How and Where to Buy Nervos Network (CKB) – Detailed Guide

May 4, 2024 10:18 AM

What is CKB?
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 CKB
Last Step: Store CKB securely in hardware wallets
Other useful tools for trading CKB
Frequently Asked Questions
Latest News for CKB
CKB Price Prediction and Price Movement

What is CKB?

What Is Nervos Network (CKB)?

Nervos Network (CKB) is an open-source public blockchain ecosystem. Its goal is to create a peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto-economy network where users can access a wide range of provably secure blockchain services and capabilities.

The Nervos mainnet launched in November 2019 with a novel dual-layer architecture. There’s a base layer where the consensus mechanism operates and smart assets are stored, and a computation layer where transactions are processed.

The base layer, also known as the Common Knowledge Base, has its own cryptocurrency called CKByte (CKB). It uses the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism and drives the Nervos ecosystem. It is used to pay miners for keeping the network safe, managing network resources, and letting users store things on the network.

The Nervos Network allows developers to create decentralized applications (dApps) that can operate on various blockchain systems. Any of the network layers can be used to run both decentralized apps and smart contracts.

Who Are the Founders of Nervos Network?

The Nervos Foundation initiated the project in 2018, as researchers, engineers, and developers assembled to make up the core team.

Three people created the platform itself: Terry Tai, who developed the Yunbi cryptocurrency exchange and co-founded Teahour.fm; Daniel Lv, who co-founded ruby-china.org and served as the platform's chief technology officer (CTO) for both imToken and Yunbi; and Kevin Wang, an engineer who provided consulting services to IBM Silicon Valley Lab and co-founded the Launch School.

What Makes Nervos Network (CKB) Unique?

The development team's unconventional methodology is evident in the Nervos Network's design: the blockchain is open-source, the technology supports multiple assets, and the architecture is made up of several layers and a number of protocols.

Nervos’ dual-layer architecture involves two layers. (1) The layer-1 base layer, also called the Common Knowledge Base, is where the network achieves consensus using PoW. This layer has its own cryptocurrency called CKByte, or CKB, which fuels the Nervos ecosystem. Layer 2 is the computational layer, where transactions are processed in real time and where developers carry out programming tasks.

Nervos Network wants to make it easier to make and use decentralized apps (dApps) by combining the security of the Proof of Work (PoW) algorithm with scalability and the ability to share data between layers.

Nervos Network's economic model is scalable, which means that participants can help the project grow by using platform features. In exchange, they get access to a decentralized, open, and censorship-resistant platform. Users can use the platform to store their assets; the price depends on how much space they need and how long they need it for.

Read about Quant (QNT), Cosmos (ATOM) and Polkadot (DOT).

Read about the difference between Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake in blockchain.

What is a layer-1 blockchain? Find out with our crypto glossary.

What are dApps? Learn more with CMC Alexandria.

How Many Nervos Network (CKB) Coins Are There in Circulation?

CKByte (Common Knowledge Base) or CKB is the network's native token. It has a total supply of 43,510,781,425 coins, which are allocated as follows:

21.5% to public token sale (to public sale investors);

17% to the ecosystem fund;

15% to the team (vested over 4 years);

14% to private sale in 2018 / to certain institutional investors (unlocked over 2 years);

5% to the founding partners (unlocked over 3 years);

2% to the foundation;

0.5% to the platform's testnet incentives;

25% of the Genesis tokens were burned (and never circulated).

As of March 2023, there are 39,936,460,802 CKB tokens in circulation.

CKB is a utility token that provides flexibility to the entire ecosystem. It’s a reserve asset on layer 2, as well as a means of payment for block rewards, staking rewards, and transaction fees.

CKB holders have access to state storage space on the platform's mainnet, getting the right to store 1 byte of data on the layer 1 blockchain (storage space is proportional to users' assets / their holdings);

How Is the Nervos Network Secured?

Nervos Network uses a PoW-based Nakamoto consensus mechanism to secure dApps and digital assets. The CKB token is deployed on a PoW blockchain for security and decentralization, so it's protected and mined with an ASIC-backed PoW function.

The network is open-source and has been audited by a third-party: CertiK. Also, the team regularly holds hackathons with cash prizes where people can win money for finding security flaws in the network.

Where Can You Buy Nervos Network (CKB)?

As of March 2023, the top exchanges for CKB trading are Binance, KuCoin, Bithumb, Bittrex, Gate.io, Huobi, Crypto.com Exchange, Coinone, BKEX, MEXC, CoinEx, Indodax, WazirX, Tokocrypto, Bitrue, CoinDCX and others.

Download the CMC mobile app to track the price of CKB in real-time.

Read up-to-date crypto news and educational articles on CMC Alexandria.

CKB was first tradable on 19th Nov, 2019. It has a total supply of 44,766,145,409.07,504. As of right now CKB has a market capitalization of USD $842,705,562. The current price of CKB is $0.0188 and is ranked 98 out of the top 100 cryptocurrencies on Coinmarketcap and has recently surged 20.44 percent at the time of writing.

CKB 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 CKB.

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.

Suitable for US traders

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.

Show Details Steps ▾

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

Select altcoin exchanges:

Gate.io
BitMart
Binance

But we are not done yet, since CKB is an altcoin we need to transfer our BTC to an exchange that CKB can be traded, here we will use Gate.io as our exchange. Gate.io is a popular exchange to trade altcoins and it has a large number of tradable altcoins pairs. Use the link below to register your new account.

Gate.io is an American cryptocurrency exchange that launched 2017. As the exchange is American, US-investors can of course trade here and we recommend US traders to sign up on this exchange. The exchange is available both in English and Chinese (the latter being very helpful for Chinese investors). Gate.io’s main selling factor is their wide selection of trading pairs. You can find most of the new altcoins here. Gate.io also demonstrates an impressive trading volume. It is almost every day one of the top 20 exchanges with the highest trading volume. The trading volume amounts to approx. USD 100 million on a daily basis. The top 10 trading pairs on Gate.io in terms of trading volume usually have USDT (Tether) as one part of the pair. So, to summarize the foregoing, Gate.io’s vast number of trading pairs and its extraordinary liquidity are both very impressive aspects of this exchange.

After going through a similar process as we've done before with UpHold, you will be advised to set up 2FA authentication as well, finish it as it adds extra security to your account.

Step 4: Deposit BTC to exchange

Depends on the policies of the exchange you might be required to go through another KYC process, this should usually take you from 30 minutes to possibly a few days maximum. Though the process should be straight-forward and easy to follow. Once you're done with it you should have full access to your exchange wallet.

If this is your first time making a crypto deposit, the screen here may look a bit scary. But don't worry, it's basically simpler than making a bank transfer. At the box on the right, you will see a string of random numbers saying 'BTC address', this is a unique public address of your BTC wallet at Gate.io and you can receive BTC by giving this address to the person to send you the funds. Since we are now transferring our previously bought BTC on UpHold to this wallet, click on 'Copy Address' or right-click on the full address and click copy to grab this address to your clipboard.

Now head back to UpHold, go to the Transact screen and click on BTC on the "From" field, choose the amount you wan to send and on the "To" field choose BTC under "Crypto Network", then click "Preview withdraw".

On the next screen, paste the wallet address from your clipboard, for security consideration you should always check if both addresses are matching. It is known that there are certain computer malware that would alter the content in your clipboard into another wallet address and you will be essentially sending funds to another person.

After reviewing, click 'Confirm' to proceed, you should receive a confirmation email instantly, click on the confirmation link in the email and your coins are on the way to Gate.io!

Now go back to Gate.io and head to your exchange wallets, don't worry if you haven't seen your deposit here. It is probably still being verified in the blockchain network and it should take a few minutes for your coins to arrive. Depending on the network traffic condition of the Bitcoin network, during busy times it may take even longer.

You should receive a confirmation notification from Gate.io once your BTC has arrived. And you are now finally ready to purchase CKB!

Step 5: Trade CKB

Go back to Gate.io, then go to 'Exchange'. Boom! What a view! The constantly flicking figures might be a bit scary, but relax, let's get our heads around this.

In the right column there is a search bar, now make sure "BTC" is selected as we are trading BTC to altcoin pair. Click on it and type in "CKB", you should see CKB/BTC, select that pair and you should see a price chart of CKB/BTC in the middle of the page.

Below there is a box with a green button that says "Buy CKB", inside of the box, choose the "Market" tab here as that is the most straight-forward type of buying orders. You can either type in your amount or choose what portion of your BTC deposit you would like to spend on buying, by clicking on the percentage buttons. When you have confirmed everything, click "Buy CKB". Voila! You have finally bought CKB!

But we are not done yet, since CKB is an altcoin we need to transfer our BTC to an exchange that CKB can be traded, here we will use BitMart as our exchange. BitMart is a popular exchange to trade altcoins and it has a large number of tradable altcoins pairs. Use the link below to register your new account.

BitMart is a crypto exchange from the Cayman Islands. It became available to the public in March 2018. BitMart has a truly impressive liquidity. At the time of the last update of this review (20 March 2020, right in the middle of the crisis with COVID-19), BitMart’s 24 hour trading volume was USD 1.8 billion. This amount placed BitMart on place no. 24 on Coinmarketcap’s the list of exchanges with the highest 24 hour trading volumes. Needless to say, if you start trading here, you will not have to worry about the order book being thin. Many exchanges does not allow investors from USA as customers. As far as we can tell, BitMart is not one of those exchanges. Any US-investors interested in trading here should in any event form their own opinion on any issues arising from their citizenship or residency.

After going through a similar process as we've done before with UpHold, you will be advised to set up 2FA authentication as well, finish it as it adds extra security to your account.

Step 4: Deposit BTC to exchange

If this is your first time making a crypto deposit, the screen here may look a bit scary. But don't worry, it's basically simpler than making a bank transfer. At the box on the right, you will see a string of random numbers saying 'BTC address', this is a unique public address of your BTC wallet at BitMart and you can receive BTC by giving this address to the person to send you the funds. Since we are now transferring our previously bought BTC on UpHold to this wallet, click on 'Copy Address' or right-click on the full address and click copy to grab this address to your clipboard.

After reviewing, click 'Confirm' to proceed, you should receive a confirmation email instantly, click on the confirmation link in the email and your coins are on the way to BitMart!

Now go back to BitMart and head to your exchange wallets, don't worry if you haven't seen your deposit here. It is probably still being verified in the blockchain network and it should take a few minutes for your coins to arrive. Depending on the network traffic condition of the Bitcoin network, during busy times it may take even longer.

You should receive a confirmation notification from BitMart once your BTC has arrived. And you are now finally ready to purchase CKB!

Step 5: Trade CKB

Go back to BitMart, then go to 'Exchange'. Boom! What a view! The constantly flicking figures might be a bit scary, but relax, let's get our heads around this.

But we are not done yet, since CKB is an altcoin we need to transfer our BTC to an exchange that CKB can be traded, here we will use Binance as our exchange. Binance is a popular exchange to trade altcoins and it has a large number of tradable altcoins pairs. Use the link below to register your new account.

Binance is a popular cryptocurrency exchange which was started in China but then moved their headquarters to the crypto-friendly Island of Malta in the EU. Binance is popular for its crypto to crypto exchange services. Binance exploded onto the scene in the mania of 2017 and has since gone on to become the top crypto exchange in the world. Unfortunately, Binance does not allow US investors so we recommend you to sign up on other exchanges we recommend on this page.

After going through a similar process as we've done before with UpHold, you will be advised to set up 2FA authentication as well, finish it as it adds extra security to your account.

Step 4: Deposit BTC to exchange

If this is your first time making a crypto deposit, the screen here may look a bit scary. But don't worry, it's basically simpler than making a bank transfer. At the box on the right, you will see a string of random numbers saying 'BTC address', this is a unique public address of your BTC wallet at Binance and you can receive BTC by giving this address to the person to send you the funds. Since we are now transferring our previously bought BTC on UpHold to this wallet, click on 'Copy Address' or right-click on the full address and click copy to grab this address to your clipboard.

After reviewing, click 'Confirm' to proceed, you should receive a confirmation email instantly, click on the confirmation link in the email and your coins are on the way to Binance!

Now go back to Binance and head to your exchange wallets, don't worry if you haven't seen your deposit here. It is probably still being verified in the blockchain network and it should take a few minutes for your coins to arrive. Depending on the network traffic condition of the Bitcoin network, during busy times it may take even longer.

You should receive a confirmation notification from Binance once your BTC has arrived. And you are now finally ready to purchase CKB!

Step 5: Trade CKB

Go back to Binance, then go to 'Exchange'. Boom! What a view! The constantly flicking figures might be a bit scary, but relax, let's get our heads around this.

Last Step: Store CKB 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

Buy Now

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

Buy Now

If you are planning to keep("hodl" as some may say, basically misspelt "hold" which get popularised over time) your CKB 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 CKB with cash?
Are there any quick ways to buy CKB in Europe?
Are there any alternative platforms to buy CKB or Bitcoin with credit cards?

Can I buy CKB with cash?

There is no direct way to buy CKB 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 CKB 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 CKB 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.