
“Each option has varied ease of access and different levels of security.
Amp crypto software#
These include a software wallet stored on a computer, a web-based wallet or a vault. As there is no physical currency, the value is stored electronically,” he adds. “To buy Bitcoins, you must first establish a Bitcoin wallet to store your Bitcoins. “The Bitcoin system is peer-to-peer. Users directly transact without an intermediary,” says Heaven. You can exchange Bitcoins for other currencies, as well as for services and goods. These coins can be divided into smaller parts, the smallest unit is one hundred millionth of a Bitcoin and this is referred to as a Satoshi, after Bitcoin’s creator,” he explains.īitcoins are bought and sold through cryptocurrency exchanges, or purchased directly from others on Bitcoin marketplaces. “There are only 21 million Bitcoins in existence. Bitcoin and Ethereum are the two most commonly traded of these,” says Heaven. There are thought to be more than 900 different cryptocurrencies, which is more than physical sovereign currencies. “Cryptocurrencies are a US$112 billion market turning over up to US$5 billion a day. It became very slow to create new Bitcoins, so it split into core Bitcoin and cash Bitcoin.Ĭhina also announced it was cracking down on its citizens using Bitcoin as an alternative to foreign currency, which also drove its price down.ĪMP financial planner Andrew Heaven explains Bitcoin is part of a group of digital currencies. This year Bitcoin has split twice, due to capacity constraints on the network. The first being the split in the currency. Now it’s worth US$8000 – after recovering following a price crash down to US$6000 in November this year, due to a number of factors. In December 2016 one Bitcoin was worth about US$800.
Amp crypto portable#
It also makes Bitcoin extremely portable – as there is no underlying physical currency there’s no need to carry around notes.īut Bitcoin also has a number of limitations, largely due to its immaturity. As all users can see transactions on the ledger, it reduces the risk of counterfeiting and increases trust. It is independent of any central authority and no single institution or country controls the Bitcoin network.Īs the name suggests, every transaction that has ever involved a Bitcoin can be publically seen on the underlying blockchain ledger. Its underlying technology is called blockchain. But are Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies investible assets and if so, how should self-managed super funds think about them from an asset-allocation perspective?īitcoin was created in 2009 as an electronic payment system.

There’s been plenty of noise lately about the meteoric rise in value of the digital currency Bitcoin. But how should SMSFs think about them from an asset allocation perspective?
