bitcoin.

So if you own GBTC, consider selling it and using that capital to buy bitcoin directly from a crypto exchange. Yes, it’s more work… but it’s worth it.

And always remember: You don’t need to gamble your life away for huge gains. Keep your position sizes small, it is always possible to buy a fraction of a bitcoin.

Best Stock Trading Websites for Beginners Offering Bitcoin

These online brokers are providing the essential ingredients, tools and resources to their customers to hone their investing skills.

TD Ameritrade have 11m clients , E*Trade have 5m+ clients. Fidelity holds $7 trillion in customers assets. They will be offering BTC trading to their clients very soon. Do the math…

TD Ameritrade (Not-Yet-Live)

This $1 Trillion brokerage giant with over 11 million retail clients is quietly testing its platform with ErisX, a Chicago-based crypto exchange.

The story broke when a TD Ameritrade customer posted screenshots on Twitter showing that he was able to buy bitcoins (BTC) through his account on NASDAQ.

So for it has only been simulated exposure of bitcoin & litecoin to their clients as indicated by “Cryptopolis” as paper trading.

Paper trading is a simulated form of trading that lets users exchange an asset without actually buying or selling it for real money (think of it like a testnet of sorts).

At the moment, TD Ameritrade is only offering bitcoin futures and bitcoin isn’t yet available for spot trading on its platforms.

Fidelity

Investment firm Fidelity started offering bitcoin custody and other products in March 2019.

The products include storage (custody) for large clients such as hedge funds and family offices. This service will help large institutional investors ease into the crypto space—and bring trillions of dollars along with them.

Fidelity—one of the world’s largest financial firms with $7.2 trillion in assets under management—hasn’t made its new crypto products available to retail investors like you and me right away… But they’re coming soon.

This isn’t  surprising… Wall Street always gives its favored clients first access to good investments.

That’s why you will be a head of the curve when you learn how to buy Bitcoin here.

If you’re not in the “know,” chances are you’ll be left out.

E-Trade

eTrade is also preparing to launch cryptocurrency services to its 5 million or so customers according to Bloomberg, and they are adding Bitcoin and Ether trading for their retail investors.


The domino effect is happening, and one by one, financial assets and stock exchanges are integrating digital assets like Bitcoin into their long list of products.

 

This Is Still Not the Best Way to Buy Bitcoin

The only problem with Trading Bitcoin on these stock trading websites is that you’re not getting in the game and holding your own bitcoins or utilizing the all empowering-features.

Tempting as it may be, you’re purely speculating an Exchange-Traded note or a bitcoin index tracker. It’s just on paper, not actual bitcoins.

Buying, owning, spending and earning real bitcoins (BTC) raises your game to a whole new level.

You’re expanding your understanding about the Future of Money where you have full control over your bitcoin private keys, and snuffing out the government’s monopoly over currency.

Crypto Traders can drive themselves mad with hundreds of technical microanalysis of charts, predictions, news and the rumor mill. But the bottom line is the market can and will surprise you.

Even to some of the best traders.

Also beware of trading ‘prophets’ appearing smarter than the average trader.

Why are there so many experts on Twitter? Well, based on my experience, most traders have membership programs with monthly subscription fees, so you could say that (More Followers = More $$Moolah!)

There’s nothing wrong with that, but you should always exercise caution and consider the motivation behind each Tweet.

Twitter is a hotbed for bots, with thousands of them that can be automated to tweet, like and comment to create the illusion of popularity.

There’s more profit to be made by selling you their secret sauce rather than just giving you the simple advice of holding on to your scarce bitcoins.

Smart investors like Marc Andreessen who famously kick started the whole internet revolution views Bitcoin as a decade long investment.

His firm invested $80 million in Twitter and had a hand in companies like Facebook, Groupon and Airbnb.

When he talks, people listen. It’s a clear sign that he believes that Bitcoin has the potential to become a disruptive force…

That’s why when his firm announced the restructuring of its entire business model around Bitcoin, everyone’s head turned.

Marc Andreessen: In 20 years, we’ll talk about Bitcoin like we talk about the Internet today

He’s a long term investor who doesn’t invest in things that only last for a few years.

He understands that Investing favors the emotionless. That’s why he is going all in.

Bitcoin efficiently separates high time preference investors from their money.

If you’re still on the fence about buying bitcoin, though—or considering using the pullback to add to your position—you’ll want to take note that there’s a tidal wave of money heading into Bitcoin.

So if haven’t position yourself to own at least some bitcoin, you’re going to get left behind.

You don’t gamble with your bitcoins…

This is ultimately a game of accumulation for the scarcest digital asset the world has ever seen!

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