What Is Cryptocurrency? A Guide to Cryptocurrency Investing and Risks

Learn what cryptocurrency is, how to invest and its risks.

Key Takeaways

  • Cryptocurrency enables peer-to-peer value transfers without traditional banking rails.
  • Common categories of crypto include digital currencies, smart contract platforms and stablecoins. 
  • Crypto investors can hold tokens directly, through exchange-traded products or funds, or indirectly via crypto-linked equities and ETFs.
  • Key risks to evaluate include volatility, cyber theft, software bugs, regulation changes and concentrated ownership.

Cryptocurrencies (often called “crypto”) are digital assets that run on blockchain networks, which record and verify transactions without a central authority like a bank. People often use crypto to send or receive value directly (peer-to-peer payments), but many crypto networks also support other uses — like smart contracts (self-executing code) that can power services such as lending, trading and digital collectibles. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, is created through a process called mining, which uses computer power to solve complicated math problems to ultimately produce a fixed supply of virtual coins. While some cryptocurrencies are created in the same way, others do not have a fixed supply and may be created through different methods, such as an “agreement” method.

A Decentralized Payment System

Unlike the U.S. dollar, cryptocurrencies have no physical form, aren’t stored in a central place and aren’t governed by a central authority such as the Federal Reserve.

 

The blockchain is vital to crypto’s decentralized nature. Every crypto transaction is recorded in the blockchain — a public ledger available to other users — and a new “block” is added to the chain with the most recent transactions. On the Bitcoin blockchain, blocks occur roughly every 10 minutes, but the average block time varies from cryptocurrency to cryptocurrency. There are thousands of copies of the blockchain file on computers around the world, making it extremely hard to alter.

 

In traditional payment systems, a trusted intermediary (like a bank or card network) verifies and processes transactions. By contrast, in cryptocurrencies, a distributed network of nodes validates transactions and records them on a shared blockchain ledger.

Some Well-Known Cryptocurrencies

Although there are tens of thousands of cryptocurrencies, a small portion account for the majority of the market. They can generally be grouped into one of three broad buckets (with key examples):

  1. 1
    Digital Currencies:

    Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency and launched in 2009. It is considered the most liquid crypto and lets people send value directly to each other without a bank or other trusted middleman, using cryptographic software and a distributed network to validate transactions. Bitcoin has a hard cap of 21 million coins, so new supply becomes increasingly scarce over time.

  2. 2
    Smart Contract Platforms:
    • Ethereum is the second-most liquid cryptocurrency. The Ethereum network is a decentralized cloud-based software that creates a virtual computer that allows third parties to create applications (called smart contracts) that run on this “computer.” Developers use ether, the currency of the network, to pay the network for the processing power and data storage their applications require.
    • Solana is a public blockchain designed to support fast, low-cost transactions and scalable decentralized applications. Its native token, SOL, is used to pay network transaction fees and can be “staked” (delegated or locked up with a validator) to help secure the network and earn rewards.1
  3. 3
    Applications:
    • Tether is a dollar-pegged stablecoin designed to maintain a value close to $1. As the leading “stablecoin,” tether generally has very little volatility, but it can deviate from $1 during periods of market stress.
    • USD Coin is an open-source, smart-contract-based stablecoin which tracks the U.S. dollar. 

Investing in Cryptocurrency

There are a few ways to gain exposure to cryptocurrencies:

  • Directly buying them from an exchange or receiving them as rewards from certain credit cards or e-commerce sites. Prices can be volatile.
  • Products such as exchange-traded products (ETPs), trusts, futures and mutual funds that track cryptocurrencies or groups of cryptocurrencies. Because these products track crypto prices, which are volatile, the prices of these products may also be volatile. Additionally, these products might not track cryptocurrency prices, which trade 24/7, as closely as intended and may therefore diverge from the underlying crypto price.
  • Equity ETFs that invest in companies participating in the cryptocurrency market, for example: mining, marketing, consulting, payments equipment, financial services, and other blockchain-related businesses. Crypto-related equity ETFs have high correlation with Bitcoin.
  • Stocks of companies that generate most of their money from products related to cryptocurrency or whose stock valuations are related to cryptocurrency such as Digital Asset Treasury Companies (DATs). These companies make money from cryptocurrency, market with cryptocurrency or support crypto businesses. Their performance tends to move with the market but will also have company-specific drivers.

Know the Risks

Cryptocurrency investing presents unique risks and is characterized by significant volatility, with prices experiencing dramatic swings. Additionally, the decentralized nature and lack of central governance in cryptocurrencies mean that there is limited recourse if assets are lost or stolen, and unforeseen technological risks may emerge.

 

Risks unique to cryptocurrencies include but are not limited to:

  1. 1
    Encryption Breaks

    Cryptocurrencies rely on cryptography to make changes to the blockchain, connect blocks, ensure they stay in the correct order and to encrypt the users’ passwords when they are requesting transactions. Increasing processing power and techniques like quantum computing could eventually crack encryption, which may allow hackers to access crypto wallets.

  2. 2
    Software Bugs

    Flaws in the code could cause an unpredictable supply of cryptocurrency or cause the network to stop working as expected.

  3. 3
    Government Action

    Laws that prohibit or discourage activity in cryptocurrency can suppress demand or disrupt the network.

     

    Because the Bitcoin network is global and decentralized, it does not depend on any single country to operate. However, actions by a large country — or several countries acting together — can still materially disrupt Bitcoin activity in practice by affecting access and participation. This may occur through regulation (banning or restricting Bitcoin-related services, imposing higher taxes or adding reporting requirements) or through more direct measures (pressuring exchanges, wallet providers or mining operators to block or delay certain transactions or addresses).

  4. 4
    Volatility

    Cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile — significantly more than the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100.  Bitcoin’s price swings a lot, making it one of the most volatile investments. Even though it often doesn’t typically move in sync with the broader economy, its price still changes sharply and frequently.

  5. 5
    Concentration Risk

    Many cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, have concentrated ownership, with the top 100 addresses holding a large portion of the supply. If one or more of the addresses that hold the majority of total coins was forced to sell, or had their assets stolen and sold, the price could be impacted. 

  6. 6
    Lack of Central Governance

    Since cryptocurrency is not issued or controlled by a particular person or group, there may not be any recourse if it’s lost or stolen.

  1. 7
    Association with Illegal Activities

    New technologies like cryptocurrency are often used to perpetrate fraudulent investment schemes.

  2. 8
    Unforeseen Risk

    Because cryptocurrencies are relatively new, there may be unforeseen risks in the future that are not evident now.

Following the hype of crypto can seem exciting, but proceed with caution. Before getting started, investors should get educated and consider how and whether cryptocurrency exposure fits into their portfolio in a way that aligns with their risk tolerance and financial goals

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