The first way: owning

You buy apples at a store, and they're yours. You can eat them today or in a week. Nobody will take them away because apples got cheaper at the market.

Assets work the same way. A stockStocksA share in a company; the price depends on how the business is doing.In the glossary → is a tiny share of a company. Buy one Apple share and you become a co-owner of Apple, even if a very small one. Buy bitcoinBitcoinThe first and best-known cryptocurrency: no company or country stands behind it, and its price easily moves 3–4% in a day.In the glossary →, and the coin sits in your account. It belongs to you.

Until you sell, there's no profit or loss yet. There's only what your purchase is worth right now. If it got cheaper, that's a loss on paper. It turns into real money, plus or minus, at the moment you sell. This way you can only make money when the price rises: buy lower, sell higher.