A lot of people have been asking me recently about #cryptocurrency, what should they buy, which one will continue to go up, and so on. I’ll give you a very definite sequence of steps that you should follow. Don’t skip anything. Consider sharing this post to help out your friends as well. There’s a lot of money to be made, or a lot of money to be lost if you go into FOMO (fear of missing out) — a psychological state which whales use in their advantage because while you’ll be buying high and selling low, they’ll be dumping on you when the price is high and re-buying when you panic sold.

The market is at all-time highs at the moment. There’s no hurry. Chill. If this is going to work in completely replacing the current monetary and financial systems, it will take around 10–20 years, and the high that we’re seeing right now is absolutely nothing compared to what’s coming.

The question you should have asked is not “What should I buy?”, rather it’s “What should I read?”. I repeat, in 10–20 years these decentralized payment and contract systems will have replaced completely the way in which the world works, therefore you better know some damn things about them.

Step 1 — Read and understand this article: Blockchain basics https://www.cryptoambit.com/blog/2017/11/30/blockchain-basic-an-introduction

Step 2 — Read and understand this article: Bitcoin basics https://www.cryptoambit.com/blog/bitcoin-what-is-it

Step 3 — Read and understand this article: Ethereum basics https://www.cryptoambit.com/blog/ethereum

[You will now know enough to make your own decisions regarding what to read next on the subject.]

Step 4 — Order a hardware wallet (I recommend Ledger Nano, and if that’s out of stock try Trezor), which will help you control your funds safely. You don’t want this type of money sitting on your computer.

Step 5 — If you’re a perfectionist, while the hardware wallet is on route, read and understand the Bitcoin white paper: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Step 6 — If you’re more technical, while the hardware wallet is on route read and understand the Ethereum white paper: https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White-Paper

Lookup on Google words that you don’t understand, keep re-reading paragraphs until they’re very clear, do not give up easily.

Step 7 — While the hardware wallet is on route, you can either wait or read more stuff of your choosing. You are already much smarter than the average because you’ve been doing some reading. Keep ignoring friends that tell you what to “invest” in. Everybody will just recommend whatever he invested in. Do more reading. Invest your time into that; it will pay off more in the long term, while also ensuring you keep your gains. Examples:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_coin_offering

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318131748_An_Overview_of_Blockchain_Technology_Architecture_Consensus_and_Future_Trends

Step 8— While the hardware wallet is on route, register AND VERIFY accounts on two of these exchanges: https://gemini.com, https://www.gdax.com (this is actually just another interface for Coinbase) and https://www.bitstamp.net.

Step 9— The hardware wallet has arrived!

Naval Ravikant has said “Bitcoin is a tool for freeing humanity from oligarchs and tyrants, dressed up as a get-rich-quick scheme.”. Now in order to distance yourself from the “get-rich-quick scheme”, let’s actually use the technology! Through one of the exchanges listed on the previous step, buy Ether (ETH) for a few dollars, withdraw it to your hardware wallet, then actually use it to make an online payment. Here are some online stores that accept cryptocurrency: https://www.coinpayments.net/store-directory--1#list

Step 10— Start the accumulation phase. You want to have as little money as possible in inflationary currencies like USD or EUR (keep only the equivalent of one month of salary in cash). Whenever you can afford, use your preferred exchange to buy ETH (buy BTC too if they manage to ameliorate the fees issue, or if you’re buying for at least $1,000 and you can afford the fees). Always withdraw to your hardware wallet, don’t leave any money at the exchanges. “But shouldn’t I buy Monero, or DASH, or etc.” you ask. No. At first you need a base that’s actually usable in the real world for payments, ICO’s (further investments) and decentralized apps. It also has a lower chance of going down in value in the long term. Build up this base until it reaches around $10,000 in value, and don’t ever go into this money in order to invest in riskier assets. That is not a justified use case. You can use it, for example, if you find out that you have cancer — therefore you need money fast, or if you want to buy a house for your family in 10 years.

Step 11 — But wouldn’t it be great if you could have a part of your ETH reserve on your debit card, and use just a bit of it, whenever you need to make a payment, in any store on this planet or online? That’s already possible, get a TenX card: https://www.tenx.tech. Don’t keep too much ETH on it though, always have the bulk in your hardware wallet!

Step 12 — Once you surpass $10,000 you can diversify into other altcoins, while always rebalancing your portfolio (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rebalancing.asp) in a way that keeps your base in a higher majority, the older you are.

Step 13— You now have both the required experience and knowledge to make your own decisions.

Final notes:

Do not ask me “How do I use Coinbase?” and other similar questions. I’m not your technical support.

When you ask me “Hey, I already got an ETH base. What to put money into that’s high risk — high reward?” realize that I’ll recommend you something that I probably bought myself, therefore it will be a very subjective opinion. Always do your own research!

Share this in order to help your friends make the right decisions.

Follow https://twitter.com/UptrendNetwork because analyses of decentralized apps, ICO’s and cryptocurrencies that have strong tech behind them will be posted there.

I will keep this guide updated.

This article has been translated in other languages:

Spanish: https://uptrendnetwork.wordpress.com/2018/01/11/como-formar-parte-de-la-revolucion-de-criptomonedas-de-una-manera-segura/

Mandarin: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/33268584

Korean: https://blog.naver.com/uptrendnetwork/221184629211

Japanese: http://uptrendnetwork.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-1.html