Welcome to my CryptoStarterPack. I’m glad to share my experience with you and tell you the 7 most important things I would like somebody have told me when I started. I hope they will help you to make your first steps into the crypto world and exploring this amazing world successfully.
1 The entry point ($BTC, $ETH, $LTC)
To start with cryptos you need to buy them with fiat (USD or EUR). This is the first step to get into the crypto world. The easiest way is to buy it at Coinbase, which is the most popular platform, where most of the people start. Use my referral link below and set up an account. You’ll get 10$ worth of bitcoins, if you use the referral. My 10$ I got early this year are worth 126$ now.
On Coinbase you can buy the following crypto currencies:
• Bitcoins ($BTC)
• Ether ($ETH)
• Litecoin ($LTC)
with:
• Credit Card you can buy directly without waiting but the fees are higher (3.99%).
• using your bank account to transfer funds into Coinbase (SEPA transfer). The fees are lower but it takes a one or two days, until the money has arrived (1.49%).
I have started with $ETH and started steadily accumulating $ETH. Every month I transferred some fiat money to Coinbase and bought some $ETH or fractions of $ETH. This allowed me, to grow my position in $ETH. I also started to diversify my portfolio with $BTC and $LTC.
For Coinbase please use my referral Link: https://www.coinbase.com/join/58ca4ba6fa5de3021bd2adeb
Thank you!
2 Getting into the altcoins ($alts)
The moment where the whole crypto world opened to me, was when I started getting interested into the altcoins. Altcoins are all the cryptocurrencies other than $BTC and there are many very interesting and promising projects out there… This is where you start investigating about all the interesting projects out there and learn a lot about the blockchain technology. The best way to start with the altcoins, is to get an account on Binance. Binance is one of the best exchanges. It is listing most of the gems.
Binance is my favorite, because:
• it’s nice and easy to use
• low trading fees (0.05% or 1%)
• you can buy the best altcoins, all the gems and most of the time they get listed first on Binance
• very interesting referral program
• launchpad for ICOs
If you trade on Binance, I recommend to buy some $BNB, to pay the trading fees, because if you pay with $BNB you only pay half of the fees, which is 0.05%. Please use my referral below to register on Binance.
As soon as you have an account on Binance, I recommend to participate at the referral program, where you get 50% of all the trading fees of your referral. The number one referral has earned about 45 $BTC so far, which is huge! I have earned modest 0.0049 $BTC so far with 8 referrals, which is cool and there is still room for improvement.
Binance is having a very good selection of altcoins. Most of the altcoins on Binance are top quality and they are often the first ones listing a top coin after ICO.
For Binance please use my referral Link:
https://www.binance.com/?ref=10130729
Thank you!
3 Store your coins
Protect your coins and don’t let them lay around on an exchange. On the exchanges you always have the risk, that they get hacked. So it’s always better to transfer your coins to a wallet, where you have full control but also full responsibility.
I don’t want to talk about all the different wallets around but only about the ones I use. If you want to know more about the wallets just google it.
On Coinbase I use the vault function to add some security and store my $BTC, $ETH and $LTC. For withdrawals the vault uses double email verification to increase security.
https://support.coinbase.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1612208-the-coinbase-vault-?b_id=13521
Most of the altcoins are ERC20 tokens based on Ethereum. For ERC20 tokens I use MyEtherWallwet (MEW). This is quite reliable and you can generate a paper wallet. With MEW you can generate an ethereum address, where everybody can send you any Ethereum based coin. Your ethereum address is like your account, where you have full control over everything that is on this account. With your ethereum address you get a private key. This is very important! The key gives you the access to all that is stored on your address. If you lose it, you lose the access. If somebody gets your key, he has access to everything, that is stored on your address. So treat your private key with caution. You can write it down or print it out. If you print it out, this is what is called a paper wallet. You can keep the print out in a safe place and use it whenever you need it.
One thing you have to know. Never ever give somebody your private key. There are many scammers, that try to get your private key. They try to trick you with free air drops or free coins and ask you for your address and the private key. Also make sure, that you’re on the right website and not on a fake. I use MEW with a browser app called MetaMask. This is very useful and safe.
Here’s the link to MyEtherWallet:
https://www.myetherwallet.com/
4 ICO
One of the biggest profit potential but also the biggest risks are related to ICOs, which are initial coin offerings. This is similar to IPO or initial public offering. When you want to participate to an ICO, you usually need a wallet from where you can send your contribution. Because most of the ICOs are based on Ethereum, you can use MEW to participate at the ICOs. With most of the ICOs you’ll have to invest $ETH. That’s how I used up most of my $ETH I was accumulating. First thing you have to do, is send your $ETH to your MEW e.g. from Binance or Coinbase. It’s anyway a good idea, to store your ETH on your MEW. If you participate at an ICO you will send your $ETH you want to invest from your MEW and the project will send you the ICO tokes to your MEW.
Before you participate at an ICO, you have to do your own research (DYOR)! This is very important! My first ICO was a fail. I invested in a project without doing enough research. How to do the research?
• check the webpage
• read the whitepaper
• check the team (education, skills, track record… you can use google and linkedin)
• check for analysis made by other people about the ICO
5 Educate yourself and keep you up to date
The crypto world is such an interesting industry with a mind-blowing technology: The Blockchain. Educate yourself about the blockchain technology and all the great projects out there. I guaranty you, that you will not regret it, because the blockchain will change our life and it’s better to learn about it sooner than later. There are tons of resources, where you can find very valuable information.
Here are my favorite resources:
• Google: I google everything I want to know
• Youtube: there are tons of great content on youtube, where you have great youtuber and speakers talking about crypto.
• Twitter: There are tons of very interesting people to follow on twitter
• Telegram: You’ll find for a lot of projects very interesting telegram groups. This also often gives you the possibility to directly talk with the teams of the projects
• Books: There is a great one written by the Tapscotts called: Blockchain revolution http://blockchain-revolution.com/
People I recommend to follow:
Andreas M. Antonopoulos: He’s a great guy an THE bitcoin evangelist. https://antonopoulos.com/
Vitalik Buterin: He’s the guy behind Ethereum https://about.me/vitalik_buterin
Dr Julian Hosp: He’s the co-founder of TenX and just a very authentic guy who wants to educate the community about the blockchain. https://www.julianhosp.com/de/
Youtuber I follow on youtube:
• DataDash (quite technical reading the charts)
• Boxmining (expert for asia)
• Suppoman (big mouth but funny brit, you hate or you love him)
• The Crypto Lark (the funny nerd)
• TenX (the channel of TenX where Dr Julian Hosp talks about cryptos)
Twitter:
• Follow me on twitter or follow the ones I follow. Here’s my twitter https://twitter.com/bigfloater74
6 Don’t forget to cash in!
When you grow your crypto currency, don’t forget to cash in. You can cash in through Coinbase by just doing it the other way around:
- Sell your crypto against fiat (USD or EUR)
- Transfer it back to your bank
Another way to cash in is to just use your cryptos to buy stuff and the best way to do this is getting a TenX credit card. The TenX credit card is a prepaid Visa card, that you can use like every other Visa credit card. All you have to do is to send your cryptos to your TenX wallet.
https://www.tenx.tech/
7 Never invest what you can't afford to lose
The most important thing is to be aware that the market is very volatile and you can lose what you put in. My best advice is to never invest what you’re not ready to lose. You have to be comfortable about the idea, that you can lose all the money you put in.
I do not regret any dime I have invested into the crypto world. You can grow your position massively if you do it right. I have grown my position quite significantly but I always bear in mind, that this could all be virtual and could lose its value. I don’t expect that but it’s always possible. Whatever happens, I do not regret anything. If I lose everything I still have learned a ton about this technology and I see this as an investment in educating myself about this technology, which will change the world and our future. Because I’m convinced that already next year the blockchain will impact our life.
Here are my favorite projects I have invested in:
• Ethereum $ETH
• Bitcoin $BTC
• Litecoin $LTC
• ICON $ICX
• Quantstamp $QSP
• Powerledger $POWR
• Cardano $ADA
• Substratum $SUB
• Sonum $SNM
• Ethos $BQX
• Neo $NEO
• OmiseGo $OMG
• Waltonchain $WTC
• Chainlink $LINK
• IOTA $IOTA
• HShare $HSR
• KyberNetwork $KNC
• Tron $TRX
• Metaverse $ETP
• TenX $PAY
All these coins you can trade on Binance https://www.binance.com/?ref=10130729 expect $ETP this coin you have to trade on Bitfinex and $PAY on Bittrex.
I hope this blog post will help some of you in exploring this amazing new world of cryptos. I wish you good luck and lots of good investments…
I you have any questions, comments or you’re missing something please don’t hesitate and comment. I’m glad about every comment.
Thanks!