No investment advice..

To be clear right from the start, what you need to know before reading any further is that this isn’t investment advice. It is for educational purposes only.

With that out of the way, let’s continue 😉

In general

So. There is probably a lot you need to know before you start to invest in anything. It has a lot to do with your financial situation in general but with your life vision and your short term goals vs long term goals as well.

I’m amazed by how many times I speak with someone about money and/or investing how often they don’t have a clue about how much money they want or need in the first place and what for.
I mean, don’t you think it’s easier to make some amount of money if you know how much you want and what you need it for?

How important this money is to you? What it can create for you?

Is it for early retirement, is it for a new house, a new car, to travel the world, for your kids? What? And how much do you need exactly?

Why is it so difficult to sit yourself down and write about this stuff? Draw something, also fine. I mean, dream a little. Envision your future of having certain things that makes you more happy. Or more free…

So with this as a starting point, let’s now go back to what you need to know about crypto before going all in!

1. Fundamental value vs crap

This is probably the most difficult part of this space. The technology behind the projects isn’t that visible for the average person to see and the fact that there are popping up coins everywhere at a speed that even Max Verstappen can’t handle it doesn’t make it any easier as well. There are so many coins & tokens and there is so much BS being spread about these projects by news outlets, paid actors and other channels of marketing campaigns that it is really hard to turn down the noise and focus solely on the fundamentals of certain projects. Because, you don’t want to invest in crap. Meaning, you don’t want to invest in something that only goes up because of speculation. This, my dear friends, is fake value and leads most of the time to FOMO. Fear of missing out. What you want to be doing is researching if this coin or token has any use cases and/or some other fundamental value that could create higher prices in the future because it makes sure people or companies are actually going to use them when the project succeeds in it’s network adoption. Find your favorite channel that does fundamental research and educate yourself accordingly. After that, by all means, do whatever you want…

2. How hot is it today?

Ehm nope. I don’t mean the weather, obviously. Haha, no mi amigo, I mean how hot is the market!? Before you even think of entering the market you should ask yourself, why do I want to go in now? Please, write it down! This simple question, but oh so important, helps you to reflect on why you want to go in so bad at this specific time. Because, ladies and gentlemen, most of the time you want in because everybody else who is in there already is winning! You (over)heard someone talking about his/her gains, or you watched the news and saw Bitcoin was up by 40%! Now you really want to play along as well, right?! The answer should be, no. This is the time you pass. This is the time to start to do your research (or listen to someone who does) so that you get to know all these projects that are going up like crazy and learn which one has the real value behind the scenes. And then, when it starts to turn cold (meaning market goes down), you my friend, go in. Don’t be afraid to miss out, you won’t. You only miss out if you don’t know what you’re investing in.

3. Where do I buy it?

Great question! There are so many exchanges, sort of the same, but different. This comes down to where you live and your personal preferences as well. Some exchanges aren’t available in your country and others have been hacked recently or are too expensive (transaction costs). If you google on “Top Crypto Exchanges” you will find the best and biggest ones out there. Normally, when a crypto exchanges has more trading volume and liquidity it means that your funds are more safe so that when you transfer money you actually receive your funds. In my opinion all the top 10 exchanges are safe and I have an account at almost everyone of them. Not all the coins or tokens are on all the exchanges so it’s a good thing to be able to acces more than one whenever you can’t find a coin/token on your favorite one. On all these exchanges you can buy coins and tokens with your own currency (dollar, euro, yen, etc.) and then transfer it to the coins or tokens you want (if they are listed on the exchange). Once you’ve done it for the first time, you know it forever..

4. How to store your coins SAFELY !!

Last but not least, how to store your coins and tokens safely. The thing is, every exchange has its own wallets. Meaning, you can simply buy and hold on the exchange. So, why bother? Well, when your coins and tokens are stored on the exchange, effectively this means that they are not your coins. Since the exchange has the keys to those wallets, they can enter the coins (and so your assets/money) whenever they think they need to. We have seen multiple incidents in the recent past that governments all over the world obliged the exchanges of freezing funds of users because of different reasons. They, the exchanges, had to comply. Besides this fact, multiple exchanges have been hacked before and will be hacked again. So please, don’t leave your funds on the exchange. What you need to do is download a private crypto (hot) wallet so you have self-custody over your funds. I personally love the Exodus wallet since it is safe, private and very easy to use. You can even swap between coins and tokens within the wallet so you don’t even need an exchange anymore once you have send your tokens there. Now that your coins and tokens are off the exchange, you are pretty safe. But, there is one more step you can take and that is buying a hardware (cold) wallet. Meaning, a hardware device that is not connected to the internet. Once your numbers in holdings (or profits) go up it’s strongly recommend to buy yourself a cold hardware wallet where you can send, at least, 50-70% of your funds to and hold it safely offline with zero chance of getting it hacked or confiscated. In this case, check out the ledger Nano X or the Trezor!

Wrapping things up

I hope you enjoyed reading this just as much as I enjoyed writing it. The thing is, don’t jump into this space or into new projects too soon but don’t be too scared either. Just educate yourself a bit before going all crazy and think about how you want your life to be before you act. It is so important to realize that you are that one that is behind the steering wheel and do, indeed, have all the power to create a life on your own terms. This whole crypto space can be a means, a way, an opportunity even, to make it happen or at least contribute to it. But not without giving it enough thought and the proper amount of time/energy investing in it.

You do you! All the best… 🙂