If you are anything like me then you probably heard of Bitcoin years ago and were always interested in investing. But you didn’t. You watched the price of Bitcoin soar up repeatedly and you always thought to yourself surely this cannot last. But it has lasted and there seems to be no end in sight.
Bitcoin is becoming a household name and more and more people are getting into crypto currency by the day. Some people who you never expected to be interested in it are now talking about it and some are even investing in it. As varying as the types of people who invest in crypto currency are, most share one thing in common. They wish that they had invested in Bitcoin while it was cheap.
That being said it is certainly not too late to invest in Bitcoin. Although there are plenty of newer crypto currencies that have the potential to make you more money, more quickly, and revolutionise the industry, Bitcoin is the safest bet out of all of them. Look at Bitcoin as the equivalent of Gold in the Crypto Sphere. Although Gold is expensive and does not make incredibly fast gains it is known universally as the king of currency. No matter what country you go to people know what Gold is and that it is worth something.
It has been this way for thousands of years now. Bitcoin is much the same in the sense that it has been around since the very start of Crypto Currency, it is the trailblazer, and it is very likely here to stay. But does that mean that you should invest just in Bitcoin?
Certainly not! There are a dizzying array of different Crypto Currencies out there to choose from. There are some good, a lot ugly, and many that are arguably just scams. In this guide my goal is to help you traverse the wild west world that is the Crypto Sphere.
Here you will learn what to look for in a good Crypto coin or token, how to buy and sell Crypto Currency, how to store it safely, and how to avoid getting scammed. As always you should do your own research when making any investment of your own, I am not a financial advisor I am simply sharing with you the knowledge that I have gained while on my own personal journey. So grab a coffee, sit back, and lets get started!
How to choose what Crypto Currencies to invest in
First of all you need to work out which coins you are going to invest in. One of the most important things to bear in mind here is that every coin has its fans, and every coin has its haters. Regardless of what anyone says about any one coin you should DYOR (Do your own research). Where possible you should always attempt to verify any information you receive as true or false. Before you invest in a coin you should have a solid understanding of what exactly you are investing in.
What does the coin or token do? Does it have a good use case? How competant are the team behind it? Do the developers work consistently on the project? What sets the coin apart from other coins? If there are other projects offering much of the same, which is the best project? These are just some of the things that you should be looking at. To get a good idea about these things you can 1. Check out the official website for the project in question, 2. Check out the community of people who support the coin, and 3. Check out articles and YouTube videos which review the project or interview the founder/team.
But before you do that you’ve got to build a list of coins to research. One way to do this is to head on over to coinmarketcap.com and browse through the coins. On the pages for each coin there will be links to the official site and you can start from there. Does the official website look professional and is it responsive? That is just one thing you can put a tick or cross next to. It may seem an arbitrary thing to consider it is actually one of the indicators that you may be looking at a good coin or you may not. Nevertheless please be cautious because some scam projects have decent websites.
Once actually on the website you should look at the whitepaper for the coin. This outlines what the project is about and what it wishes to achieve. Then you should look at the roadmap if they have one. The roadmap outlines not only what the team plans to do, but when. You should pay close attention to detail. Does it seem like a feasible project? Is the technology good?
Is the product unique? If it’s not unique is it at least competitive and on top of it’s game? These are things you will get better at gauging the longer you are in the crypto space and the more experience you have. The top 50-100 ranked coins on coinmarketcap.com are a good place to start as these coins will already have at least some community support and traction.
How to purchase Crypto Currency
Firstly you will need to exchange your fiat currency (Pounds, Dollars, Yen, or whatever native currency you use) to Bitcoin. You can do this with sites like Localbitcoins.com and Coinbase.com which are both well known and trusted sites for purchasing Bitcoin. On Coinbase you can also purchase other Crypto Currencies and trade them on their exchange, but there are better exchanges out there with a lot more coins to choose from.
For many you will need to verify your ID in order to purchase and withdraw, but you can get by on Localbitcoins.com without ID in many cases, although it may work out more expensive that way. You can find detailed guides online on how to use each website either through articles found on Google, or through videos found on YouTube. Make sure that the author or content creator respectively, is reputable and trustworthy before you follow their advice.
The next step is to exchange your Bitcoin for other alt coins. Alt coins are any other Crypto Currency that is not Bitcoin. If you are wanting to put some of your investment into Bitcoin (Which I personally see as a must) obviously you will be wanting to leave some of it as is without exchanging it. To exchange your Bitcoin for altcoins you will want to transfer your Bitcoin to a reputable exchange that lists a good selection of coins. My personal favourite exchange is Binance.com (My referral link is in the ‘How you can support me’ section later on in the guide).
Binance is reliable, reputable, trustworthy, secure, easy to use, has high trading volume, and also has a very good selection of Crypto Currencies to purchase and trade. Whichever exchange you end up using, as long as it is well known you will be able to find many detailed guides on how to use the exchange to purchase your chosen coins. It is worth noting that Binance does not require any ID for signup and you can withdraw up to 2 Bitcoins daily without verifying your identification.
At the time of writing this 2 Bitcoins are worth approximately $18,058. So unless you are an institutional investor or a WHALE(someone who owns obscenely large amounts of Crypto Currency) you will do just fine without verifying your ID on Binance.
How to store your Crypto Currency safely
Now that you have purchased the crypto currencies the next step will be to move them to a secure wallet. One solid reason to take the time and effort to do this is that you should never keep large amounts of Crypto Currency on an exchange. Some exchanges have been hacked in the past. At the time of writing this Binance has never been hacked but you still do not want to take the risk.
You can bet that there are hackers at work trying to exploit weaknesses in any exchange out there with the hopes of stealing your investment. Another reason that you will want to transfer the coins to a secure wallet is that they will then be 100% in your possesion and you will be 100% in control of your finances. This is one of the biggest strengths of Blockchain technology and is one of the main reasons why Bitcoin is so revolutionary.
Without getting bogged down in the mire of politics and philosophy behind Blockchain technology(the technology that many coins are based on) or bogged down in the techical details of what Blockchain actually is, we shall continue with the guide.
If you do want more technical information about the technology itself, or you are interested in the history behind it all then there are some very good documentaries on YouTube. Both subjects are very indepth and longwinded, but very interesting indeed!
So now you will need to choose a wallet to store your coins in. There are many different types of wallet out there. Some more secure than others, some more user friendly than others. A good balance between the two would be a mobile wallet or a desktop wallet. I personally prefer mobile wallets. I use Eidoo wallet for Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens which are tokens that run on the Ethereum network. I use Enjin wallet for Bitcoin, Litecoin, and many others. Any remaining coins that aren’t supported by either of the above I use Coinomi.
There are some coins that only run on their own native wallets such as Cardarno and you will need to download the official software from the respective website. Some of the official and coin exclusive wallets only run on specific devices so make sure to check what coins a wallet supports before you buy the coin, so that you can make sure you have the means to store the coin adequately. When using any wallet you should check online for guides on how to use it properly and safely, but I will outline some general good practises to adhere to below.
When you download the software for the wallet you will have to actually create the wallet. The software should guide you through it, at least to a certain extent, like when you set up a new phone. If you are in doubt however you should not attempt to move any funds because one mistake and you could potentially lose the coins. Now this next part is very important, your wallet will give you a recovery seed and you MUST write this down and keep it safe.
The purpose of this recovery seed or string of words is that if you lose access to your phone or computer, or they break, you can then download the respective software again on a new phone or computer, and restore your old wallet with this recovery information. This is why this step is EXTREMELY important as if you lose access to your wallet and don’t have the recovery information you WILL lose your funds.. FOREVER. There is nothing anyone can do for you at this stage so you must keep it safe!
Another thing to be very aware of is that if anyone else has access to this information then they can use it to easily steal your funds. It would be the equivalent of going on holiday but leaving your keys in the front door of your house where anyone can see, and if they choose to do so they can walk right into your house and take everything you own!
There are many different methods that people employ to back up their wallet recovery info but you will have to find something that works well for you. One thing that seems to be quite popular is to write down or print out the recovery inforrmation multiple times, laminate the copies so they stay in good condition and are water proof, and then store them in different places that are secure.
One cheap way to laminate is to use tape on both sides of the paper and span it across the whole surface area. Some people store the information using notepad files saved onto USB sticks or memory cards. One of the bonuses with doing this is that you can encrypt the notepad files with a password through a Winrar archive or by using military grade encyption software such as Veracrypt.
One of the most secure types of wallets to use is a hardware wallet. These are physical wallets to store your digital crypto in that plug into your computer like a USB stick. You can find guides on which hardware wallets are best and how to use them online.
So you’ve got your coins sitting on an exchange ready to transfer into your wallet for safe keeping. The next step is to get the receiving address for a specific coin from the wallet you want to store it in. Copy the receiving address. Once you have the receiving address you should then go to your exchange and find the place where you can withdraw that specific coin. It will probably be somewhere called Withdraw or Send. Select the coin you are sending first to the receiving address by pasting the copied receiving address from your wallet into the recipient field on the exchange.
Some coins may require a memo or destination tag too which you will need to copy and paste onto the exchange as well, it should be evident if one is needed or not. If you have the option to add either of these you MUST do it otherwise your coins will likely not send or evenworse you may lose them entirely. The address must be copied precisely otherwise the same nightmare scenario outlined above could well happen. In these kind of situations the best you can hope for is that whatever exchange you are using will fail to send the coins but you do not want to take that risk, so it is very important that you get ALL the required details correct. A good practise to uphold is to double and triple check everything and always copy and paste!
Keeping track of your portfolio
Assuming all has gone well in the above steps you should now be sitting on your Crypto! Feels good to have made it doesn’t it? But I bet you are feeling exhausted and maybe overwhelmed. When you first get started the whole process can be very daunting! But now you have bought your Crypto and you have it safe and secure. You are probably wondering now how you can keep track of your portfolio and know how good or bad your individual investments are performing.
Here is where some more nifty software comes into play, you will be wanting to download a portfolio tracker on your phone. There are many to choose from but the one I personally prefer is called Cryptonaut. Whichever one you choose you can now input your investments individually by specifying the coin, how much it cost you in Bitcoin or fiat, and what date and time you bought it. You can usually find all of this information in your trade history on the exchange. It may be called order history.
Once you have entered all the details you can now track the progress of your portfolio as a whole, and each coin individually too. You can also change what currency you wish to view your total worth in, most people change this to their native currency so that they can get a better idea of what their portfolio is worth.
There are some things to bear in mind when keeping track of your investment. It is very usual for a Crypto Currency to shoot up drastically very quickly but also for it to dip drastically very quickly. You may wake up and notice your portfolio or an individual coin has gained 20% or more overnight, or lost 20% or more overnight. Try not to panic or obsess too much about the day to day price fluctuations.
This type of behaviour can get you unrealistically excited at the sudden growth, only for it to disappoint you when it drops back down. The other side of the coin is you panic when it drops suddenly, only for it to shoot back up. There are many things you can learn about markets in general and how they work, such as the stock markets or commodities, and a lot of the knowledge transfers directly to the Crypto Currency market also. But one simple way to look at your investments is that they are long term investments that you will not touch for years to come.
People who do this are called HODLERS and they HODL their coins and don’t touch them until they are ready to cash out. HODL stands for HOLD ON FOR DEAR LIFE. Even when the market is moving erratically, sideways, or on a long downwards trend, HODLERS remain strong because they have a longterm vision of where the market is heading, and they have faith in the coins that they have invested in.
More seasoned investors might use the exchanges to trade and accumulate more coins essentially for free(But be aware that exchanges will charge a small fee of commision for each trade). Experiened traders can accumulate more Crypto over time by buying a coin low and selling it high, and then repeating the process.
This is way beyond beginners stuff and there is a LOT to consider and learn before you start playing with your investment like this. You can quite easily end up losing some of your investment if you don’t know what you are doing. I certainly do not recommend this for beginners, but if you learn to do it over time it can be a fun way to accumulate some more crypto!
Congratulations!
Well done! You have now got to grips with the basics and you are firmly invested in the Crypto Currency market! But it doesn’t stop there! This is a whole new world and there are many things to learn and explore. Over time you will find your own direction and decide what things you want to focus your attention, time, and money on.
The main part of this guide is now over but there are some tidbits of information that you can take a look at. I hope that this guide has served it’s purpose and has helped you to get a foothold and basic understanding of how to invest in the Crypto Currency market. If you need any more tailored and individual help then you can find my contact info later on in the guide in the chapter titled Further Assistance.
Things worth considering
• Diversify: Don’t keep all your eggs in one basket! Typically you should split your investment into at least 5 or 6 different coins, if not more. But do not spread yourself too thin. If you you have a decent amount of money to invest then always look for new coins to invest in as this will give you more chance of making bigger money.
• Only invest what you can afford to lose: At the end of the day any investment carries with it a certain degree of risk, so you should only invest what you can comfortably afford to lose. You should never invest money that you need for important stuff like rent or food. Don’t get yourself into debt by borrowing money or taking out loans for investing into the market, you should see this is a long term investment, not a method to get rich quick.
• Do your own research: It has been said already in this guide but it is worth mentioning again. Always do your own research! Don’t rely on what other people say. Check things out for yourself. Form your own strategies based upon facts and reasoning. Don’t gamble, but if you want take calculated risks. There will always be someone who disagrees with you and there are plenty of trolls in the Crypto Sphere who will spread FUD.
• FUD(Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt): You will come across a lot of this along your journey into Crypto. A lot of it is often unfounded which is why you need to do your own research.
• Don’t trust anyone: Would you trust a stranger on the street with your wallet? Then don’t trust anyone who comes at you with a proposition to turn your crypto into more crypto. Unless you trust someone explicitly don’t risk letting them handle or have access to your hard earned cash. It’s just not worth the risk. There are many scam artists out there.
• Beware of scams: This includes phishing attacks where hackers will try to trick you into entering personal information on a fake website with a fake link. Always verify that the URL of the exchange you are visiting is correct, and that any wallet software you are using is verified as legit. Enable 2FA (2 factor authentication) where possible.
• Beware of ICOs: ICO is an acronym for Initial coin offering. It is where a team behind a new Crypto Currency that has not yet been released, is not yet operational, wants you to invest early in the project. They often offer bonuses for early birds and they can be very tempting, but you can be sure that a lot of them are scams. Not all, but a lot.
Some might not be scams but are simply faulty or unfeasible. That can potentially lose you all of your investment. That being said there are some legit ICOs. It is always risky investing in an ICO. Although if you find a credible and promising one it can be very lucrative as you are getting the coins for a low price and before they have been gained any traction in the market. If the coins do go mainstream and are successful then you stand to make a lot of profit. If they flop however, like a huge percentage of them do, then you can lose everything.
• Never be lax about security: This is money we are talking about so guard everything you own as you would your personal property, house keys, or private information. You don’t let your personal identity info or banking details get into the wrong hands so don’t let any info about your crypto currency or wallets get out. The only data you should be sharing in regards to your wallet information is the receiving address. And only if someone is sending you funds.
• Try not to stress: It’s hard to avoid it and I’m sure everyone will go through this phase but don’t get obsessed about your investment because it can consume you. Before you know it you will be checking your portfolio every 5 minutes and it can become very unhealthy.
• The market always dips drastically once a year: You can be pretty sure that at the end of the year/start of the new year the market will dip hugely. This is mostly due to the fact that people tend to take out a lot of profit at the end of each year. Around New years and Christmas time a lot of people take money out of the market to celebrate the holiday season. Do not be alarmed when the prices of everything drop dramatically. You can take advantage of the huge dip to buy more of your favourite coins before the market reverses and goes on another bullrun.
• Bitcoin impacts the market: Generally speaking the market reacts heavily to Bitcoin fluctuations.
Further Assistance
If you would like extra help I offer one on one coaching sessions and support via live messenger, email, or VOIP. I do however charge for this service as I am very busy and time is precious, I’m sure you understand. The level of support and costs will be determined on a case by case basis. If you wish to get in contact with me and arrange some extra help then please feel free to contact me at: [email protected]
How you can support me
If you appreciated this free guide and wish to support me you can do so in a number of ways. Some of the ways are free and others are financially based. Either way I’m extremely grateful.
• Share this free guide!: I would love it if you could share this resource with your friends and family and post it around online.
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Closing thoughts
I hope this free guide has been useful and has helped you on your way to investing in Crypto! I have enjoyed writing it and I have a lot more plans for the future. I am currently working on this website for Crypto Enthusiasts so I hope you will take part!
The world of Crypto is an exciting one but is not without it’s dangers or risks. Please always remember to take your security very seriously, and question the validity of everything. Most importantly: try to enjoy it! These are exciting times and if you’ve got to the end of this guide I’m sure that you, like myself, believe that the future of Crypto Currency is bright!
Stay safe and God bless!