I will look up those two and see what I can find online, thank you for that. I plan on trying to go in about $200/month right now. Once again, the volatility is what keeps me weary. I am not trying to use it like an investment even though, to me, that seems to be what the majority are using it for.
$200/month isn't a bad amount at all. If you think that's the amount you're comfortable with, then by all means go with it. There's no right amount to invest anyway. At least you're aware of the volatility.
As for the volatility, you need to understand that bitcoin is a
10 year old asset(in contrast to gold which is pretty much a bajillion years old), so market liquidity[1] will be very low as expected. It will take time for bitcoin to be stable in price. Gold is decently stable right now because of the very high liquidity it has. Assuming Bitcoin's adoption would be in a slow upward long-term trend and as people understands the importance of a decentralized currency, expect Bitcoin to go the same path as gold in terms of liquidity.
As for the uses, you're going to get mixed answers on this. Some people solely own it as an investment, some people own it to spend it online, and some use it for both. I personally use it both as an investment and as something to pay with. Why? Because screw PayPal. And a long with that, I think bitcoin will be successful in the long term, so it would only make sense to also look at it as an investment. How about you? What are your plans with it if you don't look at it as an investment?
Best of luck!
I completely agree with what you are saying. My concern is that in my current city in the USA, I see very few vendors that accept Bitcoin. The main thing keeping me from transferring all of my fiat into Bitcoin is the volatility. I understand my 401K could theoretically drop to $0, but if that happens I have a lot more to worry about than what I have saved.
Your best bet would be to use famous exchanges like Coinbase[1], Kraken[2], and Gemini[3]. You're going to pay like 10% more than the market price if you're going to use Bitcoin ATMs.
EDIT: Oh and lastly, learn to secure your funds first!
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_liquidity[2]
https://coinbase.com/[3]
https://kraken.com/[4]
https://gemini.com/