A paradigm shift is happening; Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain technology are here and about to change everything. The sooner you realize this, the easier it will be to understand, embrace, and benefit from the changes that are coming.

I've been playing with cryptos since 2013 when a couple friends and I bought an "ASIC Mining Rig." Since then I've learned many lessons and still have a lot to learn. Over the past few months, I've received an increasing number of requests for advice. I'm going to answer the top four questions here.

Short answers first

(1) What is Bitcoin? Andreas Antonopoulos tells it here with passion:

(2) Where do I buy crypto?

If you are in the USA use:

• High privacy: https://localbitcoins.com.
• Low privacy: https://coinbase.com.
  If you are not in the USA, https://bitso.com comes highly recommended.

(3) Where do I store my crypto?

High safety: Buy a hardware wallet like https://www.ledgerwallet.com/ or https://trezor.io/.
Medium safety: Install https://exodus.io on your computer.
Lowest safety: Keep your crypto on an exchange like Coinbase, GDX, Kraken, or Bittrex.

(4) Which cryptos should I buy?

Here are the ones I recommend and why:

• Bitcoin: It's got it all. And bonus advantage: Right now, until exchanges allow buying all the other cryptos (below) directly, you have to buy them with Bitcoin.
• Bitcoin Cash: There's a lot of debate about the value of this coin. I recommend researching it.
• Ethereum: It's a platform many coins rely on.
• Monero: Truly private transactions.
• Ripple: Banks want it.
• Steem: It's a social network!
• EOS: Operating system for cryptos.
• ARK: Decentralized exchanges but really it's more.
• Golem: Decentralized distributed computing.
• 0x: Decentralized exchanges.
  I've expanded some below on what makes some of these cryptos unique.

Tips

With crypto, if the coin has valuable use case(s), scaleable, smart management & dev team, brand recognition, good marketing, and momentum, then I'd recommend buy and hold because while the coin will dip at times, it will probably always rise back higher. That said, I want to say I'm not a professional trader so this is not investment advice.

Expanding on some use cases

• Ethereum: Though it can be used as currency, is more of a platform. Vitalik designed it to not only be quick with low fees, but to also be a platform that is easy to develop with and add applications to. There is a lot one could say in favor of Ethereum, but I want to focus on some lesser known coins here.
• ARK: Let's say you own a small sports bar and want to sign a document only when/if a real world event happens. You want to order another shipment of beer if the local team advances in the playoffs. So which blockchain services do we need to do this? Let's say we use Chainlink on Ethereum to verify the outcome of the game (Chainlink "links" real life data on anything into the blockchain), Digusign (part of Digibyte) as the way to sign the contract for the beer order, and Ripple to pay for it.
  Instead of having to buy separate coins and enter them on their respective blockchains (ETH, LINK, XRP, etc.), we could instead use one token (ARK) to enter the conditions for this beer shipment to occur. ArkVM (smart contracts) could be set up so if X event happens then sign Y contract and send Z money.
  There are many use cases where Ark is a hub for blockchain services. Few or none are building anything like this. As other chains grow in functionality, the reach of Ark grows because it will be able to streamline the blockchain experience. Most blockchains have a useful-in-theory idea, but the real functionality will come when they can be used in conjunction with each other and Ark is a way to do this.
• EOS: Operating system for cryptos. And Dan Larimer developed it. He's the guy - along with a partner - who developed Steem and Steemit. Not only is he a super smart visionary, but he's also a Voluntaryist.
• Steem: As far as use cases go, this one is my favorite. Why? Quite a few reasons. So many that I wrote an article about it: https://steemit.com/steemit/@scottermonkey/a-social-network-free-of-censorship-that-pays-you-for-sharing