Step By Step Guide to Getting Started In Cryptocurrencies.
The cryptocurrency market is the fastest growing investment marketplace that we have at the moment, if you invest in the right cryptocurrency your money has the potential to grow not just by the hundredfold, in some instances we have seen growth in excess of a thousand percent within a relatively short period of time.
In this piece I shall be talking you through how to get started in cryptocurrency, please note though that this will not be about investment advice, this is more a lay your ducks in a row do the ground work sort of piece.
The first step to take on your journey into the exciting world of cryptocurrencies is to get yourself a wallet, but what is a wallet.
A wallet retains its traditional definition, traditionally it is a place where you store value typically money and in modern times credit/debit cards etc. However, because cryptocurrencies exist in cyber space and not in physical form your wallet then necessarily has to be virtual and not in the physical form.
There are several types of cryptrocurrency wallets that you can have but the three most popular types are: the “Mobile Wallet” , the “Hard Wallet”, and the “Online Wallet”
o A Mobile Wallet can be downloaded to your phone from play store, some of the more popular mobile wallets are: Jaxx, BreadWallet, CoPay, etc.
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o The Hard Wallet looks and functions like a dongle, it is a removable “carry with you” sort of a storage which you can use to store your cryptocurrencies, like a dongle it has to be purchased but unlike a dongle they are not cheap, a good hard wallet would cost you well in excess of a $100 as at the date of writing this.
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o The third and the most widely used are online wallets, some of the more prominent online wallets are some of the most secure places that you can store your cryptocurrencies, one of the leading names in this space is an online wallet called “ Coinbase”, unfortunately, Coinbase does not support all cryptocurrencies, you can only store Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin on it at the moment.
Having now secured yourself a wallet, the next step would be deciding on a coin to buy, to make this decision your first port of call should be a website called “coinmarketcap.com”, there you will find virtually all cryptocurrencies in existence listed (if a coin is not listed on this website I would suggest that you steer clear of it especially if you are a beginner), this website gives you a good snapshot of each individual coin, it tells you how much they are trading for, their market capitalisation, how many coins are in circulation at the moment, etc. It gives you a good summary of the coin and it also signposts you to the coin’s website and other sources of further research. I would highly recommend that this is your next port of call after setting up your wallet, it might even be your first port of call before setting up the wallet, both steps are interchangeable.
Now that you have set up your wallet and done your research, you are ready to buy your first crypto, but where do you buy, there are several platforms for this, , you can buy your cryptos via your wallet provider, most wallet providers offer this facility, you can also buy them through several dedicated websites but the best place to buy a cryptocurrency in my opinion is via an exchange, the exchange takes your method of payment and presents it to the market in exchange for its value equivalent in whatever coin that you are buying, by buying through an exchange you can be sure that you are buying at spot price, there are several exchanges offering this facility, too many to mention, but the two that I use are Changelly and Bittrex.
P.S. Follow me on YouTube to keep up to date with all things Crypto! : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY4GtiG2fma3HksDNzm952A/videos?view_as=subscriber
This has been educative to me as i am a beginner in the cryptocurrencies investment
im glad, dont forget to resteem so that you friends can read it too! .... lol ... :)
Nice and incisive piece. Pretty easy to grasp. Thanks for sharing @cryptogrind
thank! ..... :)
Hi, I see that you've tagged "India" on this post. May I ask why? I'm curious because there is nothing specific to India on this post. Further, exchanges such as Coinbase currently do not even support buys from India.
Indian readers might want to know what best options exist for them. For one, unless a user uses VPN, there is no way for someone from India to buy BTC anonymously. All sites require basic KYC validation which includes linking the PAN card number to their account.
I personally use CEX.io to buy BTC and ETH, and I had to verify my PAN card, bank account and debit card to start purchasing.
your excellent detailed comment is already enough of a reason to have tagged India, i tagged India however because a lot of my followers are from there, also there is a lot of excitement around the crypto market place in India at the moment and i would like the indians to come and engage in the conversation that we are having re cryptos ... good feedback though ........ P.S. dont forget to resteem it to your friends
I did misspeak a bit, though. Technically, Indian users can still buy crypto without going through the KYC process, albeit in very small amounts. Example, one could use a credit card to buy crypto on Changelly and store that crypto in a wallet on Coinpayments. However, if they ever want to withdraw that crypto into an Indian bank account in form of Rupees, that's when they'll hit the KYC bottleneck.
then perhaps the solution would be to carry out the transaction outside of idea, so, you sell your crypto for fiat money and you Rupee the fiat money into your Indian bank account, there is no need toinvolve India at all until you want to cash in, your buy your crypto on changelly as you said and you store it on bittrex coinbase etc, the only time you should want to bring your crypto into India should be when you want to cash it in, and if you do want to cash it it you convert it to USD and send the USD to your Indian account, i think it is the same process for China and all other countries where they keep a tight grip on their currency
You're right except the KYC is unavoidable. No current service (that I know of) allows you to withdraw into an Indian account, in any circumstance, if the account has not been KYC validated. And in India, that includes linking one's PAN card which is the chief unique financial identifier of a person here.
It's important to me because I like to keep cashing in small profits every now and then. Of course- I maintain two separate wallets and transaction chains. An anonymous wallet stores most of my crypto, unlinked to India in any way.
And it could be important to Indian users for other reasons. Most first-time crypto buyers in India will buy crypto for profits, or at least the expectation of profits. To test this, they would want to make an intial withdrawal back into fiat to assure themselves that they can withdraw their money whenever they want to, and that it will not get locked into staying crypto forever. To do it, once again, they will have to undergo the KYC.
Not saying this is a problem, not unless you want to stay completely anonymous. But it is a hassle neverthless, one that I took time figuring out.
wow, big brother truly is watching you
Bharat mata ki jai! ;)