Getting Started with Cryptocurrency PDF

Welcome, I hope this enhancement guide will help you out!

Useful list for you to start learning more about cryptocurrencies and to actually get started. Also,
even those with previous knowledge on cryptocurrencies may find this as a great summary to recap
everything you’ve learnt so far. I have listed all the most common and trustworthy exchanges as
well as bunch of the highest quality resources available to this day, keep using these for your
benefits. I’ll try to update the list whenever new or better resource is available or missed. Already
existing cryptocurrencies, and especially the upcoming generic & niche blockchain revolution are
both extremely unique opportunity, possibly even coming close to replicating the industrial
revolution, yet its technology is still in extremely early stages. Make sure you utilize this to the
fullest. This guide is aimed to be as practical and versatile as possible, giving you clear, practical,
and basic understanding. Make sure you are actually following the instructions and look up the links
to gain out the most value.
Short recap before you start investing in cryptocurrencies. This not intended as financial nor
investing advice, but rather a directive guide in getting some cryptocurrency for yourself. For such
advice I’d always recommend multiple different sources, professional advice and ultimately making
your own decisions. Just remember to start with an amount you are not emotionally attached to.
Everyone has their individual situation and should invest based on that. For those wanting to stay as
safe as possible: once you can cash out most of the initial investment in profits, do so. Don’t expect
to understand everything at once, this will take time, even if your plan is to just hold the initial assets
for several years, it will take a while to understand how everything works in practice.
Information in this guide is slightly simplified in order to give you a clear, basic understanding how
the pattern practically works. If you are looking for even more in detail information on the topic,
look at the resource listing in the end. Possible grammatical errors are unintended. Thank you.

Bitcoin and Ethereum whitepapers written by their creators

Bitcoin https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf by Satoshi Nakamoto

Ethereum https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White-Paper by Vitalik Buterin
Gives you an idea what the cryptocurrency actually stands for. Always read through the whitepaper
of the cryptocurrency you plan buying into. Even if you have no idea of the tech, just have a quick
look on the actual whitepaper or confirm the cryptocurrency and its credibility from multiple
different sources.
Task 1: Read through either;
a.) Bitcoin, (recommended for beginners) or b.) Ethereum whitepaper.

Still have no idea what was the point of Bitcoin? Take first a quick recap at:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page
How to navigate the market
https://coinmarketcap.com/

In the following image you can see some significant factors with each different blockchain project.
For Instance, Bitcoin: Total market cap in $, last 24hour volume, current supply & change in %.
When it comes to supply, make sure you understand each crypto’s specific coin, token supply. For
instance, Ripple has 38,7 billion supply as of now, but the final total supply will be 100 billion
ripple. Total market cap is always based on the current supply, not max. supply. One reason to not
attach yourself too much on the market cap, it is just a basic indicator. To see the details of each
cryptocurrency always look up the whitepaper and or research for it. You can also see there’s over
1000 different cryptocurrencies out at the moment. In order to gain more information on each coin,
click on the name. When you are buying altcoins look their prices relative to BTC or ETH,
whichever you are buying them with. Not USD.

By far the easiest site to navigate around all the different cryptos.
As you can see, the most basic factors such as; total market cap, recent volume, supply and so on affect the
prices. This should give you ability to recognize the very fundamentals on top of the technology of each
cryptocurrency, it is important that you can clearly understand the general crypto market before buying
anything.
One more thing to note: What’s the difference between coins and tokens?
As you may have noticed you can list the cryptocurrencies based on either coins or tokens. Coins are built on
their respective blockchains, like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple. Tokens on the other side like Eos, Tron, and
ICON are currently running on an existing blockchain platform like Ethereum or NEO. Most tokens right
now are ERC20 tokens, meaning they are currently running on the Ethereum platform.

Coin acronym / ticker symbols

Very important to know the biggest coin’s trading acronyms, you can see them on coinmarketcap.com

ADA -> Cardano

BNB -> Binance coin
BTC -> Bitcoin
DASH -> Dash
ETH -> Ethereum
EOS -> EOS
LTC -> Litecoin
MIOTA -> Iota
XRP -> Ripple
XMR -> Monero
TRX -> Tron

Money is made when everything is down, buy in dips (-10,20,50~%)

Build your portfolio slowly but surely.

Being able to identify the most ideal – buying, selling points is difficult. Aim specifically for slow and steady
long-term growth as a beginner. One may argue simplest investing plan for a beginner is dollar-cost
averaging. Dollar-cost averaging is an investment technique of buying a fixed dollar amount of a particular
investment on a regular schedule, regardless of the price. Remember, many studies have suggested losses are
twice as powerful, psychologically, as gains. Be careful!

Task 2:
a.) Search up a cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin / Ethereum on coinmarketcap.com and look up their;
supply, current total market cap, historical 1year chart & website. Repeat for at least two more
currencies.
Optional: Compare one of the top cryptocurrencies vs. rank 100,200 etc. cryptocurrency.
Look up the source code of a cryptocurrency (bottom link on coinmarketcap summary)
Exchanges mentioned in chapter nine: (book)
This is the very first step towards buying your first cryptocurrency.
You will need a valid personal phone number in order to enable the two-factor authentication – important

Coinbase
Definitely most beginner friendly exchange platform. Best gateway between fiat money ($) / crypto
(for now), also decent wallet system for an exchange. Simple design.
Register on Coinbase -> CLICK HERE
Registering is pretty straight forward:
• Go through the registration progress
• Verify your phone
• Verify your account with ID, unless you are fine with really low limit, might be a good idea
to first get familiar with the site though
• You’re pretty much set, now you can add your bank, credit card info. in order to fund your
account
Bank transfers have lower fees than credit cards so definitely avoid credit cards if you can. As a
complete beginner I’d recommend to go through the purchase process on Coinbase couple of times
before moving on. Reason why you want to move on from Coinbase quickly is that the fees are very
high and you are not buying on the exact market prices. Coinbase has had some issues lately, but as
of now there aren’t very many alternatives. Please take a look on the following.
(If Coinbase doesn’t support your country or you don’t like the platform, try these alternatives)
https://gemini.com/ US
https://www.bitstamp.net/ EU
https://localbitcoins.com/guides/ Local
Read the guide to understand more

GDAX: https://www.gdax.com
This trading site is owned by Coinbase so you can activate your account here really easily once
you’ve existing Coinbase account. Try to get used to this exchange as soon as possible after
Coinbase, you’ll get better prices and lower to no fees at all. You can switch funds between these
two instantly for free. You can skip the fees entirely with limit purchases where you execute as the
maker i.e. BTC = 10 000$ you’d set buy order at 9950$ or sell order at 10 050$ for instance.
Video guidance GDAX:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RimqcyaeI_Y&list=PLZbbT5o_s2xr17PqeytCKiCD-
TJj89rII&index=12 (you can check the playlist for bunch of help)

Now that you have your basic account set to transfer some fiat ($) to BTC or ETH. You can start to consider
buying some altcoins with some of your BTC – ETH, in order to diversify a bit or just to chase for bigger
returns. Definitely keep the majority of your portfolio in BTC – ETH, especially if you’re a beginner. Don’t
blindly buy in the coins, research them first.
Binance
Once you have acquired your BTC or ETH through Coinbase / GDAX, you may want to have a look
into some promising altcoins.
Register on Binance -> CLICK HERE

Basic progress & tips to go through:

• Again, go through the registration progress, really simple here. You’ll have 2btc limit
without extra verification, international support (google auth. App required)
• Go to your Binance wallets in “Funds” tab and deposit either BTC or ETH
• Go to the basic “Exchange” tab and go to either BTC or ETH market in top right corner
• Pick the coin you want to buy. ADA/BTC 0.00003494 (3,494 satoshis)
• Start to take notes on Bitcoin vs. Altcoin price fluctuation dilemma, was it worth to buy this
altcoin or were you better off just holding BTC / ETH? What are your goals with this coin?
Huge long-term returns? How much of your total portfolio you want to invest in it?
• (More advanced for more activate traders) Exchanges like Binance have their own
cryptocurrencies (Binance Coin, BNB) inside the exchange which you can use for your
advantage. Offers more profit trading opportunities + the fees are lower when you make
trade using the BNB coin

Even though the registration process is easy, you may find the actual interface confusing at first. Consider
checking some videos explaining that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t_-uEsF6zc&t=57s

KuCoin
Register on KuCoin -> CLICK HERE

Very similar exchange to Binance. Solid and safe alternative if you are looking to make a quick
account. Since all the major exchanges are getting tens of thousands of new users every day, the
registrations get temporarily closed every now and then so you may need to wait and look into these
alternatives.

Bittrex
Register on Bittrex -> HERE

A lot of altcoins available. Downside is that you’ll need to provide verification before any deposits,
also the verification progress takes a while. For past few weeks they’ve been limiting the new
accounts due to increased user demand. Check it out and decide whether you prefer Bittrex or
Kucoin / Binance.
There’s bunch of more different exchanges, but these are arguably the biggest and most trustworthy ones
with rather beginner friendly interface. I recommend starting out with these, you can switch your funds as
you see fit later. Preferably you won’t be keeping your crypto in the exchanges for longer periods anyway.
More on storing your cryptos later.

Once you’ve set the accounts, be SURE to enable 2FA = two-factor-authentication. You can do so in the
sites, either

1.) download google auth. App to your phone or

2.) use the direct SMS option. I’d recommend the google authenticator, but just make sure you have a 2FA
activated on your accounts.

Task 3:

a.) Look up the exchanges and take notes which you may want to be using, limitations, you’ll most
likely have to choose one that allows you to deposit fiat money ($) to your account balance, meaning,
Coinbase, Bitstamp, etc.
b.) Register account on Coinbase or one of the alternatives, and look up the site, interface, etc.

Now that you have registered on some of these cryptocurrency exchanges, I’ll quickly go through the current
progress of major altcoin purchasing.
How to Buy Altcoins
To recap, by “altcoin” I basically refer all the other cryptocurrencies other than BTC-ETH. (or any coin other
than Bitcoin) Some exchanges have more altcoins available than others.

Some pros & cons of altcoins

Pros:

• Bigger returns due to having lower market cap, more room to grow, often arguably superior tech
(recently even some 10x / 1000% + ROI)

• Great way to add some diversification, rough example: (feel free to remove ETH from this)
(BTC – *ETH* 70% of total portfolio -> 5-10 different altcoins 30% of total portfolio)

• Even if you look to hold more BTC – ETH, recently it’s been more efficient to gain more BTC
through investing into successful altcoins and then cashing those profits back into BTC, obviously
great strategy if you invest into the right cryptocurrencies. (risk/reward ratio)
(obviously solid research needed before investing in them)

Cons:

• Riskier (generally, not all of them can succeed, consider the risk/reward ratio)

• Dependent on BTC / ETH (for now)

• Harder to buy & store + more variables that come into play

Whenever you are buying altcoins (generally the top 200 crypto) you’ll have to transfer some of your BTC or
ETH from your current address (which you initially bought with USD) to Binance or another altcoin
exchange.

Each cryptocurrency has its own address, DO NOT send BTC to ETH address or vice versa.
Once you start buying altcoins for BTC or even ETH. Remember to look at the prices in the BTC- ETH
values more than just the USD. When you buy something with Bitcoins, you can look the smaller units as
“satoshis”.

Predefined BTC Values:

1 Satoshi = 0.00000001 ฿
100 Satoshi = 0.00000100 ฿
10,000 Satoshi = 0.00010000 ฿
1,000,000 Satoshi = 0.01000000 ฿
10,000,000 Satoshi = 0.10000000 ฿
100,000,000 Satoshi = 1.00000000 ฿

For instance, you were to buy 1 Ripple (XRP) for BTC, it would cost you 19 000 Satoshi. You bought 100
Ripple instead, it would cost you 1 900 000 Satoshi (0.019 BTC) so on so forth. This is important to know
whenever you buy an altcoin, because you can’t buy them directly in USD (with very few exceptions).

Even though all these different altcoins are priced in a general USD value, in most cases you can’t directly
sell them for USD like you can with Bitcoin and Ethereum. Which means for now you will have to transfer
between BTC – ETH when you are looking to sell your altcoins, nonetheless we may see some of the main
cryptocurrencies having dollar arrangement in the near future.

Another thing to consider, is it worth to buy this altcoin or are you better off just holding BTC / ETH?
How confident are you on picking exactly the right project to invest? How much do you want to
diversify between different cryptocurrencies? Aim to cash out your initial investment as early as
possible to avoid unnecessary risks and emotional attachment.

Task 4: (if you’re interested on altcoins)

a.) Look up the altcoin market (%) changes in USD vs. BTC at coinmarketcap.com
b.) Go on to Binance and look up some of the different markets, like, BTC & ETH markets.
Cloud mining in chapter 10: (book)

This one is still a solid alternative crypto investment especially for more of a “passive income”.
However, it’s getting trickier due to all the energy the “proof of work” (PoW) mining style uses, as
well as the fact that there is a possibility PoW may be getting out dated in the upcoming years.
(This is basically the mining algorithm BTC and many other cryptos use)

If you don’t support this type of energy consumption, (the actual amount consumed is highly
debated) then definitely don’t invest into mining. Also, on top of the rather insane energy
consumption, the current PoW mining concept seems to be getting more outdated, especially in the
future. As more and more cryptocurrencies have started to develop different mining methods to
replace the “proof of work” (PoW). Whether it’s more profitable to just directly buy Bitcoin for
instance rather than say, buying a Bitcoin mining contract, is impossible to say. However, it should
be noted it is definitely easier and more liquid to buy directly Bitcoin.
When it comes to mining you have two options:
1.) Buy actual physical ASIC miner
2.) Invest into cloud mining contract
Both of these options have their down sides, you have to consider a lot of variables. Most safe bet is
to simply not invest into mining at all. For those that are still interested in mining I recommend
researching the topic further, especially with the physical miners.
Those interested on how cloud mining works, check the links below:
https://hashflare.io/r/B6C1779C remember the mining contract will last just one-year, you buy a
contract for the mining company and in return they give you mining power.
https://www.coinwarz.com/calculators/bitcoin-mining-calculator

Mining profitability calculator, if you decide to try it don’t forget to calculate the profit estimation
(Skip the guide if you are not interested in mining)

Cloud Mining profitability calculator guide:

For example, you buy 4 Tera hash (TH/s) of SHA-256 Bitcoin mining power which is 560 $ or BTC
for one-year mining contract. Now open up the calculator. Here is how to calculate the profitability
estimation:

1. 1 tera hash (TH/s) = 1 000 giga hash (GH/s) so in our example 4 TH/s is 4 000 GH/s

2. Power watts and costs are zero with cloud mining, this is only if you’d be mining yourself
with an actual equipment.

3. Hashflare’s pool fees are currently 20%

4. Bitcoin mining difficulty and block reward should be automatically stated, if for some reason
not, you can search current difficulty and block reward is 12.5

5. Costs (USD) = 560$ and you can adjust the Bitcoin price to dollar either up or down to see
how it affects the ROI.
Remember Bitcoin mining is the most profitable one by far. Honestly, even if you are interested in
mining I wouldn’t recommend anything else, but the one-year BTC (sha-256) Hashflare cloud
mining contract.
Crypto storing wallets mentioned in chapter 11: (book)

Storing your cryptocurrency inside the exchange’s built in wallet isn’t the best choice, especially if you are
holding a larger sum of coins for long time. Centralized exchanges like Coinbase store your private keys in
order to provide the wallets, which means you are not in full control of your funds, like you were holding
your money on a bank account. Although the two-factor auth. Improves the security of your account, there are
countless different options you can choose on, these “wallets” are just tools enabling you to use & store your
cryptos. Here’s just a short introduction. Get a basic grasp of the blockchain transactions by browsing the
following sites.
Task 4.1: Look up Bitcoin address: 3D2oetdNuZUqQHPJmcMDDHYoqkyNVsFk9r on blockchain.info
search bar. (address belongs to exchange Bitfinex)

https://blockchain.info/ (Bitcoin blockchain)

https://etherscan.io/ (Ethereum & erc20 tokens on the Eth. blockchain)

Online:
https://www.coinbase.com/join/59eba7f80a65e80148f9f744 Bitcoin, Ether, Lite, temporary use
https://www.blockchain.com/ (Bitcoin)
https://www.myetherwallet.com/ Any erc20 token (Ethereum), suitable to hardware wallets as well
https://www.ethereum.org/ secure wallet made by Ethereum foundation, not beginner-friendly

Hardware:
Most safe way to store your crypto “offline”. This is the ideal way if you want to make sure your crypto stays
safe. Looks bit like USBs and is being used to access and “store” your funds. Only downside is that
they can be relatively expensive. If you have very small portion of crypto holdings you may want to
wait with this one. Most reliable ones are currently Ledger Nano S (70$~) and Trezor wallets.
(100$~). If you buy one they will provide detailed instructions. DO NOT buy these devices from
anywhere else but their respective websites. Don’t buy them from Amazon / eBay.
Ledger Nano S: https://www.ledgerwallet.com/r/d815
Trezor: https://trezor.io/
If you are looking to buy one of these, confirm the links of the websites are legit.

Desktop wallets:
You’ll download these directly on your computer, example https://www.exodus.io/ Highly secure,
but dependent on your computer (somewhat). I recommend you to further research if you consider
this option, desktop wallets are rather situational option.
Task 5:
Decide how you’ll store your first, let’s say 0.05 BTC for example, at what point do you want to
move your cryptocurrencies out of an exchange? Immediately? Few weeks? After the USD value
increases significantly? Research more on these different options based on your decision.
This is it for the instructional part of this enhancement. Thank you for taking the time to read it, I
appreciate your effort. For those not familiar, I’ve a complete book on the topic for beginners &
intermediates: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077ZLDN2T
(if you’re really interested and can’t access Amazon account I can give you the simple eBook
version for free, just email me at: eetusro@gmail.com)
For more check the following list:

Complete List of useful sites:

Popular / Active subreddits:
Bitcoin
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/

https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/

Ethereum
https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/

General Cryptocurrency
https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/

ICOs (initial coin offerings)

https://www.reddit.com/r/icocrypto/
https://www.coinschedule.com/
https://icodrops.com/

Site tracking ICOs that are live or coming soon. In case you don’t know what an ICO means, it’s basically the
period where a project raises funds by offering their upcoming coin, token to be purchased with BTC, ETH
before it hits an exchange. Offering no direct value, but the cryptocurrency they are developing. In some
cases, you may have made 100x + initial investment in short period of time, or you could’ve made nothing.
High risk – High reward. Wouldn’t recommend for beginners, you really have to know what you are
investing into, also it should be noted that at least 99% of the ICOs being launched are simply not going to
survive long-term! Or they are flat out scams. Be careful in case you choose to look into ICOs!
Refer to chapter eight of the book for more guidance.
General + Details:
https://www.tradingview.com quality trading charts & analysis on every publicly traded asset
(if you’re interested on charts, essentially nobody can tell you with 100% certainty where the market will go,
or they are lying)

https://coincentral.com/ great source on various cryptocurrency related information

https://coinmarketcap.com/ - already mentioned earlier, complete crypto market presented clearly

https://coinspectator.com/ - great news collection of 100+ sources anything new crypto related

http://www.newsnow.co.uk/h/Business+&+Finance/Cryptocurrencies - mainstream news, but can be

useful
http://coinmap.org/ - shows visual map on companies accepting Bitcoin
https://www.myetherwallet.com/ - online wallet for altcoins, mentioned earlier, reputable and secure
site.
Blockchain tracking, you can see every transaction on the blockchain here etc.
https://blockchain.info/ (bitcoin blockchain)

https://etherscan.io/ (ethereum)

Taxes and cryptocurrency

I know right... Just keep the site in mind if / when you own a lot of cryptocurrency.
Taxing is likely to get more specific soon. There are already existing taxing laws, mostly
in US, China (depends completely on the country). Especially important when you cash
out back to fiat. ($$) One specific additional tip worth considering: Capital gains
exceeding a 1-year holding period will pay less in taxes.
It’s extremely hard to give specific advice on taxing, again, most importantly consider
taxes when you own significant asset value in cryptocurrencies. In case you are actually
buying items or services with Bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies, be careful to import all
the transactions. Look up the link below for more information. You may want to even
reach out for a professional advice!
https://bitcoin.tax/
Terms. Vocabulary with multiple different languages
https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Glossary
Or refer to the vocabulary in the first chapter of the book
Different cryptocurrency graphs + data
https://coin.dance/blocks
Real time facts on different cryptocurrencies, distributions, fees, and more:
https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html

Extra ideas

- If you are using http://www.Youtube.com you can find bunch of crypto based youtubers,
documentaries, guides, etc. Approach this carefully though, choose carefully who you
choose to listen to, and never take a word from just one person.

- If you are using other social medias, there’s crypto related information as well.

- Documentary example on blockchain http://blockchain-documentary.com/ (you can find a lot

of documentaries and videos in general)

- 6 extremely random cryptocurrencies that are worth something https://themerkle.com/6-

hilarious-cryptocurrencies-that-are-actually-worthsomething/

- Discord channels, example: https://discord.gg/fdZQDug

- You can recommend this guide to a friend to benefit from :)

- If you believe in cryptocurrency you can help others understand it.

- https://www.cryptokitties.co/ first game ever based on Ethereum’s blockchain. One of the

first practical examples of Ethereum’s current scalability issues (Made the network slow at
first)

- picking up some more books or even movies on investing & cryptocurrencies:

http://amzn.to/2imwXX9 <--The Intelligent Investor (Classic Investing book)
Basic understanding of investing & economics will definitely help you

http://amzn.to/2D1KVHw <-- Internet of Money (Crypto / Bitcoin based)

Good luck, remember to plan ahead!
This guide is written by author: Edward Beckett
All rights reserved