But while it’s based on sound, democratic principles, cryptocurrency remains a technological and practical work in progress. For the foreseeable future, nation-states’ near-monopoly on currency production and monetary policy appears secure.
But to understand the dynamic that led to this year’s depressing year for crypto, we actually should start a few years before 2018. In bitcoin’s early days, Mt. Gox was the go-to service for handling transactions. Then, in 2014, it halted transactions and slowly copped to a crypto-hack to the tune of $473 million, the biggest hack of its kind at the time, and it gave many people pause. But it was still early enough for people to believe that the blockchain system was still getting all the technical kinks out.

Bitcoin’s volatility is more reason for investors to play a steady long game. If you’re buying for long-term growth potential, then don’t worry about short-term swings. The best thing you can do is not look at your cryptocurrency investment, or “set it and forget it.” As experts continue to tell us each time there’s a price swing — whether up or down — emotional reaction can cause investors to act rashly and make decisions that result in losses on their investment.
Take Bitcoin for example, if you want to get Bitcoin on Binance.US, here’s how you would do it to make sure you only pay that 0.1% fee, and not the 0.5% fee: