How To Buy Bitcoin Cash (BCH) – Forbes Advisor UK

Forbes Advisor has provided this content for educational reasons only and not to help you decide whether or not to invest in cryptocurrency. Should you decide to invest in cryptocurrency or in any other investment, you should always obtain appropriate financial advice and only invest what you can afford to lose. 

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is a cryptocurrency built on the same blockchain as the world’s first and biggest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin.  

It launched in 2017 as a result of a hard fork in Bitcoin’s blockchain. Some participants voted to allow Bitcoin to process greater volumes of transactions, but the majority of participants disagreed, and so the blockchain forked off into Bitcoin Cash. 

Bitcoin Cash enables greater volumes of transactions by having a larger block size than Bitcoin. Essentially this means a group of BCH transactions validated by a miner and added to the Bitcoin Cash blockchain contains a greater number of transactions than a group of transactions validated by a miner and added to the Bitcoin blockchain. 

Larger blocks result in faster and cheaper transactions – but this comes at the expense of security, since fewer miners are required. This makes the network theoretically easier to compromise than the Bitcoin network. 

BCH currently trades at around £150, down from a December 2017 high of £2,365. It has a current market capitalisation of £2.9 billion. 

For those interested in investing in Bitcoin Cash (BCH) we explain how it works: 

1. Choosing a crypto exchange

Investors can buy BCH from a crypto exchange. In order to do so, they’ll need to open an account with one. We ranked what we believe are the best crypto exchanges. 

Once an investor chooses an exchange, they’ll need to register for an account. This involves sharing some personal information and, increasingly, passing some light identity verification checks. This could mean uploading a photo of an official identity document, or following a set of on-screen prompts in front of their smartphone camera. 

Once registered, investors need to credit their account with some fiat currency (pounds Sterling) in order to make any trades. They will then be given various options for making this payment. 

2. Choosing a payment method

While many exchanges offer credit and debit card deposits, they often attract fees of around 3%. Credit card payments are also treated by most creditors as cash advances, which means  the trader will pay a higher rate of interest than they would a traditional transaction. 

Either way, typically it is not a good idea to take on debt to pay for an asset which could (and is likely to) go down in value, leaving investors with debts that outstrip their assets. 

Bank transfers are usually the simplest, fastest and cheapest way to credit an account. Most exchanges ask for a minimum deposit of around £10, regardless of whether an investor is buying a whole BCH for £150 or a 1/1,000th of a BCH for £0.15. 

Once the account is credited, the investor will be able to make their first trade. 

3. Buying Bitcoin Cash

Traders can navigate to the BCH page within the exchange’s website or app, tap in the amount of money they would like to spend on it and proceed to the preview screen. Here they will see how much BCH their money will buy them after the exchange has taken its cut of the transaction. 

If they are happy with the numbers, they can confirm the transaction. They will then receive a confirmation email where they should be able to see the BCH they now own reflected in their account balance. 

4. Storing keys

If an investor is happy with the level of security offered by the exchange while holding their private and public keys, which are needed to carry out transactions with their BCH, they don’t need to take any further action. 

If they would prefer to store their keys elsewhere, perhaps because they’re concerned about hackers targeting their exchange, they can either search for a third party crypto wallet provider or else buy a hardware wallet and store their keys offline. 

The choice between an online and offline wallet boils down to balancing convenience against higher security. To learn more about keeping keys secure with a crypto wallet, investors can read our crypto wallet guide. 

Cryptocurrency is unregulated in the UK. The UK regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, has repeatedly warned investors that they risk losing all their money if they buy cryptocurrency, with no possibility of compensation.