How To Buy Chainlink (LINK)

Cryptocurrency is an extremely high-risk and complex investment. Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. You are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong.

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.

What is Chainlink?

Chainlink is a technology that connects blockchains to off-chain data in order to power smart contracts.

Imagine a bet between two people where the participants back opposing teams in a football match. Both stake £10 and the combined £20 is held in a smart contract. 

Chainlink communicates with an off-chain data source to pull in the final score. The data is then passed onto the smart contract which automatically releases the £20 to the winner of the bet.

Chainlink has been around since 2017 and has a market capitalisation of £3.1 billion. It peaked in value at £35.62 in June of 2021, but now trades at £5.80.

If you understand and accept the risks associated with cryptocurrency, here’s how to set about buying it.

1. Choose a crypto exchange

You can buy Chainlink (LINK) from major crypto exchanges such as eToro and Kraken.

Each exchange has its own trading features and fees, so we’ve pulled together a list of what we think are the best crypto exchanges based on these criteria.

Once you’ve chosen an exchange, you’ll need to open an account. This typically involves some identity verification steps so that the site can comply with anti money laundering regulations.

Once registered, you’ll need to credit your account with some fiat currency (such as sterling) in order to make trades.

2. Choose a payment method

Most exchanges offer a variety of ways to credit your account. Bank transfer is usually the cheapest and easiest payment method.

Regardless of what you want to spend, you may find your exchange has a minimum deposit amount of around £10. Even if the coin you’re interested in trades for pennies, you’ll still need to deposit the mandated amount in order to trade.

3. Buy LINK

With your account created and credited, you can navigate to the Chainlink (LINK) page within your exchange and enter the amount you’d like to spend before executing the trade. 

You’ll then get an email confirming the transaction and your account will show your LINK balance.

4. Store your keys

Since cryptocurrencies only exist as a record on a ledger, you don’t actually store them yourself. Instead you store the private and public keys necessary to trade from your account.

Anyone is allowed to see your public key – it’s the crypto equivalent to your email address and something you need to share if you want to receive coins.

Buying and selling from your account requires both your public and private key, however, so you need to keep your private key to yourself so that nobody can steal your holdings.

Most exchanges offer a free crypto wallet in which to store your keys, secured with the same credentials you use to log in to your account on the exchange.

This is the most convenient and easiest way to store your keys. Plus, if you forgot your account credentials and lost access to your keys, you could go through the exchange’s password recovery process.

The downside is that hackers target these exchanges, so storing your keys with one makes you somewhat of a target.

The alternative is an offline hardware wallet – a memory stick containing your keys which you plug into your computer or phone. On its own, these wallets are disconnected from the web and harder for hackers to compromise.

However, as soon as you plug them into a web-connected device they lose that protection. You also lose the password recovery facility offered by online wallet providers.