Share This Article

Facebook LinkedIn
Twitter Reddit
Print Email
Pinterest Gmail
Yahoo
Money Morning
×
  • Invest
    • Best Stocks to Buy
    • Stock Forecasts
    • Stocks to Sell Now
    • Stock Market Predictions
    • Technology Stocks
    • Best REITs to Buy Now
    • IPO Stocks
    • Penny Stocks
    • Dividend Stocks
    • Cryptocurrencies
    • Cannabis Investing
    • AI Investing
  • Trade
    • How to Trade Options
    • Best Trades to Make Now
    • Options Trading Strategies
    • Weekly Trade Recommendations
  • Retire
    • Income Investing Guide
    • Retirement Articles
  • More
    • Money Morning LIVE
    • Special Investing Reports
    • Our ELetters
    • Our Premium Services
    • Videos
    • Meet Our Experts
    • Profit Academy
    • Postcards
Login Archives Your Team About Us FAQ
  • Invest
    • Best Stocks to Buy
    • Stock Forecasts
    • Stocks to Sell Now
    • Stock Market Predictions
    • Technology Stocks
    • Best REITs to Buy Now
    • IPO Stocks
    • Penny Stocks
    • Dividend Stocks
    • Cryptocurrencies
    • Cannabis Investing
    • AI Investing
    ×
  • Trade
    • How to Trade Options
    • Best Trades to Make Now
    • Options Trading Strategies
    • Weekly Trade Recommendations
    ×
  • Retire
    • Income Investing Guide
    • Retirement Articles
    ×
  • More
    • Money Morning LIVE
    • Special Investing Reports
    • Our ELetters
    • Our Premium Services
    • Videos
    • Meet Our Experts
    • Profit Academy
    • Postcards
    ×
  • Subscribe
Enter stock ticker or keyword
×
Join 100,000+ Like-Minded Investors Today
Twitter
Tags: Bitcoin

How to Make Money from Cryptocurrencies Without Buying Them

By David Zeiler, Associate Editor, Money Morning • @DavidGZeiler • October 31, 2017

View Comments

Start the conversation

Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply.

You must be logged in to post a comment.

The puzzle of how to make money from cryptocurrencies just got a lot easier to solve, thanks to a soon-to-arrive platform called Prism.

Anyone who has tried to invest in cryptocurrencies knows how challenging it can be to buy and secure multiple cryptos at once.

After people buy their cryptocurrencies on an exchange, many avoid the hassles of setting up a wallet by storing their holdings on the exchange - and leaving their digital assets vulnerable to theft by hackers.

makemoney from cryptocurrencies
Erik Voorhees

Those who download the digital wallets to their PCs find that owning more than a few quickly becomes unwieldy, as most cryptocurrencies each require their own wallet.

That's where Prism, a project of the ShapeShift digital asset exchange, comes in.

"We wanted to do something better than either of those options, but do it in a non-custodial way," ShapeShift founder and CEO Erik Voorhees told Money Morning.

Prism uses the smart contract feature of Ethereum to allow customers to create their own handpicked cryptocurrency fund. This allows investors to profit from their selected cryptocurrencies without the hassle of buying and storing the underlying digital assets, similar to how investors use exchange-traded funds in the stock-trading world.

Voorhees is a well-known innovator in the Bitcoin community. He's also served as head of marketing for early Bitcoin exchange BitInstant and was a co-founder of Bitcoin payment-processor and wallet company Coinapult.

Editor's Note: Stay on top of the rapidly evolving world of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. To get real-time alerts sent to your inbox - totally free - sign up here.

Voorhees created ShapeShift as a place for people to exchange cryptocurrencies on a website without setting up an account (thus avoiding the cumbersome customer verification process other exchanges require).

And now he's created Prism to make investing in cryptocurrencies easier too. Right now the project is in the testing stage, so access to Prism is by invitation only. But Prism is expected to go live sometime in early 2018.

Here's how it works...

How to Invest in Cryptocurrencies the Prism Way

how to invest in cryptocurrencies

While the Prism experience simplifies investing in cryptocurrencies, it does require customers to own some Ethereum, since the system is based on Ethereum.

To get started, an investor needs to set up a Prism account and fund it with the Ethereum equivalent of the amount they wish to invest. During the "beta" stage, the limit is 10 ETH, worth about $3,000.

ShapeShift doesn't hold your funds; the smart contract part of Ethereum controls the funds, which you can withdraw at any time.

You can choose up to 20 cryptocurrencies to include in your Prism and assign by percentage how much value will be allocated to each asset. The process is similar to setting up a 401k retirement account. (See image.)

The current test version of Prism has 45 cryptocurrencies available, but Voorhees said, "ultimately we will have hundreds."

But you're not actually buying the cryptocurrencies.

Instead, each Prism smart contract is essentially a derivative contract. Its value is only based on the current prices of the underlying assets. ShapeShift doesn't buy the cryptocurrencies, either. The prices are sourced from an "oracle," an online agent that determines current cryptocurrency prices and is updated on the site every few minutes.

You can log in to the Prism site to monitor the progress of your crypto-portfolio. Should you want to make any changes, such as adding or deleting a cryptocurrency or rebalancing your holdings, there's an option for that. The screen is essentially the same as the setup screen. ShapeShift charges a 0.5% fee for each rebalance.

This Book Could Make You a Millionaire: The secrets in this book have produced 42 chances to double, triple, and even quadruple your money this year alone. Claim your free copy...

To close your Prism, you send a transaction of 0 ETH to your Prism address, which signals the smart contract that you're ready to close out. You must withdraw the entire value of the Prism. The closing fee is 0.05 ETH plus 2.4% of your portfolio.

The resulting ETH - your gains or losses - are then sent to your Ethereum wallet.

Prism is an innovative approach to investing in digital assets, but some in the cryptocurrency community have raised concerns...

Erik Voorhees Responds to Prism's Critics

Here Are 10 “One-Click” Ways to Earn 10% or Better on Your Money Every Quarter

Appreciation is great, but it’s possible to get even more out of the shares you own. A lot more: you can easily beat inflation and collect regular income to spare. There are no complicated trades to put on, no high-level options clearances necessary. In fact, you can do this with a couple of mouse clicks – passive income redefined. Click here for the report…

Claim My Free Report

David ZeilerDavid Zeiler

About the Author

Browse David's articles |

David Zeiler, Associate Editor for Money Morning at Money Map Press, has been a journalist for more than 35 years, including 18 spent at The Baltimore Sun. He has worked as a writer, editor, and page designer at different times in his career. He's interviewed a number of well-known personalities - ranging from punk rock icon Joey Ramone to Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak.

Over the course of his journalistic career, Dave has covered many diverse subjects. Since arriving at Money Morning in 2011, he has focused primarily on technology. He's an expert on both Apple and cryptocurrencies. He started writing about Apple for The Sun in the mid-1990s, and had an Apple blog on The Sun's web site from 2007-2009. Dave's been writing about Bitcoin since 2011 - long before most people had even heard of it. He even mined it for a short time.

Dave has a BA in English and Mass Communications from Loyola University Maryland.

… Read full bio

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
guest

guest

10 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
ron mazeau
ron mazeau
5 years ago

how do i set up a prism account to get started?

0
Reply
dzeiler_admin
dzeiler_admin
5 years ago
Reply to  ron mazeau

Ron,

Thanks for reading Money Morning. While the Prism project is in the closed beta phase, you need to apply for an invitation here and click on the register button. There's no guarantee they will send you an invite, though. Otherwise, you'll have to wait until next year when ShapeShift opens the platform to the general public (no set date has been given).

Good luck!

Dave Zeiler, Associate Editor, Money Morning

0
Reply
Jerry
Jerry
5 years ago

Thanks you made it a lot easier.

0
Reply
Amier
Amier
5 years ago

Teach me how wanna be a millionaire..

0
Reply
james
james
5 years ago

Fast Money traders like Brian on CNBC seem to think bitcoin trading is
safe and straightforward. Is he correct?

0
Reply
Clair Corriveau
Clair Corriveau
5 years ago

How can you convert cryptocurrencies into cash ?

0
Reply
dzeiler_admin
dzeiler_admin
5 years ago
Reply to  Clair Corriveau

Clair,

Thanks for reading Money Morning. Outside the biggest, most popular cryptocurrencies,such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, selling digital assets for US dollars can be challenging. But on most cryptocurrency exchanges it's easy to trade other cryptos for Bitcoin and Ethereum. You can then send the Bitcoin or Ethereum to an account at a site like Coinbase, which allows easy conversion (for a fee) of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin to US dollars.

Hope this helps.

– Dave Zeiler, Associate Editor, Money Morning

0
Reply
Janos Mehesz
Janos Mehesz
5 years ago

Need yours crypto info

0
Reply
Alex Decker
Alex Decker
5 years ago

According to the World Economic Forum, the tipping point for cryptocurrencies will hit sometime within the next 5 years. This means that anyone who gets in now will make an absolute killing. I got started with just $10.

0
Reply
Charles Gleen
Charles Gleen
5 years ago

BtcTradeFarm is very trustworthy. I invested my btc with them and I made returns. They are truly legit.

0
Reply


Latest News

September 20, 2023 • By Garrett Baldwin

Postcards: Captured by Vines... and Regulation

September 20, 2023 • By Tom Gentile

How to Cash In On The Most Perfectly-Timed Selloff in History

September 18, 2023 • By Garrett Baldwin

Dogs That Are Fluent in Spanish for $200, Alex.
Trending Stories
ABOUT MONEY MORNING

Money Morning gives you access to a team of market experts with more than 250 years of combined investing experience – for free. Our experts – who have appeared on FOXBusiness, CNBC, NPR, and BloombergTV – deliver daily investing tips and stock picks, provide analysis with actions to take, and answer your biggest market questions. Our goal is to help our millions of e-newsletter subscribers and Moneymorning.com visitors become smarter, more confident investors.

QUICK LINKS
About Us COVID-19 Announcements How Money Morning Works FAQs Contact Us Search Article Archive Forgot Username/Password Archives Profit Academy Research Your Team Videos Text Messaging Terms of Use
FREE NEWSLETTERS
Total Wealth Research Power Profit Trades Penny Hawk Midday Momentum
PREMIUM SERVICES
Money Map Press Home Money Map Report Fast Fortune Club Weekly Cash Clock Microcurrency Trader Hyperdrive Portfolio Rocket Wealth Initiative Quantum Data Profits Flashpoint Trader Darknet Alpha Accelerators Brutus Alerts Resource Traders Alliance L.A.U.N.C.H. Investor Rob Roy Trader Long-Term Equity Profits

© 2023 Money Morning All Rights Reserved. Protected by copyright of the United States and international treaties. Any reproduction, copying, or redistribution (electronic or otherwise, including the world wide web), of content from this webpage, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited without the express written permission of Money Morning.

Address: 1125 N Charles St. | Baltimore, MD, 21201 | USA | Phone: 888.384.8339 | Disclaimer | Sitemap | Privacy Policy | Whitelist Us | Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

wpDiscuz