Here’s How to Buy Cryptocurrency—In Case You Were Wondering

Remember back in April when it seemed like literally everyone was buying that elusive thing called Dogecoin to screw over Wall Street and also make bank by getting in on cryptocurrency? But then…not everyone got rich, and some even lost, like, ev-er-y-thing?

Still, it’s not weird to be very, very intrigued by the idea of becoming a Bitcoin billionaire—even if you’re unclear on how, uh, any of it actually works. That’s why we’re here to quell your FOMO with everything you need to know.

The crypto overlord is a computer.
First, this kind of cash comes in the form of intangible digital units (aka you can’t physically touch them) often called tokens or coins. Unlike traditional paper money, they’re not issued by a central bank; kinda like traditional paper money, there are lots of different currencies out there, says Primavera De Filippi, a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

In some cases, there’s a set, limited amount of a cryptocurrency in circulation (for example, there will only ever be 21 million Bitcoins in the world). In other cases, like with Ethereum, there’s no max on how many coins can be created by a currency’s “bank.” Almost all crypto exchanges use their own version of something called blockchain software, which records who’s buying and who’s selling in a super-hard-to-hack way.

Source: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/career/a37829724/how-to-buy-crypto-currency/