Crytocurrency - Start Here

I've been delving into the crypto world for a few months now, and thought I'd share what I've discovered so far - hopefully as an aid to all others diving into this wild, whacky rollercoaster of a ride!

First things first - crypto is VERY volatile, I'm talking crazy volatile. Prices can fluctuate 10%, 20%, even 100% and more in one day. As a newbie, I though this is great - I'll put my money in and this time next week, it’s off to the Bahamas - almost but not quite!

Prices go up, and prices come down - so be sure to invest only what you can stomach to lose. You certainly don’t want to put in any amount of money that could see you teetering over the edge of a high-rise the very next day..

So, here’s a few useful pointers:

Bitcoin Vs Alt-Coins

Bitcoin is a gateway coin to most alt-coins. To buy most alt-coins you will first need acquire some bitcoin.
The method used to buy bitcoin will vary depending on how quickly you want the transaction to go through, and the hit you are willing to take.
For example, you can rather easily buy Bitcoin from coinbase.com using a credit card - but you will initially have a spend limit of around £200.
You can also buy from sites like localbitcoins.com - however in such cases you are buying from bitcoin vendors and they will have their own mark-up on the current bitcoin price. Vendors will have their own spend limits and will most likely want to verify your identity before they will see to you.
My preferred method is to make a bank transfer to an exchange (like coinfloor.com for a UK transfer) and purchase the coins at much better rate.

Exchanges

To trade crypto-currencies, you will need to setup an account with an exchange. Exchanges vary in the coins that they trade. I have accounts on Kraken, Bitstamp.com, Poloniex.com and Bittrex.com.
To setup an exchange account is a straight forward signup process. However, if you wish to trade with a larger capital, you will need to verify your identity.
Given the recent explosion in people signing up to trade crypto-currencies, a number of the exchanges have been struggling to keep up with demand.
Poloniex.com is pretty poor when it comes to support issues and account verification. It can take weeks for your account to be verified.
Bitrex has an automated account verification process that seems to work quite well.
Bistamp only currently trades Ethereum, Bitcoin and Litecoin.
Kraken verification process took around 4 days to complete.

The prices for the same coin can vary across exchanges - and in the case of bitcoin, the price can at time vary by over 100USD. So it is worth seeing which exchange offers the best prices when purchasing your first Bitcoin.

Charts and Analysis

If you want to day-trade - then you really should invest some time into understanding charting fundamentals. Most exchanges have pretty poor charting capabilities. For this reason, you can sign up to tradingview.com which provide a pretty sophisticated charting platform across many exchanges.
Technical analysis takes a lot of time and practice to master - and as a newbie this can be quite challenging. I would seriously recommend the following courses to kick-start your learning. https://nodeinvestor.com/training/

At the very least, you should understand:
Candlestick charts (http://www.investopedia.com/articles/technical/02/121702.asp)
Moving averages (http://www.investopedia.com/articles/trading/10/simple-exponential-moving-averages-compare.asp)
Fibonacci Charts (http://stockcharts.com/school/doku.php?id=chart_school:chart_analysis:fibonacci_retracemen)

Twitter and YouTube

There is a wealth of information available on Twitter and YouTube. However, there are also a lot of people who love to pump and dump crytpos - to get rich off your money... so be very cautious as to who you follow on social media.
I follow @nodeinvestor and @CryptoBud on twitter and YouTube. Both these guys give sensible advice and I have found their videos and advice to be timely and worthwhile.

Which Coins to Invest In

DONT jump into a coin simply because you see its price jump by 50%. research the coin first - do not make snap decisions.
Check the coins market cap and trade volume (https://coinmarketcap.com/) and also check the website to understand the underlying project.
For any significant capital, stick to high volume, high market cap coins so that if you do want out when the market is tanking, you stand a better chance of doing so.

My core holdings are in Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin. I also hold Startis, Steem and Ethereum Classic.

Don’t Over trade

This one is really difficult to get right - but try not to over trade.
With the market volatility in cryptos, coins will fluctuate a lot over the course of a day.
If you try and catch the tops and bottoms of the volatility, you will most likely miss and if you are overtrading what would have been a 5% loss can multiply to a 20% or 30% loss.

Happy trading!!