About investing in bitcoin

Investing in Bitcoin is similar to investing in any financial product. There is risk involved and you need to ensure you have done your research so you enter into the investment with your eyes wide open.

In general, there are three types of cryptocurrencies:

• Store of value
• Transactional
• Utility

Bitcoin is generally considered as a store of value. Currencies like Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash are usually considered transactional, and Ethereum and Ripple are utility-style coins. Any kind of speculative investment needs to be tempered with research. Any of the different types of currencies have the capacity to increase in value. They also have the capacity to decrease in value.

Exchange trading

At a high level, there are three main vehicles for investing in Bitcoin: personally, through a company, and in Australia through a self-managed super fund (SMSF). Independent Reserve supports all three account types.

Personal/company

Investing personally or through a company account is the method most people are familiar with. This is where you commit personal/company fiat funds to buy Bitcoin in the hope that it will increase in value. To do this you simply need to create an account with Independent Reserve, pass our verification process, and deposit money with us from your personal or company bank account.

Self Managed Super Fund

Self-managed super funds or SMSFs are currently the only way you can invest your superannuation into crypto. Read more about SMSFs and Bitcoin here.

OTC

OTC trading is used when you have a large amount of fiat or crypto to trade in one block. Read more about OTC trading here.

Withdrawing Bitcoin

Independent Reserve allows easy bitcoin withdrawals to external hardware and software wallets. We support withdrawing to all major bitcoin address types, including native segwit (bech32). To learn more about withdrawals, see here.