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Topic: New to the game, is there anything I should know? (Read 268 times)

member
Activity: 99
Merit: 10
Information Sponge
September 23, 2017, 07:44:56 PM
#7
Thanks for the great replies everyone!  Are there any particular projects that you would recommend doing some research on?  Do you think bitcoin itself will stay on top or is something with more features like ETH eventually going to take over?
newbie
Activity: 14
Merit: 0
Always make sure that you do your own research. It's ok to learn about new coins and get your news from forums, Reddit, blogs, 4chan, etc. but you should always do your own research. Never invest in a coin because of something you saw on Telegram or in a Slack channel.
legendary
Activity: 2758
Merit: 6830
On that topic, how do you find new altcoin announcements for airdrops and things like that? Many of the topics I found are months or years old when thy started, and the ship has already sailed for being part of the beginning.
You can find most of them in the "Announcements (Altcoins)" board[1]. At the beggining, it was better to find good projects because people would only start a ICO or a new Altcoin if the project was good and well maintained. Now, there are at least 1 new ICO per day because people started seeing this as a "easy money" scheme. Most of them won't even start developing the project, but just run with the money after the ICO.

One more thing about ICOs is that a lot of them don't allow US residents, but if you are paying in BTC or ETH how could they tell where you are from?  Aren't they just executed by a smart contract?
Usually they can't know. I don't watch that section a lot so, maybe there are a few that require you to send your ID or proof of residence. But most of them will only ask you to check a box "I'm not a US resident" just so they can be "safer" against the US government or they block you from visiting the website based on your IP - which can be easily bypasses by a VPN.

What danger is there in sending money with too low of a fee?  Does it get lost forever or return to the sending address?
TLDR: If your transaction doesn't get confirmed, after some time the amount will return to your wallet and you will be able to spend them again.


[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=159.0
[2] https://twitter.com/SEC_News/status/902229462468657153
member
Activity: 99
Merit: 10
Information Sponge
Rule number one: Don't panic! They will try to make you think your investment is something bad and try to make you sell when you shouldn't.

What I most see are people who buy high and sell low when they start seeing their investments going down. But you need to understand that this is not always a good idea, and that the world of cryptocurrencies  is a place that does not forgive people weak hearts and hands.

Rule number two: If you are going to diversify your investments in multiple altcoins, do your own research first. DO NOT trust everything that people say, because they tend to try to influence you to buy or sell a coin based on their own interests.


About the ICOs, just like the guy above me said, "you can make a huge profit if you choose a good token". Keep in mind that my advise about the altcoins is also valid to those ICOs: Do not trust everything that people say. I can guarantee you that 95% of all ICOs today are a scam without any developed project and that only care about stealing your money. Do your research and you will be fine!

I've been doing a lot of reading recently on cryptocurrencies in general.  I'm not too worried about dips because now that the world is starting to wake up and see that this technology is good for more than just black market transactions and has potential to change banking and many other industries.  Especially with the new applications being built on blockchains for data immutability. I've been reading about different ICO opportunities and I can tell its a pretty unregulated space right now.  On one hand, that makes it risky, but it also opens up the opportunity for a lot of growth.  Ultimately, I think only a fraction of them will be around in a few years so it seems important to read the white paper and do other research about how it is distributed, created, how it scales, and what real world problem it tackles. On that topic, how do you find new altcoin announcements for airdrops and things like that? Many of the topics I found are months or years old when thy started, and the ship has already sailed for being part of the beginning. One more thing about ICOs is that a lot of them don't allow US residents, but if you are paying in BTC or ETH how could they tell where you are from?  Aren't they just executed by a smart contract?  Is there any legal danger from investing in an ICO as a US resident?  Some I found that seemed interesting were ChangeBank and CombiCoin.

So far I mainly have BTC (and some BCH as a result) and some ETH.  I also hold some tiny positions in a few alt coins that seemed interesting to me.  For example IOTA seems interesting because it is a super new technology, but that also leaves room for security and other concerns.  Then there are POS coins (and even NEM with POI) so theres just a lot of research to do.  Then theres privacy coins like Monero, NAV, etc because ultimately BTC being open ledger means that someone can see how much money you have when you pay them opening up security concerns among other issues.

It's all a huge topic and I don't have any real life mentors that know anything about this world so it's a bit of a personal journey for me.  I lacked the courage to jump into the Bitcoin world when I was younger but I'm ready now.

If you have "decent amount of money" make sure you don't wire it all to one exchange and not hold your money or coins in there for a long time.
If you're planning to hold a lot of coins for an extended period of time get a hardware wallet or make an address offline on a secure device, so that no spyware can get a wind of it Wink Be smart and keep your money safe. Common newbie mistakes:
Entering suspicious sites or opening suspicious links on a device where your wallets are.
Sending money to unknown addresses or scam services.
Sending money without a fee or with a very low fee.
Not backing up your keys or holding backups on the same device as your main wallet.
Holding money on exchanges.

Yeah I would say that I am working with a decent amount for someone my age.  I've been trying to stick to only legitimate exchanges, and never leaving too much money in them because I don't have those private keys. Unfortunately it seems that some alt coins are only available in less reputable exchanges.

What danger is there in sending money with too low of a fee?  Does it get lost forever or return to the sending address?
legendary
Activity: 2478
Merit: 1360
Don't let others control your BTC -> self custody
If you have "decent amount of money" make sure you don't wire it all to one exchange and not hold your money or coins in there for a long time.
If you're planning to hold a lot of coins for an extended period of time get a hardware wallet or make an address offline on a secure device, so that no spyware can get a wind of it Wink Be smart and keep your money safe. Common newbie mistakes:
Entering suspicious sites or opening suspicious links on a device where your wallets are.
Sending money to unknown addresses or scam services.
Sending money without a fee or with a very low fee.
Not backing up your keys or holding backups on the same device as your main wallet.
Holding money on exchanges.
legendary
Activity: 2758
Merit: 6830
Rule number one: Don't panic! They will try to make you think your investment is something bad and try to make you sell when you shouldn't.

What I most see are people who buy high and sell low when they start seeing their investments going down. But you need to understand that this is not always a good idea, and that the world of cryptocurrencies  is a place that does not forgive people weak hearts and hands.

Rule number two: If you are going to diversify your investments in multiple altcoins, do your own research first. DO NOT trust everything that people say, because they tend to try to influence you to buy or sell a coin based on their own interests.


About the ICOs, just like the guy above me said, "you can make a huge profit if you choose a good token". Keep in mind that my advise about the altcoins is also valid to those ICOs: Do not trust everything that people say. I can guarantee you that 95% of all ICOs today are a scam without any developed project and that only care about stealing your money. Do your research and you will be fine!
member
Activity: 99
Merit: 10
Information Sponge
Hi everyone,

I've been following bitcoin for a couple years, but only a few months ago really started to research it and eventually invest.  I find the idea of money that is not attached to a government fascinating, and I'm hoping that it will stand the test of time and move on to be an actual currency.  I made my first monetary dive into bitcoin a few months ago, then started learning about ETH, LTC, and all sorts of altcoins. I know that bitcoin is the biggest and baddest in the crypto world at the moment, but do you think that it will eventually get outpaced by a competitor? I also just recently ordered a Ledger Nano S to keep my investments safer, and I was wondering if there are any other specific security measures I should take?  I already have 2FA set up for exchange accounts with a decent amount of money.

Anyway, I was jsut wondering if there's anything in particular that you would suggest to somebody new to the world of cryptocurrencies?  I find all the concepts and technology fascinating, and I think it could change the future.
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