Cryptocurrency has become a topic of discussion of every chat.
Be it with friends, colleagues or as a pep talk with your boss.
If you don’t know anything about it, you feel like listening to Greek & Latin.
Terms like Tether, Bitcoin, Cardano and Alt coin might drive your curiosity up.
And to quench that curiosity, you look up on the internet about cryptocurrencies and man! There is so much content.
Where do I begin from ?
Which source should I rely on ?
Innumerous blogs and pieces of content have flocked over the internet, leaving a beginner confused.
Jumping straight to the point, here are the sources I relied on and the steps I used to defy clouds over cryptocurrency to take actionable steps.
My aim as a beginner was to –
Understand blockchain technology.
Select reliable sources for information.
Understand terminologies.
Invest some spare cash into cryptocurrencies.
Before heading to the “learning to invest” part , I hope you have the myths around cryptocurrency busted.
If you wish to have 10 major cryptocurrency questions answered (as a beginner) , click here
In the blog above, I have written about legality of cryptocurrency in India and the most reliable coin exchanges of India.
This blog is an introductory guide on how you can teach yourself about cryptocurrencies.
Sources I chose to learn about cryptocurrency as a beginner –
After learning about what is a cryptocurrency and ensuring its legality, I wanted to get familiar with coins other than the one and only Bitcoin.
1 . Reliable Websites
I chose https://www.investing.com/
Select the ‘Crypto’ option on the top right of the page.
You will be flashed with a list of top 10 trading cryptocurrencies, their symbols, market cap, current market price, fluctuations in the last 24 hours and 7 days.
If you select “All Cryptocurrencies” you would see more than 2000 listed coins and their details.
Check for ” Cryptocurrency pairs ” section to get real time quotes.
One more reliable website to refer for prices of crypto currencies is https://coinmarketcap.com/
2 . A free Cryptocurrency trading class offered by Udemy.
I am currently learning through this class and will leave my review soon.
3 . Tweets by flagbearers of cryptocurrency
Tweets by strong cryptocurrency flagbearers often move the market. A single tweet by such a personality creates enormous momentum in the prices of the coins.
- If you live in India, follow – @NischalShetty – The founder of WazirX (a leading cryptocurrency exchange of India )
- Also follow #IndiaWantsCrypto
- The Musk Effect – To understand how a single effect (even one word tweets) can impact the value of any coin by an influential man, follow @elonmusk
- Preethi Kasireddy – follow her for her free email-course on cryptocurrency and also for her honest opinions about BTC & alt coins @iam_preethi
- @VitalikButerin – co-founder of Ethereum
4 . I learnt by investing small
It all made sense when I read the basics, understood the terminologies and made tiny investments by downloading the exchange apps available. I started with a KYC on WazirX.
My reason to choose this exchange was to deal with the most friendly UI as I was a beginner.
Buying and selling was as simple as shopping on a online grocery ordering app.
After buying tiny bits of cryptos, I was curious to know where my coins would be stored. I read more and understood that unless I transfer my coins to a cryptocurrency wallet (a distinct storage app, that will be usually named after exchange provider), all my coins would sit on the exchange.
Investors swear by transferring crypto coins to a private wallet and remember the private key safely.
For more safety of your crypto coins, you can store them in what is called as cold storage which is a pen drive-like looking hardware device to store your crypto currencies.
The most famous one being Nano Ledger X.
5 . Follow YouTube Content
After watching hours of content on YouTube about cryptocurrencies, I’ve listed a few of my favorites –
- Alex Becker
- Charles Hoskinson
- Brian Jung
So here is all the journaling of how took initial steps to understand about crypto currencies. Hope you found it helpful.
Let me know if you learnt about cryptocurrency in any other unique way.
Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency is a unregulated sector in India. It is a highly volatile market. The article is not a solicitation to trade in crypto. Investors must educate themselves before investing into the cryptocurrency market. This article is not a financial advice.