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eToro is one of the leading online trading platforms and. It launched back in 2008 and now has over one decade of experience and reputation.

It’s noteworthy that eToro is branded as a social trading platform. It also allows users to trade a range of different asset classes, including commodities, indexes, currencies, cryptocurrencies, and stocks.

In the beginning, eToro’s initial focus was to function as an online-based trading platform serving the forex market. Nevertheless, in 2009, the company rolled out its intuitive trading platform through the so-called WebTrader, hence expanding to cater to both professional investors and beginner enthusiasts.

It wasn’t until 2017 when the company increased its initial exposure, adding cryptocurrency trading on the platform.

One thing that needs to be noted, though, is that eToro provides for CFD trading. CFD stands for Contract for Difference, which is very different from simply buying and selling digital currencies.

The main difference is in that when users operate with CFDs, they don’t get ownership of the underlying asset – they are simply speculating on whether the price of the said asset is going to go up or down.

As mentioned above, eToro is also leveraging the concept of social trading. This is something considered very beneficial for traders who are just starting to get involved in the market.

What this concept suggests is that users are able to monitor the trading process of other, more experienced and even professional traders and to go ahead and copy their moves, as well as their portfolios.

The following is thorough and easy to understand guide on how to trade Bitcoin and other digital currencies on eToro.

You can read more about What is Bitcoin here.

How to Use eToro

Starting off, the first thing that you’d need to do is to sign up for an account at eToro. The process is very easy and it’s free – it shouldn’t take you more than a couple of minutes.

That’s the screen you’ll get when you land on eToro’s homepage. You have to input your initial credentials and an email address. Make sure it’s an actual, working email address because you will have to verify it using a confirmation link.

Once that’s done, you’ll be able to log in. The first thing you will notice when logged in is the platform’s dashboard.

As we said, the platform aims to cater to beginners. As such, the dashboard is really simplified.

This menu is found on your left. If you want to begin trading, you’d have to first deposit some money. The big blue “Deposit Funds” button is what you’d have to click on.

From there, you’d have to input the desired amount and choose a payment method. There are a lot of options you can choose from, which does make things rather convenient. As of yet, you can deposit using PayPal, Wire Transfer, Skrill, NETELLER, UnionPay, Credit, and a Debit card.

Once you see the cash in your account, you can embark on trading Bitcoin on eToro. Hit the “Trade Markets” button and you’re good to go. That’s what you’ll see once you select that option:

While you’ll have a few options, on the top navigation menu, click on the “crypto” button if you want to trade Bitcoin and other digital currencies.

You will see the following screen:

Now, from here you have to select the digital currency that you want to start trading. As this is a Bitcoin guide, we’ve used Bitcoin as an example.

As soon as you click it, you will get to a dedicated page where you can also see the discussions people are having on Bitcoin and trading it.

If you want to trade it, you have to select the “trade” button which is located at the top right corner. That’s what you will see:

Obviously, you’ll be able to Buy or Sell Bitcoin. You can also choose whether or not you want to trade in BTC units or in USD, based on your preferences.

As you click on the “Trade” button, you will be allowed to place an order – either a buy or a sell order, depending on whether you want to go long or to short BTC.

You can also select a stop-loss value which will automatically close your position as soon as it is losing the amount specified in it. That’s a very good tool to put a limit on any further losses which can occur if the market swings violently in any direction, opposite to your position.

What are the supported cryptocurrencies?

At press time, eToro supports quite a few different cryptocurrencies. These include Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Dash, Ripple, Ethereum Classic, Cardano, Litecoin, IOTA, Stellar, EOS, NEO, Zcash, and Binance Coin.

The cryptocurrency trading pairs that traders can run with include:

  • EOS/XLM
  • ETH/EOS
  • ETH/BTC
  • ETH/XLM
  • BTC/EOS
  • BTC/XLM

What is social trading?

Social trading on eToro is probably one of its most popular features. This allows users to trade Bitcoin and any other cryptocurrencies based on the way other people, often experienced or even professional, trade it.

eToro is also going the extra mile, providing users with daily editor’s choice traders the portfolio of whom performs particularly good. The only thing the user has to do is “copy” them.

What is eToro’s CryptoPortfolio?

eToro’s CryptoPortfoli is designed for those investors who want to increase their exposure to cryptocurrencies.

It’s an investment vehicle which provides a bundled and diversified portfolio, placing the emphasis on digital currencies which have a total market capitalization of more than $1 billion. The other qualifying condition is that they have to have an average trading volume which is more than $20 million during the month.

The weight of every digital asset in the CryptoPortfolio is calculated based on its market cap, with the minimum being 5%.

In addition, eToro has a special investment committee which rebalances the product appropriately on the first trading day of every month in the calendar. This is intended to increase the accuracy of the product.

Having said that, the current CryptoPortfolio (in February 2019) consists of the following digital assets:

  • Bitcoin (BTC)
  • Ethereum (ETH)
  • Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
  • Litecoin (LTC)
  • Ethereum Classic (ETC)
  • Dash (DASH)
  • Ripple (XRP)
  • NEO (NEO)
  • Stellar (XLM)
  • EOS (EOS)

Withdrawals on eToro

In order to withdraw money from the platform, you have to use the same method you’ve used to deposit. Payments, however, are made with priority to:

  • Credit Card Users
  • PayPal Users
  • Bank Transfers

The withdrawal fee is $25 per withdrawal, which is quite hefty. There are also conversion fees if you decide to withdraw in a currency other than the USD.

Fees on eToro

There are a lot of different trading options that you can take advantage of on eToro. As such, the fee is variable based on the asset you engage with.

The fees tend to range between 1% and 3%, however, so that’s what you can expect if you want to deal with cryptocurrencies.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we’d like to say that eToro truly provides the sense of security that a lot of the users are looking for.

The platform is very easy to use and it doesn’t have any overly complicated features. You can see why it’s geared to both beginners and advanced traders.

Images credit to eToro.com. Cover photo by Flickr