How and Where to Buy Wrapped AVAX (WAVAX) – Detailed Guide
- What is WAVAX?
- Step 1: Register on Fiat-to-Crypto Exchange
- Step 2: Buy BTC with fiat money
- Step 3: Transfer BTC to an Altcoin Exchange
- Step 4: Deposit BTC to exchange
- Step 5: Trade WAVAX
- Last Step: Store WAVAX securely in hardware wallets
- Other useful tools for trading WAVAX
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Latest News for WAVAX
- WAVAX Price Prediction and Price Movement
What is WAVAX?
What Is Avalanche (AVAX)?
Avalanche is an umbrella platform for launching decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, financial assets, trading and other services.
It aims to be something of a global assets exchange, allowing anyone to launch or trade any form of asset and control it in a decentralized manner using smart contracts and other cutting-edge technologies.
Developers at Ava Labs claim that Avalanche is the first smart contracts network to offer transaction finalization in under one second as standard.
Avalanche launched its mainnet in September 2020. The platform’s native token, AVAX, performs various tasks within Avalanche and also functions as a rewards and payment system for users.
Who Are the Founders of Avalanche?
Ava Labs has three co-founders, among whom is Emin Gün Sirer, the veteran computer scientist long associated with Bitcoin (BTC) and decentralized networks.
Sirer has long been concerned with Bitcoin scaling, and the Avalanche Consensus is a direct follow-on from this research, allowing transaction volumes significantly higher than Bitcoin and competing with the likes of Visa.
Like Sirer, fellow co-founders Kevin Sekniqi and Maofan “Ted” Yin are also associated with Cornell University. Sirer is an advisor to Yin, who is undertaking a PhD in computer science.
The remainder of the team is made up of computer science, economics, finance and law experts.
What Makes Avalanche Unique?
Avalanche provides decentralized asset trading which anyone can launch and use, and does so with a network which is unique in the digital realm in providing subsecond transaction confirmations.
Developers aim to bring together the huge, fragmented and often opaque world of asset trading under one roof, allowing barrier-free access. Developers can create and release all manner of entities from blockchains to digital representations of any asset, and allow them to trade according to any given parameters. These include, for example, mimicking compliance regulations in various jurisdictions.
The AVAX token forms the in-house payment method for Avalanche, and is used for fee collection during transactions, as well as for incentives and related purposes. Users can also earn passive income by staking their coins on the network.
Related Pages:
Check out CMC Alexandria’s deep dive into Avalanche here.
Read more about Ethereum 2.0 here.
Check out our interview with Emin Gün Sirer here.
Want to learn more about Bitcoin (BTC) or other cryptocurrencies? Check out CoinMarketCap’s dedicated guide here.
How Many Avalanche (AVAX) Coins Are There In Circulation?
AVAX has a maximum capped supply of 720,000,000 (720 million) tokens. The genesis block contained half of that supply.
The other half will be released according to an emission curve detailed in the Avalanche whitepaper. A key difference to the emission of Bitcoin — which is unalterable — is that the AVAX release rate can be changed by community consensus. The supply cannot be changed; all that can differ from consensus is the rate at which the supply cap is reached.
In another contrast to Bitcoin and many other networks, transaction fees are “burnt” in order to increase token scarcity. This process is offset by the release, or “minting,” of new coins.
Transaction fees themselves vary according to the type of operation that the AVAX transaction is performing on the Avalanche network.
How Is the Avalanche Network Secured?
Avalanche is a proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol which rewards users for staking coins. PoS networks have come under fire for their low attack cost, which in some cases has exposed serious vulnerabilities.
According to Ava Labs, Avalanche gets around this by changing governance to make it all but impossible for an attacker to covertly gain the necessary consensus.
Where Can You Buy Avalanche (AVAX)?
AVAX is a freely-exchangeable token and has made its way to major exchanges including Binance, OKEx and Huobi Global.
If you’re new to cryptocurrency, you can read more about how to buy Bitcoin or any other token here. "
WAVAX was first tradable on 27th Apr, 2021. It has a total supply of unknown. As of right now WAVAX has a market capitalization of USD $unknown. The current price of WAVAX is $18.25 and is ranked 2160 on Coinmarketcap and has recently surged 27.85 percent at the time of writing.
WAVAX has been listed on a number of crypto exchanges, unlike other main cryptocurrencies, it cannot be directly purchased with fiats money. However, You can still easily buy this coin by first buying Bitcoin from any fiat-to-crypto exchanges and then transfer to the exchange that offers to trade this coin, in this guide article we will walk you through in detail the steps to buy WAVAX.
Step 1: Register on Fiat-to-Crypto Exchange
You will have to first buy one of the major cryptocurrencies, in this case, Bitcoin (BTC). In this article we will walk you through in details two of the most commonly-used fiat-to-crypto exchanges, Uphold.com and Coinbase. Both exchanges have their own fee policies and other features that we will go through in detail. It is recommended that you try both of them and figure out the one that suits you best.
Select Fiat-to-Crypto Exchange for details:
- UpHold
Being one of the most popular and convenient fiat-to-crypto exchanges, UpHold has the following advantages:
- Easy to buy and trade among multiple assets, more than 50 and still adding
- Currently more than 7M users worldwide
- You can apply for UpHold Debit card where you can spend the crypto assets on your account like a normal debit card! (US only but will be in the UK later)
- Easy to use mobile app where you can withdraw fund to a bank or any other altcoin exchanges easily
- No hidden fees and any other account fees
- There are limited buy/sell orders for more advanced users
- You can easily set up recurring deposits for Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) if you intend to hold cryptos long term
- USDT, which is one of the most popular USD-backed stablecoins (basically a crypto that is backed by real fiat money so they are less volatile and can be treated almost as the fiat money it's pegged with) is available, this is more convenient if the altcoin you intend to buy has only USDT trading pairs on the altcoin exchange so you don't have to go through another currency conversion while you buy the altcoin.
Type your email and click 'Next'. Make sure you provide your real name as UpHold will need it for account and identity verification. Choose a strong password so that your account isn't vulnerable to hackers.
You will receive a confirmation email. Open it and click on the link within. You will then be required to provide a valid mobile number to set up two-factor authentication (2FA), it is an extra layer to the security of your account and it is highly recommended that you keep this feature turned on.
Follow the next step to finish your identity verification. These steps are a bit daunting especially when you are waiting to buy an asset but just like any other financial institutions, UpHold is regulated in most countries such as the US, the UK and the EU. You can take this as a trade-off to using a trusted platform to make your first crypto purchase. Good news is that the whole so-called Know-Your-Customers (KYC) process is now fully automated and it shouldn't take more than 15 minutes to finish.
Step 2: Buy BTC with fiat money
Once you finished the KYC process. You will be asked to add a payment method. Here you can either choose to provide a credit/debit card or use a bank transfer. You may be charged higher fees depending on your credit card company and the volatile prices when using cards but you will also make an instant purchase. While a bank transfer will be cheaper but slower, depending on the country of your residence, some countries will offer instant cash deposit with low fees.
Now you are all set, on the 'Transact' screen under the 'From' field, select your fiat currency, and then on the 'To' field choose Bitcoin, click preview to review your transaction and the click confirm if everything looks good... and congrats! You've just made your first crypto purchase.
Step 3: Transfer BTC to an Altcoin Exchange
But we are not done yet, since WAVAX is an altcoin we need to transfer our BTC to an exchange that WAVAX can be traded. Below is a list of exchanges that offers to trade WAVAX in various market pairs, head to their websites and register for an account.
Once finished you will then need to deposit BTC to the exchange from UpHold. After the deposit is confirmed you may then purchase WAVAX from the exchange view.
Last Step: Store WAVAX securely in hardware wallets
Ledger Nano S
- Easy to set up and friendly interface
- Can be used on desktops and laptops
- Lightweight and Portable
- Support most blockchains and wide range of (ERC-20/BEP-20) tokens
- Multiple languages available
- Built by a well-established company found in 2014 with great chip security
- Affordable price
Ledger Nano X
- More powerful secure element chip (ST33) than Ledger Nano S
- Can be used on desktop or laptop, or even smartphone and tablet through Bluetooth integration
- Lightweight and Portable with built-in rechargeable battery
- Larger screen
- More storage space than Ledger Nano S
- Support most blockchains and wide range of (ERC-20/BEP-20) tokens
- Multiple languages available
- Built by a well-established company found in 2014 with great chip security
- Affordable price
If you are planning to keep("hodl" as some may say, basically misspelt "hold" which get popularised over time) your WAVAX for a considerable long time, you may want to explore ways of keeping it safe, although Binance is one of the safest cryptocurrency exchange there had been hacking incidents and funds were lost. Because of the very nature of the wallets in exchanges, they will be always online("Hot Wallets" as we call them), therefore exposing certain aspects of vulnerabilities. The safest way of storing your coins to date is always putting them into a type of "Cold Wallets", where the wallet will only have access to the blockchain(or simply "go online") when you send out funds, reducing the chances of hacking incidents. A paper wallet is a type of free cold wallet, it's basically an offline-generated pair of public and private address and you will have it written somewhere, and keep it safe. However, it is not durable and is susceptible to various hazards.
Hardware wallet here is definitely a better option of cold wallets. They are usually USB-enabled devices that store the key information of your wallet in a more durable way. They are built with military-level security and their firmware are constantly maintained by their manufacturers and thus extremely safe. Ledger Nano S and Ledger Nano X and are the most popular options in this category, these wallets cost around $50 to $100 depending on the features they are offering. If you are holding your assets these wallets are a good investment in our opinion.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I buy WAVAX with cash?
There is no direct way to buy WAVAX with cash. However, you can use marketplaces such as LocalBitcoins to first purchase BTC, and finish the rest of the steps by transferring your BTC to respective AltCoin exchanges.
LocalBitcoins is a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange. It is a marketplace where users can buy and sell Bitcoins to and from each other. Users, called traders, create advertisements with the price and the payment method they want to offer. You can choose to buy from sellers from a certain nearby region on the platform. is after all a good place to go to buy Bitcoins when you can't find your desired payment methods anywhere else. But prices are usually higher on this platform and you have to do your due diligence to avoid getting scammed.
Are there any quick ways to buy WAVAX in Europe?
Yes, in fact, Europe is one of the easiest places to buy cryptos in general. There are even online banks which you can simply open an account and transfer money to exchanges such as Coinbase and Uphold.
Are there any alternative platforms to buy WAVAX or Bitcoin with credit cards?
Yes. is also a very easy to use platform for buying Bitcoin with credit cards. It is an instant cryptocurrency exchange that allows you to exchange crypto fast and buy it with a bank card. Its user interface is very easy to use and the buying steps are pretty self-explanatory.
Read more on Wrapped AVAX's fundamentals and current price here.