What’s cryptocurrency trading?
Cryptocurrency trading is the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies on an exchange. With us, you can trade cryptos by speculating on their price movements via CFDs (contracts for difference).
CFDs are leveraged derivatives – meaning that you can trade cryptocurrency price movements without taking ownership of any underlying coins. When trading derivatives, you can go long (‘buy’) if you think a cryptocurrency will rise in value, or go short (‘sell’) if you think it will fall.
By contrast, when you buy cryptocurrencies on an exchange, you buy the coins themselves. You’ll need to create an exchange account, put up the full value of the asset to open a position, and store the cryptocurrency tokens in your own wallet until you’re ready to sell.
How do cryptocurrency markets work?
The cryptocurrency market is a decentralised digital currency network, which means that it operates through a system of peer-to-peer transaction checks, rather than a central server. When cryptocurrencies are bought and sold, the transactions are added to the blockchain – a shared digital ledger that records data – through a process called ‘mining’.
What moves cryptocurrency markets?
Cryptocurrency markets move according to supply and demand. However, as they’re decentralised, they tend to remain free from many of the economic and political concerns that affect traditional currencies. While there is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding cryptocurrencies, the following factors can have a significant impact on their prices:
Supply: the total number of coins and the rate at which they’re released, destroyed or lost
Market capitalisation: the value of all the coins in existence and how users perceive this to be developing
Press: the way the cryptocurrency is portrayed in the media and how much coverage it is getting
Integration: the extent to which the cryptocurrency easily integrates into existing infrastructure such as e-commerce payment systems
Key events: major events such as regulatory updates, security breaches and economic setbacks