Topic: Getting started with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies - page 3. (Read 1872 times)

Tip #2: Treat your BitcoinTalk ID as a valuable asset

That account you're logged into right now is actually an asset. If you're brand new, it may not be much of an asset just yet, but as you learn the ropes, make intelligent posts, and simply allow time to go by, your account will grow in value.

Because your account is an asset you will want to protect it in two ways. The first way is to give it a robust password. If you registered your account using some kind of easy to remember password that you use for half a dozen other accounts, then change it now. You can easily generate a strong password on Passwords Generator or you can use a different random password generating service. Once you've reset your password to a robust one, please record it in your LastPass vault or whichever password management service you use. Make a point to change to a new robust password at regular intervals.

The second way to protect your account is to make sure that you are posting in a way that will reflect well on you and your account. Do not spam threads with posts that do nothing more than promote some product. Do share your relevant opinions as you develop them but do so in a way that is professional, well thought out, and courteous. Be willing to consider other people's viewpoints as well. Avoid flaming of any kind. At the beginning posting intelligent posts is going to mean asking good questions and then taking the time to read through the replies. At the very beginning you can expect to be doing a lot more reading than writing.

Your account gains status on this forum through a combination of the passage of time and your post count. There is no way to quickly move up levels by simply posting a lot, so don't do that. You can make an effort to log in and post something once a day, but only if you have something to say. If you don't have something to say, then keep reading and educating yourself.

There isn't a magic formula or anything, but in general, people here feel more comfortable doing business with accounts that have been around for a while and which carry higher ranks. Account status makes enough of a difference that miscreants do attempt to hack into high status accounts and lock the original owner out of them, and then try to post as that original owner. This is why a robust password is so important.

Whether or not you own any Bitcoin at this time, you do have your BitcoinTalk account. Treat is as the valuable asset that it is. It may well turn out to be your most important crypto-asset

There's plenty of information online about that. You can start with the Last Pass blog and then also read independent online reviews. My personal opinion/experience is that the service does a decent job with security, including addressing issues in a timely fashion. I personally use two factor authentication and also store my LastPass password on an encrypted disk.

A good password manager has to be both convenient and secure. There is the very real risk of you losing access to your funds because you lost the private key to the wallet or some other non-recoverable password. You're probably more likely to lose your funds that way than by the actions of a hacker, but hacking does happen, so you have to balance both. How to handle password management is a personal decision

Definitely alot less convenient. You'd have to open the program/app every time you need to use it. Especially on mobile, good lord. You'd have to copy paste the password everytime. Whereas Lastpass has browser extensions and autofills from the app(KeePass' autofill only works sometimes) that make the process alot lot easier. The thing though is, I'm really not sure how safe or unsafe LastPass is.

I plan to provide a new tip several times a week, at least until I get the basics covered. You are right to focus first on learning. At this stage, putting a small amount of money into it can help with the learning, but look at it as "tuition" for your crypto-education. Even if you lose some, you will have gained knowledge and that makes a huge difference down the road.


I've heard that about KeePass. It's considered more secure but less convenient. That brings up a good point which is that you have to balance out convenience and security when it comes to securing your private information. You can totally encrypt your information with multiple layers and no one can possibly crack it. But the downside is that it's so inconvenient for you to access the info when you need it that you'll subvert it by taking short cuts. Or, you could even lock yourself out of the information. So you have to find the level of security that will keep your data safe but still allow you to get to it at a level of convenience that works for you.

Been using Lastpass for almost a year already and it's really handy. Was an ex user of KeePass(also a password manager); it was also good, but nowhere as good as LastPass in terms of ease-of-use and or user-friendliness. KeePass is kinda safer than LastPass though, as lastpass stores your credentials in the cloud.

This is a good tip indeed, password manager is an extremely useful thing to have. Even for the internet in general. Any other tips you can provide? I want to start making money with cryptocurrency myself, but first need to learn as much as I can. Investing without knowing the basics will probably get me nowhere)

I shared the password manager that has worked for me for a number of years as an example, but there are other ones out there.

Here is a review article about the top ranked paid services (some of which have free versions).

Here is a review article about the top ranked free services.

I found those two articles by doing a Google search using the key words:  list of best password managers. You can do this too.

Which password manager you use, along with all the other tips I provide, is up to you, and you need to do your homework. I provide tips as a way for you to know the basic steps you need to take, this one being get a good password manager and figure out how to use it

I have alwasy been a phobia to online password managers. What if they can access my account or their database is hacked and all my information is out there in plain light. What I do is, to have strong email password, and use google 2fa authenticator to access my email. Is such case before my account is hacked, they will be provided a link to reset through my email, which I thin the hackers cant access.

you only  mentioned 1-pass key manager-which is an online storage system
how about offline pass manager

Tip #1: Get a good password manager

You will be registering accounts and logging into numerous websites. You will also have wallets with private keys and passwords on your computer. And you need to have a unique password for each one of them. In other words, you do not use the same password for more than one website.

LastPass is a great online service for keeping track of online account user IDs and passwords. It has a basic free as well as premium service. I've never upgraded as the free service meets my needs. There are other online providers as well. You could also build your own password storage vault using a spreadsheet or something similar. Whatever you use, get a good system in place now and start recording your private account information in it. Then keep it secure, while making sure you yourself can access the data.

You can go here for a more detailed tutorial on LastPass.

I've been involved in this industry for nearly five years and have been successful with it. In the interest of helping those new to the industry to also succeed I'm going to share a different "getting started" tip in this thread several times a week. I'll also update the top post as I add new tips.

Enjoy the steep learning curve. Do plenty of research and take responsibility to educate yourself, but be sure to also relax and have fun with it.

And now, the tips...

1. Get a good password manager.
2. Treat your BitcoinTalk ID as a valuable asset.
3. Register a Coinbase account.
4. Register a Free Bitcoin account.
5. Register a Moon Bitcoin account.
6. Start keeping records.
7. Understand there's more besides Bitcoin.
8. Organize your forums and other communication channels.
9. Know what makes a good altcoin.

NOTE: This forum apparently has a policy against users posting affiliate links. I can understand and respect that. However, if you use my Coinbase affiliate link to open your account, you and I would both receive $10 worth of Bitcoin when you make your first BTC buy or sell. For this reason I don't want you to miss out on that opportunity. If you would like to receive $10 worth of Bitcoin from Coinbase by using my affiliate link to register, you can find it here.