How To Buy Bitcoin Cash ($BCH) Online

Overnight, thousands of Bitcoin owners saw their wealth increase significantly due to a simple change, i.e. Coinbase showed Bitcoin Cash balances in people’s wallets. While these people always owned some Bitcoin Cash, most of the “non-technical” owners were clueless and didn’t know what to do with their new wealth.So what happened? What is Bitcoin Cash, how is it different from Bitcoin and how can you invest in it?While there were some hiccups on the first day of Bitcoin Cash that were widely accepted, there is still an opportunity to get into this cryptocurrency, and it could even rival what investors have seen with the original Bitcoin (and other coins like Ethereum and Litecoin).Before you start using Bitcoin Cash, you’ll need a digital wallet. We recommend Coinbase, which we discuss a bit more below.If you’re considering jumping into Bitcoin Cash, make sure you fully understand the risks. We break it down as much as possible, but we realize that this is an extremely risky investment.What Is Bitcoin Cash?Bitcoin Cash is a hard fork of the original Bitcoin blockchain. This fork occurred on August 1, 2017.If you are new to cryptocurrency investing, a hard fork is essentially a split of the original blockchain. Think of it like the Catholic Church: if you go back in time, there were several “forks” along the way. The biggest ones are Protestantism and Catholicism. It is very similar.Both Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash use the same algorithm (i.e., the Bible), but have different interpretations. Once they share, Bitcoin Cash uses their protocol, while Bitcoin uses their protocol.How Bitcoin Cash is differentTechnically, Bitcoin Cash wanted larger block sizes than Bitcoin: they increased the block size to 8 MB. However, everything else is pretty much the same.The last common block of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash was block 478558, at which point all Bitcoin owners (on the blockchain) also received the same value of Bitcoin Cash. That’s when the surprise came this morning. All Bitcoin holders at that time received Bitcoin Cash.But Bitcoin Cash wasn’t readily available to non-tech-savvy investors until today, when Coinbase publicly put Bitcoin Cash in its wallet.Bitcoin Cash is much cheaper than Bitcoin. It is currently about 75% cheaper, but the price has skyrocketed recently:How to invest in Bitcoin CashIf you want to invest in Bitcoin Cash, it is important to remember that Bitcoin Cash is a currency. This means that it does not behave like a stock or a bond. Instead of buying shares of Bitcoin Cash, you exchange your currency for Bitcoin Cash currency.For example, $1 USD equals approximately Bitcoin 4,329 in Bitcoin Cash today. The goal is for the value of Bitcoin Cash to increase, in which case you can exchange your coins back into dollars (from someone willing to do the exchange).So where can you do this? Unfortunately, you can’t invest in Bitcoin Cash at your broker. Instead, you’ll need a digital wallet. The best digital wallet we’ve found for US residents is Coinbase. With Coinbase, you can buy and sell Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum and Litecoin on their app.Since Coinbase is also a digital wallet, you can also use your wallet to buy, sell, send and receive Bitcoin Cash (For example, use Bitcoin Cash to pay for goods or services online).If you use THIS LINK, you will receive $10 in Bitcoins after buying $100 in Bitcoins. You can then convert your Bitcoins and bonus into Bitcoin Cash if you wish.Another option for investing in Bitcoin Cash is eToro, a full-service broker that also allows cryptocurrency investments.ConclusionBitcoin Cash is one of the newest cryptocurrency options available to consumers. Although it is new, it is based on Bitcoin, one of the oldest. However, it has become popular because it is suddenly easily accessible, so keep that in mind. This is also the case with Ripple: it is not easily accessible, but if that changes, there could be an explosion in popularity.If you are thinking about investing in Bitcoin Cash, remember that there is an incredibly high level of risk involved. The only way you will “make money” is if the price goes up, which means other people will be willing to buy it from you. This is not an asset, but rather a bet on the price.