Suze Orman Says to Only Invest This Type of Money in Bitcoin

It pays to take her advice.

There was most likely a point in time, and not so long ago, when you never even heard of Bitcoin. But nowadays, it's all over the news and has gained popularity among investors.

In fact, a lot of people have made a nice amount of money with Bitcoin, and so you may be at a point where you want in on the action. But if you're going to buy Bitcoin, it's important to do so under the right conditions. And financial expert Suze Orman has some key advice in that regard.

Be very careful with crypto

Orman says that if you're going to buy Bitcoin, you should only invest money that:

• You don't need or expect to need for a long time
• You can afford to lose

The first point is actually applicable to any investment you might make in your brokerage account. You never know when the value of a given investment might plunge, so it's important to only invest money you don't anticipate using for many years.

So if, for example, you have $20,000 you're hoping to put toward a home down payment in the next two to three years, investing it (whether in Bitcoin, stocks, or something else) is generally a poor choice. Rather, that $20,000 should sit in cash in the bank, where you won't risk losing out on any of that principal.

Orman's second point, however, speaks more to the risks involved in buying Bitcoin -- or any cryptocurrency, really. While there's no guarantee you won't lose money with more established investments, like stocks and bonds, digital currencies are notoriously speculative. That means they don't have a long history behind them and it's hard to know how much staying power they have.

It may very well be the case that Bitcoin is worth nothing in 10, 20, or 30 years from now -- if not sooner. And while you could say the same thing about any given stock, the reality is that stocks on a whole are an established investment. And if you invest in companies that have been around for a long time, there's less of a chance of them going under in the near term.

Bitcoin, however, has only been around for a little over a decade. And so it's harder to have faith in an asset that didn't even exist 15 years ago.

Is Bitcoin right for you?

If you've done your research on Bitcoin and determined that it's a good fit for your portfolio, then you may want to buy it if you have extra money and aren't afraid to lose it. But if you're new to investing, you may want to stick to tried-and-true assets like stocks, which have a long history of generating solid returns despite their volatile tendencies.

What’s more, don't mistake Bitcoin for cryptocurrency in general. You may be interested in owning digital currencies, but don't automatically rush to invest in Bitcoin because it's a name you hear the most on the news. There may be another currency that's a better fit for you, so take the time to do the research on crypto before diving in.