I've been trading cryptocurrency for almost a year now and I realize that as late as I felt to the game, I still may be able to offer some valuable advice to people just now trying to enter this market.
My only real recommendation is to learn all that you can about everything that is going on in this "fintech" (financial technology) space that is paving the way for the future of digital currency and maybe even another huge tech bubble, but we're not really there yet.
Where to go from US Dollars to Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies
Here I will include the most basic ways that I have used to go from fiat to crypto and at end of the article, even give you my 5 favorite coins that I will be paying close attention to this year
Being from the U.S. the ways I have used to go from USD to Bitcoin include coinbase.com, purse.io, and Bitcoin ATMs.
On purse.io you can get 20% off of anything on Amazon with Bitcoin. I would avoid gift cards or anyone with no or low reputation.
There is also Changelly where you can from USD to many cryptos including STEEM!
Ethereum and now Litecoin are also available on Coinbase. Bitcoin can be traded against the US Dollar on 1broker.com and gdax.com. Bitcoin can be traded against a huge number of other cryptos on many crypto exchanges including Poloniex.com and Bittrex.com.
STEEM comes with an incredible on-boarding social platform which has a built-in wallet and transfer features for the community that can actually earn/mine STEEM by upvoting, commenting, and blogging on Steemit.com
The biggest purpose of finding out this information for me was to find out how to invest more in STEEM and EOS. Recently, my period of accumulation of STEEM through blogging has turned into more money than I have ever saved or invested in my life. I now wish I had invested even more of my portfolio in Steem and plan to continue to buy the dips. Actually, I invested everything I had, so I just wish I had more fiat.
It would take another article to go into the details of the best ways to get into crypto for reasons of anonymity and the various pros and cons to the mentioned exchanges so as always be sure to do your own research.
Security would take up a few posts as well so remember to at least use 2 factor authentication and even then don't use exchanges to hold coins. Cold storage and other forms of wallets are something that you are going to have to look into.
Do you have to have money to make money?
Not so much with Crypto
After joining Steemit and earning some STEEM for blogging, I had my very first crypto! I realized that now had a tradable instrument that could get me my first ever Bitcoin! Or a little piece of one at least.
After earning some unexpected profit on Steemit, I sold some STEEM for Bitcoin on Poloniex and soon after would be researching and trading altcoins on a daily basis. I added a couple hundred dollars which was all I could scrape up and still pay the bills. Eventually everything I took out in STEEM, I put back in and have now invested more.
However, those small investments of time making posts and investing what little I could into buying other cryptocurrencies, have turned into more than I even imagined. Many people have already experienced this. Even people like me who, didn't even have any real savings to transfer over have turned a few hundred dollars into a few thousand in a few months. With a few thousand dollars you can begin making even more of course, but be careful not to get over confident.
Not a get rich quick scheme!
As much as I want to express the value of this opportunity, it must be approached from a longterm outlook. It can be easy to get carried away and make emotional trading decisions especially with FOMO. People see the price climbing fast and start buying but thats when you should be selling, if you're looking for an exit. To find buying opportunities you should look for the price to be at a low point.
When I first realized I could margin trade, I quickly made some huge profits, and then I had one huge major loss that came from over confidence and not setting a stop loss. Now I only use leverage from time to time with a very small allocation and have learned to patient and let the price come to me.
Hodl* STEEM - The easy way
Once you've gone down the rabbit hole of cryptocurrencies, you will realize that there are bunch of shitcoins and pump and dump scams that you want to avoid. However you can also find some impressive innovations from projects that are trying to add real value with solid tech. If you find projects that satisfy your requirements for fundamental analysis you can feel more comfortable taking a position that you plan to hold long term.
Anytime you're investing you must do the Fundamental analysis of the organization involved and the technical analysis of the price charts.
Fundamental and Technical Analysis
There are plenty of books written on these topics that you can delve into. Most traders I know focus only on a few indicators though and do very well in crypto. With crypto, fundamental analysis comes down to the code and what technical advantage it provides as a currency or platform or a decentralized solution to a real world problem. I recently read a post from 
Fundamental
You also need to look at the Dev team and the community updates around the code to see if a project is going to have continued development and actually be able to do what it is communicating. If I feel confident enough about the future/trend of a project I will consider allocating a small amount and then I will be paying attention to news and information that comes out of the community.
Technical
Many posts could be written about all the indicators, strategies, and setups found in analyzing historical price charts. It can be overwhelming as you can read about endless forms of strategies using combinations of indicators and every trader has his or her own strategy.
Bladerunner
One basic strategy I have personally used successfully is The Bladerunner Strategy, it is based on the 20 EMA indicator and can be even more powerful when combined with other indicators. When the price crosses the EMA 20 line in a positive direction and then comes down a bit just to bounce off of it on the next low it is a bullish signal. Keep in mind there are various candle periods and chart periods when charting for long term or short term trading.
One month with 4 hr candles
This is the bearish bladerunner signal. The price has gone back down through the 20 EMA and now it has come back up to it, but then bounced back down - this is a signal that it could continue down. All the same, if the price comes back up and seems to bounce off the 20 EMA upwards, the trend could continue even higher. Keep in mind that these indicators are not 100% and the market is beginning to experience a bull trend that is changing previously workable strategies.
Paying attention to the 20 EMA definitely helped me to make some very well timed buys of STEEM. You can see that based on the bladerunner strategy that there was a buy signal at $1.00. I made a post then that said I thought it would bounce from there and we would never see $1 STEEM again. I didn't realize that would double so fast, but I think it may correct a bit more before the next buy opportunity.
Don't forget to look at longer periods when charting and use TradingView to do serious charting.
I think Steem will soon be testing all time highs(ATHs) based more so on all the upcoming development on the steem blockchain, including 
This would take another post to go into detail but for basic charting you will need to be able to draw lines of support and resistance, ascending and descending triangles, etc. Basic indicators like the macd and simple and exponential moving averages (EMA) can give you a foundation for developing your trading strategy. The chart above is a basic poloniex chart showing the 20 EMA as the purple line and Bollinger Bands in blue.
Do your own research (DYOR)
Only after I had done quite a bit of my own research did I begin to invest. I had already been aware of Bitcoin and very interested in the potential, but it wasn't until I saw shoot over $1000 that I decided that I had to get off the sidelines. I bought some at $800 and I am still paying close attention with these recent ATHs. As of writing this post Bitcoin has made a significant drop today, which could mean a good buying opportunity because this bubble has not even really started yet.
If you haven't done it, I would recommend going back to the beginning of Bitcoin and reading old conversations such the famous interaction between Dan and Satoshi.
Very Brief Intros to My Top 5 Altcoins picks for 2017
1. STEEM
If you're reading this as non steemit user, the easiest way to immediately get your hands on crypto would be to start a steem account for free and start voting, commenting, and blogging to earn STEEM! In comparison to other cryptos, STEEM is instant, free(zero transaction fees), has social media onboarding platform with built-in wallet and easy transfers using user names. You don't have to be a geek to see that there is value in STEEM. But, If you look at Dan Larimer's design with DPOS and the Witness system for the STEEM blockchain, it will get you excited about what he is working on with his current project - EOS.
2. EOS
This one is not even technically out yet, I have not seen more excitement for a coin announcement than this one. On the 
3. FCT
Factom is a currency that has a great real word application in my opinion. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation apparently thought so too so the project has some SERIOUS support!. To me, this is one of the most obvious real world use cases for blockchain so I am paying close attention to this space to see who will drive the future of transparent smart contracts for businesses.
4. GOLOS
Obviously, I'm a fan of what Dan Larimer accomplished with BTS and STEEM and the fact that GOLOS is basically the Russian form of STEEM, I think it is undervalued. Golos also has community tokens coming out soon so I expect them to continue to develop on top of all the awesomeness that can happen on the STEEM blockchain. STEEM is just now starting to get more recognition and I expect that to draw attention to GOLOS.
5. SWT
The only reason I put Swarm City Token on the list over so many other great projects is because they are actually the only one I know of going after the Uber/decentralized services market. I was aware of it as Arcade City, but it has changed leadership and rebranded. I have looked at everything put out since then and it seems that the platform, which is dropping on the 15th, could be the beginning of the cryptocurrency for Uber.
SWT will be the coin used to transact on the decentralized service platform. Depending on how the platform is used over the next few months, the most popular hashtags will get their own graphical user interfaces(GUIs) to make the apps more usable for the general public. needaride will be the hashtag and the first GUI. The reception of the platform from the public this month and over the next few will be key to deciding the success of the project IMO. If this project flounders, a project like 
DYOR
For me, it is important to understand how these technologies will be used in the real world. If I can see usable technology with an active dev team and a good road map, I am much more interested in investment. Understanding something earlier on and accumulating those markets that are still undervalued is my goal.
Don't listen to me
These are purely my opinions and don't constitute trading advice. If you do have questions or comments please feel free to ask away or add to the conversation here or get some great input from the traders on SteemSpeak but as always DYOR!
Sources:
*hodl https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=375643.0
https://www.authenticfx.com/free-forex-trading-strategy.html
https://steem.io/
https://eos.io/
https://golos.io/
https://press.swarm.city/
https://www.factom.com/