Trade cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile unregulated assets, which means they can move up or down in price at speed. So, if you are on the right side of the trade, it may indeed look easy to make money trading cryptos. What you must remember is that it’s equally easy to lose money on a crypto trade - and at tremendous speed. So, be sure to use a stop loss on all of your crypto trades.

Cryptocurrency pairs are assets that can be traded for each other or against a major currency such as the US dollar on an exchange — for example Bitcoin versus US dollar (BTC/USD) Bitcoin/Litecoin (BTC/LTC) and Ethereum/Bitcoin Cash (ETH/BCH). To trade a pair you need to have some knowledge about both currencies and their strength in the market.

We offer CFD trading in 18 cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, Binance Coin, Cardano, Chainlink, Dogecoin, Polkadot, EOS, Stellar, Tezos and Uniswap.

When you trade these cryptos, you are trading them as pairs with the US dollar. This means you can go long or short. Start by opening small positions to begin with, then scale up as you get to know the volatility of the pair you’ve chosen to trade.

Trading cryptocurrencies is usually understood to mean you are trading a crypto coin, or token, against the US dollar. As cryptos are highly volatile currencies, we recommend you start with a small trade size, put a stop loss on your trade, and see how you go before scaling up.

When you invest in a crypto coin, you buy, then hold or sell that coin at a later date, usually some time in the distant future. As with a precious asset like gold, this is more like an investment, not a trade. When you trade cryptos as a spot pair - that’s to say as against the US dollar - you are speculating on the underlying asset as opposed to taking ownership of it. You can also short the pair.

This depends entirely on the behaviour of cryptocurrencies in general at the time you look to trade, as well as the crypto pair you are interested in. That said, the three most popular cryptocurrency pairs are listed below:

• BTC/USD - Bitcoin (BTC) against the US dollar
• ETH/USD - Ethereum (ETH) is the second biggest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin
• LTC/USD - Litecoin (LTC) is traded against the US dollar

There are lots of theories as to what moves the cryptocurrency market. It could be argued that Bitcoin and other cryptos were seen as a hedge against a depreciating dollar and a slump in the global economy due to the pandemic. The price of cryptos was also pushed to extremes by the media and retail traders piling in on the action.

When Bitcoin crashed twice in 2021, pundits argued that now we had a vaccine, we could reasonably hope to see a speedy recovery - and so Bitcoin and other crypto currencies lost their appeal. It was also argued that the Chinese government’s antipathy towards Bitcoin contributed to uncertainty in the crypto space too. It could also be argued that Bitcoin’s price came down as a result of traders taking profits.

The general consensus is that cryptocurrencies are here to stay and are poised to resume their bull run well into the future, propelled by the media and banks’ massive purchases of leading crypto currencies.