Are you noob?
Bitcoin is booming. Ethereum, Ripple is booming. Most ALT coins do.
All media goes wild about this. Google search trends SURGE.
Huge interested created, tons of newbies excited, all with same simple questions
Shall I invest? In what coins? Trade or hold? Now or later?
Crypto market is so unpredictable, so volatile, that I always try to avoid exact, straight forward answers.
Not even to the family members. I prefer not to give a very specific answers. Good future relations are of much higher priority to me
However some general rules are valid, and those are probably even heard for you before.
The only thing might be - you have forgot them, or not just following precisely
My rules to newbies are (I'm not saying these are perfect. These are simply MY rules. I sure may be wrong. Take all with grain of salt)
#1. How much?
Deside (exactly) what amount of money you are ready to loose.
Well sure, I am kidding, decide what your want to invest, with only one PRIME rule - this is not your money any more.
This is like what you pay for a lottery Ticket. Which most likelly will not win. But, yes, still have a chance...
#2. Which coins?
Do your own research, check https://coinmarketcap.com , see TOP-10. Or Top 20 at most. Pick yourself the most promising seven (7) coins to your list.
SORT the list from most promising to the least attractive (not necessarily 7. Can be 5, or 3-4. Seven for a better diversification)
#3. Which ALT's?
Avoid (by all means) low cap and low trading volume ALT's, even if you hear a lot of hype and bla-bla-bla about them lately
#4. Proportions?
Spread your "doomed" money (from #1) into 7 parts, for each coin, in decreasing size:
1=50%
2=25%
3=13%
4=6%
5=3%
6=2%
7=1%
#5. When? Today or later?
Go and buy em NOW. All 7. Today.
Because the general rule is - the longer you wait, the smaller is your potention to win. To win BIG.
Or, as an alternative, spend half of each of these 7 piles today, leave the other half to be spent within next 2-3 weeks
#6 Trade or Hodl?
Hold. HODL !!! Trading, investing requires a HUGE amount of time, knowledge, experience, dedication. Do you really have them? Avoid ICO's, cloud mining, startups, anything with a referral links for registration. Referrals 99% are ponzies. AVOID them by all means!
#7 SAFE?
NEVER EVER keep your funds in an exchange. No matter how reputable, old, or big it is. NEVER.
WITHDRAW you funds within hours after exchange has been made. NO EXCEPTIONS.
Your funds belong to you ONLY when YOU keep the PRIVATE KEY. Period. NO EXCEPTION.
#8 Wallet?
Avoid hot storage, HDD, SSD, magnetic, flash memory, DVD etc wallets
Nothing is more safe, reliable, (and cheap) then PAPER WALLET
The only important requirement - create your coin addresses on a clean, of-line PC, and have the private keys encrypted by BIP38, with a password at least 32 characters long (alphanumeric, regular+CAPletters+digits+special symbols).
Simple, good way is to deactivate WIFI, Ethernet, Bluetooth, all external connections, then boot your PC into LINUX, from a verified, reliable ISO DVD (not USB flash), and run in off-line mode the address generation app (can be found on bitaddress.org)
#9 Emotions
Never make decisions while you got emotionally exited. Cool down. Wait a day or two. Dooms day does not comes tomorrow
#10 Pressure
Never make decision when your feel even smallest pressure from somebody. Somebody giving you advice, recommendation, or an offer. Just slow down. Day after it may look much different
#11 Plan?
Make your own plan for all the steps mentioned above. Write it down. And follow your plan steps at most precise way.
Nothing can be more damaging, then jumping from one extreme to another.
Those are the general rules. ONLY YOU is who have to made a final decisions - how much EUR/USD to spend, which coins, which exchange, when, where to keep, etc.
NOBODY will be willing to give you an exact specific names. Nobody wants to be responsible for you losses...
Sorry, that I keep repeating this word.
But I can assure your - if your face-up losses from the very beginning, that this is your DOOMED money, you will sleep well, and will watch market charts without any nervous feelings, no matter what happens. This is very very important. Make yourself a favor - save your nerves, save your health. Nothing costs more.
Well, what ever you decide , I wish you luck. BIG LUCK
P.S.
If ( and only if) you thing this post has some value - please re-steem. Thanks.