So Glad you asked! In this blog, I'll be going over the basics of "grabbing some crypto,” to choosing investments, to some security measures to protect yourself.
Let’s begin at the beginning: How do I get cryptocurrency?
As I have been teaching my son, my parents and some of my friends about jumping into Crypto, it gets amusing because I catch myself saying “It's so simple, yet SO complicated!”
For someone getting into crypto, you can be rolling in 10 minutes literally. There are several exchanges and wallets that I use. MetaMask & Coinbase are platforms that are well recognized. It takes just a few minutes to make an account and fund the account using your bank. (Tutorials can be found on their official websites.) https://metamask.io
MetaMask tutorial: https://nftnow.com/guides/how-to-set-up-metamask-wallet/
Coinbase:
Now comes the fun part!
Question: Which ones do I buy?
When the first cryptocurrency came out in 2009, by an anonymous founder, Bitcoin was thought of as a joke and a way to purchase drugs on the internet by many skeptics. Over a decade later we’ve seen it’s price hit $69,000 per coin with a recent significant pullback to $20,000.
Ethereum, ranked second in the crypto world by market cap, is another leader in the field. But what about the other leading cryptos and those 20,000 “other ones”? Well, who knows?
There are so many cryptocurrencies with so many purposes and different tokenomics. There are many with staking protocols that would reward investors who placed their assets in a liquidity pool. (similar to a way the traditional bank would pay you interest.)
What do I invest in?
The most difficult step is next and involves DYOR which is an acronym that stands for Do Your Own Research.
You have to find out why a coin or token has real value, and how to seize that value.
Going to the source: Who is running the project? (Are they CEO's, mathematical geniuses, or maybe dudes living in their mom's basement?)
Find out everything you can about the project by reading and asking questions, finding real answers. Also, a good example, that I have heard several professionals say, is try to convince yourself that the investment you are researching is NOT a good investment. If you fail, you may have something.
Find out where it’s value lies. I ask why does this coin or token exist. If I ask myself why Bitcoin’s value went from pennies on the dollar to almost $70,000, I say demand. There were buyers at those levels because they, like most bitcoin fans, see it as a global settlement layer in the financial system. Simply ask yourself: Why does it exist?
Investment strategy. This is where it gets all “Mathy”. Knowing what to buy and when to buy it helps when shooting the dice, I mean, investing. After you have done your due diligence, just invest as much as you can afford to loose, and one fairly successful strategy is to slowly over time accumulate, called dollar cost averaging.
And if you have found the right ones, there’s an acronym Hodl “meaning Hold on for Dear Life!” Hodling & adding, could lead to long term maximum gains.
Moving forward, in any society, there are people, often referred to as the scum of the earth, that will take advantage of people, by robbing them. It's just the sad truth.
The basics of Crypto Security.
• Your Keys: Your Crypto.
One has to realize that there are centralized exchanges, (think of them as your bank or your broker) and there are decentralized wallets; where you can hold your coins or tokens, safely (as long as you don’t forget your password/seed phrase). By holding crypto in a secure wallet, you protect your assets if there is a problem with a centralized crypto exchange.
In addition, there are many hackers and thieves using phishing scams to rob people of their assets. #BeCareful
In the process of setting up a personal wallet, you will be given a passphrase, a series of words that is your password. You can not ever retrieve this passphrase, like resetting a password for your email. If you forget it, your wallet is not accessible. Much care has to be taken in storing this password; the basics, meaning never screenshot, emailed to yourself, save it on your phone or put it into a website or link. Period.
So, it's that simple!!! Pick the winners, be careful and hold on tight.
So, there are definitely a few things that could go wrong in crypto. The most important aspect of “getting into crypto” is education.
Here's a video from a YouTube channel that I enjoy, describing in depth, their opinions, on the best way to DYOR “do your own research“ on a certain cryptocurrency that you may have your eye on.
• “How to do research on a cryptocurrency coin or token”
Thank you for reading. I hope this blog shed a little light on the basics of getting into cryptocurrency. That being said, jump into the research, and I wish you the best of successes in Life and in investing !
CryptoRick ✊🏻
•The content of this article is for informational purposes only; you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. (I am not paid, nor have any affiliations with any of the above named companies)
Comments