I truly believe Blockchain will have a tremendous impact on various industries like finance, logistics, intellectual property, licensing and many others. At some point, Blockhain and crypto as a whole will come to a point of mass adoption. And thus, while this space is still in its infancy, it provides an amazing opportunity to get in before the masses catch on.

In this short beginner’s guide to crypto, I’ll provide you with a brief overview on the different step to get started on your crypto journey.

What should be my first steps to get started with crypto?

The crypto space can be difficult to get into. There’s a ton of stuff that you probably never heard of and find quite difficult to understand. And it doesn’t help when people start throwing around difficult terms that confuse you even more. But, once you get a decent understanding of how it all works, you’ll have a blast (and make some nice pocket change at the same time).

Having said that, your first step should be to familiarize yourself with Blockchain technology and its connection to cryptocurrency. I recommend you check out this article on what blockchain is. Blockchain is the tech that stands at the center of the crypto space. Your next step would be to read up on what cryptocurrencies are, and how to understand them.

Also, get yourself a Twitter account. That seems to be the main source for understanding, learning about and keeping up with the crypto world. Check out this article with people you should follow for info on crypto.

I’ve educated myself, what now?

Okay, so you’ve read up on Blockchain technology and have gotten a good understanding of what cryptocurrencies are. Your next step, young grasshopper, is to familiarize yourself with the market. As of right now, there are thousands of crypto projects on the market.

The best way to familiarize yourself with the market, is by visiting a data platform like CoinGecko. They keep track of new and existing projects and track all sorts of data from these projects. Thionk about things like prices, information on supply and market caps, etc. 

You can learn more about these metrics on their site. If you want to learn more about market caps specifically, you can refer to this article by TehMoonwalker with everything you need to know about market caps.

How do I know if I should buy a cryptocurrency?

When you buy into a project, you hope it will increase in value at some point in time. Here are a few tips I can give you:

• Don’t focus too much on the short term. Develop a long term vision for yourself. What do you think will be a big topic in the future? For example, if you think crypto will at some point start to mimic the stock market, you might buy into projects that are centered around crypto ETF’s and indexes.

• Only invest in tokens with a clear token utility or use case. The token should play a big role in the project’s ecosystem. A token utility that I’m a big proponent of, is when the holder of a token is entitled to a share of the revenue generated on the project’s platform, app, exchange, marketplace or other types of platforms.

• Stay away from “meme” coins. You will eventually run into these, and you will most likely recognize them by their weird names. In general, if a project has any of the following words in their name: moon, safe, shiba, rocket, etc. then make sure to carefully read if they are actually trying to accomplish anything.

• Set some criteria for whether or not something is worth investing in. There are a few things that I personally look for in projects. I expanded upon them in my article about how to research a crypto project.

Where can I buy cryptocurrencies?

So, you’re ready to start buying some solid projects. There are different place you can turn to if you would like to start your investing journey. I use the following exchanges:

• Coinbase
• Binance
• Kucoin
• Gate.io

I use coinbase for turning my fiat money into crypto (and vice versa), alternatively you could use Coinbase Pro as it has lower fees. Kucoin and Gate.io typically have more small-cap projects available, which is why they are good options to have an account on.

The exchanges above are centralized exchanges (CEXes). Once you’re a little further along your crypto journey you’ll naturally shift more towards using decentralized exchanges (DEXes) like Uniswap and Pancakeswap. Trust Wallet wrote a good article about the differences between CEXes and DEXes.

What crypto’s should I buy?

I can’t tell you what to buy. It all depends on your personal situation and your risk tolerance. But, here are some general tips:

• Only invest in things you understand. So you know what the project is trying to achieve or which problems they are trying to solve, and how.

• Only invest in projects that either have an already developed product or projects that are close to delivering their product or are trying to solve a specific problem

• Do not only focus on the actual price of a token/coin, you should mainly consider their market cap. This is the sum of the circulating supply multiplied by the current price. This helps you gauge in which lifecycle stage the project is at. Are they still in their baby shoes or is it a well-known project? Remember: a low market cap equals more room for growth, but also comes with more risk. A higher market cap means a little less room for growth, but can generally be seen as a relatively safer investment.

• There’s three kinds of projects: (1) low caps, (2) mid caps and (3) high caps. The thresholds for these three aren’t set in stone. Personally, I consider projects with market caps under 50M as low caps, between 50M and 200M as small caps, between 200M and 1B as mid-caps, and anything over 1B as a high cap.

Which cryptos are “safe” to invest in?

Valid question, just a hard one to answer. The reason for that is that the crypto markets are extremely volatile compared to traditional markets. So that’s always something to take into account. It also depends on what your definition of “safe” is. Personally, I would say BTC and ETH are about as “safe” as you can get.

Of course, at some point, you’ll want to dabble into altcoins as well. Those are way riskier but typically have more potential upside. IF you plan on going this route, I highly recommend you research each project thoroughly.

Are they actually building something, solving a real problem or improving on existing processes/methods? Do they have a plan for the future and a detailed whitepaper on how they plan to get there?

Looking into the team behind a project is also an important step you should never skip. Do they have the expertise that is needed to make the project succeed?

I hope you were able to get some value from this short beginners guide to crypto. It’s a brief summary to get you started. I hope to publish a more extensive guide in the future!

Remember to follow @cryptomendo on twitter so you don’t miss a thing.