If you’ve been thinking about investing in cryptocurrency, you should read this first!

With all the attention cryptocurrency is getting lately, it’s hard not to wanna get involved. I was just bit by the cryptobug myself a couple weeks ago. Before then, I had had only heard of Bitcoin, but didn’t even know it was considered a type of cryptocurrency.

I have studied stocks over the last few years, but nothing to do with crypto so if you’re a newbie or not sure how to get started buying, selling or investing in cryptocurrency, you’re in the right place.

I’m sure you already knew you needed money so I’ll tell you a little bit about the second.

A wallet, is a basically a place to keep your cryptocurrency coins. However, not all wallets are created equal.

There are basically 5 types of wallets and I’ll list them without getting into the details. I’ll save that for another post.

1. Online Wallet – this is pretty much a wallet that’s connect to a website and hosted on their server
2. Desktop Wallet – this is an app that is stored on your computer and connects to a network when needed
3. Mobile Wallet – these are apps the you can download to your smart phone and store cryptocurrency
4. Hardware Wallet – think of a USB that is not connected to any devices and holds your money until you need to use it
5. Paper Wallet – good old fashion pen and paper. Well you can print it if you want but this is just keeping your password and QR code somewhere safe.

The QR code is a 2 Factor Authentication security feature that sends a code to the app on the registered account’s mobile phone.

The next step is to actually purchase cryptocurrency. Now there’s probably more than a dozen ways to do this but the easiest way I’ve found is to just set up an account through Coinbase and you can buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and even Bitcoin Cash with a debit card.

Now what to do next is really going to depend on the reason your buying cryptocurrency to begin with.

Do you just want to buy some Bitcoin because you think it’s gonna go up and you heard all the craze?

This could be a good strategy if you’re confident Bitcoin will continue to rise and you’re also able to withstand any potential drawdown periods.

Alright, sounds good. Either you know how to read charts patterns and predict movements, or you plan on learning.

Maybe you don’t care about Bitcoin and you’re more interested in altcoins?

Why? Well currently 1 BTC = 14,988.04 USD. That’s a nice chunk of change to part with for one Bitcoin.

So you need to invest $15k before transaction and network fees (did you think it was completely free?) for 1 BTC.

Well, if you don’t have $15k you can still buy a piece of Bitcoin. For example, Coinbase allows you to use your debit card to purchase cryptocurrencies and $500 USD can get you 0.03326 BTC.

That means you need Bitcoin to go up $1,5oo to see a 10% gain on your $500 or to profit $50.

That’s not bad considering it can be done within a day or two, but you need to know how to read charts and when to sell.

So while it’s all about percentages, the bigger your position, the bigger your profit!

If you don’t have a gazillion dollars to invest and you are interested in bigger gains, then altcoins might better suit you.

I’m interested more in altcoins than Bitcoin myself. A few that I have liked for a while now are XRP, XVG, and SC to name a few.

While you can’t get these coins on Coinbase, you can find some of my favorite altcoins on another exchange I use named Binance.

This is a cryptocurrency exchange, so you can’t purchase cryptocurrency with your US dollars or debit card. You’ll need to first purchase cryptocurrency from somewhere like Coinbase, then transfer it to your Binance wallet to exchange it for the currency you prefer.

ATTENTION: Make sure that you’re sending and receiving the same currency in the same type of wallet.

For example, if you wanted to buy a coin known as TRX. You can’t buy that specific cryptocurrency on Coinbase so you need to find it at another exchange. Let’s assume you found it on Binance.

1. After signing up with Coinbase, purchase the amount of Bitcoin you would want to trade for TRX (or any altcoin).
2. Send the Bitcoin over to your Binance Bitcoin wallet.
3. After you see the deposit in your Bitcoin (BTC) wallet, you would go to trade in the markets.
4. You would find TRX/BTC and you would select the amount of TRX you want to buy at what amount of BTC you’re willing to pay for each coin.
5. After you select the amount of TRX and you see the total cost, you also would need select market or limit order and then click the BUY button.

Once your order is filled you should see a pop up that lets you know in the top right corner.

Congratulations! You would have just bought some altcoin and can now consider yourself a bonafide cryptocurrency investor.

Well because like it or not, I already missed the Bitcoin boom. Sure it could still rise in the years to come but I don’t think we’re going to see the kind of explosive growth we just did at the end of 2017.

The good news is, with Bitcoin’s recent popularity and media attention, cryptocurrency as whole as began picking up interest. Big investment firms are starting to take notice and the value on most coins continues to increase. This means much bigger gains for those of us who decide to get in on the right ones.

A coin like TRX that was trading at $.02 when it caught my attention is now at $.08, which is a 300% gain in less than a couple weeks. I can only see that increasing as it gains popularity and more people start to explore crypto.