Internet Computer price and where to buy ICP

What is Internet Computer?

The Internet Computer is a blockchain designed to host full applications, including their websites and data, in smart contracts called canisters. ICP is staked to govern the network and is converted into cycles, which pay for computation and are burned as they are used.

How to buy Internet Computer, step by step

1. Pick an exchange. ICP is listed on every exchange we track. Compare fees, funding options and whether it serves your country in our exchange reviews.
2. Create and verify your account. Regulated exchanges ask for identity documents before you can deposit fiat.
3. Fund the account. A bank transfer or a stablecoin deposit usually costs far less than a card payment.
4. Buy ICP. Use the ICP/USDT or ICP/USD market, and check the cheapest venue in the table above first.
5. Decide where to keep it. On the exchange is simplest, but the exchange then holds your coins. ICP runs on its own network; withdraw to the ICP account ID your wallet shows, not an address from another chain.

Where to buy Internet Computer at the best price

The cheapest venue right now is marked in the table above. Add its trading fee before comparing: on ICP the venues disagree by about 0.12 percent on average, so on a small purchase the fee and the funding method usually matter more.

• The price on that venue. Each row shows the gap to our composite.
• The trading fee. Our fee comparison lists spot fees side by side.
• How you fund the account. A bank transfer or stablecoin deposit is usually far cheaper than a card payment, which often costs several percent.

Why the Internet Computer price differs between exchanges

In our minute-by-minute measurement the gap between the highest and lowest venue averaged about 0.12 percent, against about 0.025 percent for Bitcoin. It went above half a percent in about seven minutes out of every thousand, and reached about 1.2 percent at its widest.

Just over half of the ICP spot volume we track trades on a single venue. The spread figure at the top of this page is the live measurement; our guide on why crypto prices differ between exchanges explains the mechanism.

What moves the Internet Computer price

The wider crypto market, and in ICP’s case its own news too. In our hourly composite, ICP moved with Bitcoin at a correlation of about 0.46, where 1 would mean identical moves, and its moves were about three times the size of Bitcoin’s.

ICP-specific drivers come on top: network upgrades, how much ICP is burned for computation, and leverage. The funding rates on this page show whether leveraged traders are paying to be long or short right now.

Pros and cons of Internet Computer

Pros

• Hosts complete applications, including their web front ends, on-chain.
• Use of the network burns ICP.

Cons

• Its hourly moves were about three times Bitcoin’s in our data.
• It trades far below the price it opened at.
• Its price gap between exchanges is about five times Bitcoin’s.

Internet Computer’s highest price

The Internet Computer’s all-time high, about $700, was set in its first days of trading. The chart above shows the last 30 days of our composite, and the ICP to USD converter applies the live price to any amount.