Cryptocurrency has been the hot topic for some time now. In India after a lot of uncertainty the supreme court in March 2020 has finally lifted the ban imposed by Reserve bank of India in 2018. Now is the chance to get on the bus for the most exciting and revolutionary change possible for the future. How to buy cryptocurrencies in India?
What is Crypto?
Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies and the most important factor is security. Cryptocurrencies have two different sets of key for trading i.e. the public key and the private key. The public key is like your bank account number which is sufficient enough for anyone to deposit money into your account. This is available to the public without any harm and can only be used for withdrawal. The private key is the crucial one and like the atm pin and the otp for your bank account. This is available only to the account holder and is required to withdraw the cash or cryptocurrency in our case.
From above it is clear that the combination of private and public keys is required for a withdrawal from our cryptocurrency wallet. We can opt to store our cryptocurrency in 4 main ways:
1) Exchange Wallet
There are a number of exchanges providing free blockchain wallets. But the catch is that they control your private keys. So they are the riskiest one’s to store your cryptocurrency.
2) Hardware Wallet
Hardware wallets like ledger are one of the most secure ways to store cryptocurrency. Hardware wallets are hardware devices build specifically for handling private keys and public addresses. A hardware device costs between $70-$150 making it expensive.
3) Paper Wallet
A paper wallet is an offline mechanism for storing bitcoins. A paper wallet is a printed piece of paper which contains keys and QR codes that are used to facilitate cryptocurrency transactions. Because they are removed from the Internet, paper wallets were long thought to be more secure than other forms of cryptocurrency storage. But they are complex to manage so not recommended widely.
4) Desktop/Mobile Wallets
Mobile wallets for Bitcoins and altcoins are the most used wallets right now on the market and it is so because they are easy to use and also the user has the private keys making it secure too.
All in all, it’s not the most astute intention for keeping your coins on a exchange. While they might be convenient, it’s much better to get your own wallet to store crypto coins you own. The most secure and easy wallet are Web/App based wallets in which you control your own private keys. We recommend using Exodus or Jaxx wallet which both don/t store your private keys and you are incharge of your wallet.
