Baby Steps to the Crypto World

The world of Cryptocurrency can be truly intimidating to a beginner. I delayed taking the first step for quite a long time as I was confused where to start. I'm hoping to make your journey easier by calling out a few basics that you NEED to know before stepping into this wild wild west!

Understand the Crypto World:

Bitcoin is gaining significant traction in the media now and it usually emphasizes purely on the (rise in) price of Bitcoin. Refer below articles for example

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/bitcoin-price-spikes-to-record-high-near-6000-2017-10?r=US&IR=T
http://fortune.com/2017/10/12/bitcoin-price-record-high/
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/06/bitcoin-price-on-the-rise-again-after-falling-1000.html

To a reader, the idea of Bitcoin as a vehicle of investment overshadows the revolutionary technology/ideology under the wraps. Yes, Bitcoin is seen as a store of value at the moment! But it's extremely important to understand the evolution of bitcoin to truly appreciate the space that you're getting into.

It's a bit of a long read, but start here! - https://medium.freecodecamp.org/cryptocurrency-101-7197684775fd. This blog would give a really deep understanding of the crypto space and help you to make much better sense of the crypto conversations.

The 'Bad Crypto' podcast is another great resource where you can listen to the fun crypto conversations between Joel Comm and Travis Wright. This is a fun way to learn and the first 4 episodes drill into the concepts really nicely - http://badcryptopodcast.com/category/episodes/page/5/

Which coin to buy!?

https://coinmarketcap.com/ is a great site that shows you all the currencies along with their market cap, volume and a basic price graph. If you're just starting out, it's highly recommended to start with Bitcoin, Ethereum or at least from the top 5. Always do your own research and avoid random coins purely based on what you hear on Telegram or Youtube.

Making that first investment:

Now that you understand the world of crypto at a high level, it's time to make that first buy! Depending on where you are, you would need to create an account in your local exchange. The world of exchanges get slightly complex as there are multiple exchanges. At a high level, there are 2 types of exchanges.

Fiat to Crypto - This type of exchange allows you to deposit fiat (USD/AUD/INR etc…) into the exchange and you can use this money to buy crypto currencies. Some of the popular ones are below. Would be grateful if you could consider using my referral code to provide me with a small referral benefit.

Coinbase - This is one of the biggest exchanges that accepts any Visa or Mastercard and has a very easy to use interface. You also get 10$ credit by using the referral link.

Coinspot - This is an exchange available in Australia and the biggest benefit of using this exchange is the availability of a wide variety of coins. The interface is incredibly easy to use as well. Their fee structure is slightly on the higher side though. Refer to their fee structure here- https://www.coinspot.com.au/fees

Btcmarkets and Independent Reserve are the other 2 big exchanges available in Australia and have a lower exchange fees in comparison to Coinspot but support only the major coins.

Zebpay, Unocoin and Koinex are the 3 well known exchanges available in India. I personally do not have experience using these exchanges.

Crypto to Crypto - This type of exchange allows you to use some base currencies to buy other currencies. Confused!? :) Imagine buying 1300 AUD for 1000 USD or 65000 INR for 1000 USD. Similarly, you can use BTC or ETH to buy other coins (usually referred as alt coins). This is for slightly advanced traders and I would highly recommend just having these exchanges ready for when you get there.

Bittrex - A very well-established exchange that allows you to set conditional buy/sell orders and allows you to buy a wide variety of alts.

Binance - This is a fairly recent exchange based out of China but is already gaining huge popularity in the community. They also have a binance coin that allows you to buy crypto currencies with lesser exchange fees.

My 2 cents for your first investment
• Avoid investing right at the top in the fear of missing out (FOMO). There are always pullbacks that happen and these can give you nice entry points. If you do want to get in right away, you can buy small quantities and slowly average out when the price moves up or down!
• Invest ONLY the amount that you can truly afford to lose. This is a crypto mantra and is as said for a reason

Hoping that this should set you off to invest your first few dollars in the world of crypto. This is JUST the beginning and there's more to learn on securing your coins, tracking your portfolio, list of reference links to keep track of this fast moving space etc… I will cover these in the follow-up blogs. Would love to hear your feedback in the comments below.