When you first start in cryptocurrency (CC), it can all seem pretty daunting, and when you start looking for advice it gets worse. Acronyms and Jargon, not to mention all the Fake News and BS.
FOMO - Fear of missing out, buying at ATH.
FUD - Fear Uncertainty and Doubt.
ATH - All Time High.
Alt Coin - Alternative to Bitcoin and Ether.
TLAS - Three Letter Acronym Syndrome.
There are many choices, I have listed some that have worked for me, and have satisfied criteria that I required, like security, ease of use and reliability, and also how long it took to receive replies to emails etc.
So start off here.
https://coinmarketcap.com/
Coinmarketcap will give you a list off the Top 100 CC available, if you click on ALL at the top of the list above Bitcoin, it will extend a drop down list, select FULL LIST to view all 1512 (and counting) CC's.
Click on the name of a Coin or Token and it will take you to a separate page, with useful details. There you will find a graph of recent activity, and a tab above that labelled "Markets", which will list the Exchanges you can purchase that coin.
If you click on any of those, you go to a page with a link to the exchange.
There you will need to sign up with an email address, a password and probably some form of ID.
Due to high demand there is a wait for some, Binance was quite quick and Bitstamp took longer, there you can purchase BTC by funding your account with Visa, however the rate is quite expensive.
https://www.binance.com
https://www.bitstamp.net
Once you have signed up and been verified, and you want to buy your first coin, you will need to fund your account, probably with BTC (Bitcoin).
If you live in a part of the world where you can signup with Coinbase your ready to go, good luck, be careful and choose wisely.
You will need a wallet with a BTC address to receive any BTC that you buy, see Exodus further down.
If not you can go to Changelly.com or Coinmama.com and purchase your BTC using Visa. There are fees and if the value of BTC is moving rapidly it may pay to be patient, and you will get a better deal. Don't FOMO.
I found Changelly to be good, it can be a bit buggy, so just be aware that you may need to proceed slowly and have a good net connection, your transaction will either go through or you might have to start again if you haven't received confirmation, within 5 mins.
https://changelly.com
https://www.coinmama.com/
Once you have your BTC and you have purchased your first haul of CC, you realize that you need to get it off the exchange, and you will need a wallet.
If you go to the official site for the CC they may have a wallet, or if you go here
you will find a list of wallets and what coins and tokens each one supports, as well as other useful info.
But if you have bought BTC, it's probably a good idea to get an Exodus wallet and leave a small amount on the exchange, and transfer the bulk of it to your exodus wallet. That may take an hour or five at the moment. That way when you want to buy an Alt Coin, you will not have to pay an excessive fee to transfer your BTC back to the exchange.
You will be able to track the progress of your transfer here, while you wait for confirmation.
Of course these are just the basics, you should be researching any and every opportunity that you see, thoroughly.
Any decision that you make should be backed up by your own research and verified by separate, reliable sources.
Store your passwords and Public and Private keys very carefully. Keep them secret, keep them safe.
There are an enormous range of resources available and it's extremely difficult and time consuming to know which ones can be relied upon.
Here are a few that I have used and am still not fully decided on, and will remove and add to as I go.
Youtube.
Boxmining
The Crypto Lark
Doug Polk Crypto
Suppoman Udemy
cnbc
News:
https://www.coindesk.com
https://cointelegraph.com
https://www.coinspeaker.com
And Lastly this is not financial advice, it is just my opinion.
I hope that it helps someone.
Take your time, start small, don't trade what you can't afford to lose. Its not a race. Just remember, the chance of a lifetime comes along about once a week, sometimes it's 3 weeks.
Especially in crypto.