This post will teach you everything you need to know about bitcoin and everything around it. If you have questions join my discord https://discord.gg/Fk5CWf4

Lets dive in!!!

You've probably read or heard something about those weird virtual coins and want to get started as well. I will explain every step. From creating your own wallet to buying your bitcoin and some more interesting things. I will give links to every site to make it as easy for you as possible. If you don't know what Bitcoin or the blockchain I strongly recommend you to read something about that first.

So... lets kick off with the wallet.

The wallet

First of all you will need to get a wallet, like every other currency you will need to be able to store it. With this wallet you can sent and receive Bitcoin. Every wallet has its own address.                                                                  A Bitcoin address looks something like this: 14BSTDZMosxkS5paiKct2C7gHDUy73yotC just a code with a lot of numbers and letters, this is comparable to your IBAN or account number from your regular bank. Only this one is totally anonymous and non regulated (thats why the address is so damn long and difficult).

1. There is an unlimited amount of choices in Bitcoin wallets. I will recommend some of the ones im using. Starting with Coinbase (https://www.coinbase.com/join/5a185d2a28b00a00dade39b1). Coinbase is an online bitcoin (and altcoin) storage/exchange. On this platform you are able to buy bitcoins for either USD/EUR or cryptocurrencies. It's very easy, just create an account and you'll have your wallet immediately. 
2. Another starter-friendly wallet-exchange site is spectrocoin (https://spectrocoin.com/en/signup.html?referralId=1467029056). Im using this site for most of my Bitcoins and some altcoins. It is very user friendly and you an exchange your bitcoin for other coins within a second. Here you also just create an account and your wallet is set and ready to receive and sent Bitcoins.
3. If you wish to just have the wallet without any third party controlling the site there are a lot of possibilities I will recommend https://greenaddress.it. This is a chrome extend and is very easy to use. One important thing to do is to write down the mnemonic passphrase, this is the only code which you can recover your account with. 

I strongly advise to write all of your account information like your paswords and recovery keys down on a piece of paper. Once your device dies or gets hacked you cannot recover your wallet without the recovery keys.

Buying your first bitcoin

There are a lots of ways to buy Bitcoin. Lets narrow it down to just the easy ones. One tip: if you want to buy your bitcoin with either euro/dollar or any other fiat currency you have to completely verify your account to be able to do this. The verification process also asks for a picture of your ID or passport, this is completely safe on the links im posting. Keep in mind that this process can take a few hours/days.

- The first one would be Coinbase. (if you use the link given, you'll get 10% off your first buy)

• Go to https://www.coinbase.com/join/5a185d2a28b00a00dade39b1
• Go to the buy/sell tab
• Verify your payment method 
• Buy your Bitcoin (it will appear in your coinbase wallet)

- The second one im using myself is a little unknown but you should try it!                                         

• Go to https://www.litebit.eu?referrer=163074
• Search for the coin you want to buy (you can buy almost every coin out there on this site)
• Fill in the amount
• fill in your wallet adress (you can find this inside your wallet, it should look something like this: 1NsQ9kyiEmKbDhyRZznMrZm6XtYZhfnA2Q)
• Pay and sent, the Bitcoin will be in your wallet within minutes

- The last one is simplefx.com 

• Go to https://simplefx.com/?sfx-r=93f5de5b-dd62-43e9-9074-2d489a0544f1
• Create your account
• Deposit fiat money (keep in mind that you have to verify your account first to be able to do this)
• Buy your Bitcoin (it will appear in your wallet any second)

These three are the ones I have seen work. You can always google for other options but I cannot help you if you'll get scammed. I recommend litebit over coinbase and simpleFX because the price of a Bitcoin is the lowest on litebit but the payment methods are limited here so choose one of your liking anyhow.

What now?

Now you're THE proud owner of a Bitcoin! But... what now. There are a few options:

• HODL! (I'll explain this later)
• Exchange/trade. 
• You can always return to the 'safe' fiat money.
• Start mining

HodL (25% of my cryptfolio)

This is the most popular thing to do with your Bitcoin(s).  Just put the L before the d and you'll understand! Because of the volatility and the price action bitcoin has experienced it can be very profitable to just hold your bitcoins in your wallet and return to the wallet once a month to check the price and decide to sell or keep holding.

Exchanging Bitcoins/trade (25% of my cryptfolio)

My goal with cryptocurrencies is to obtain as many Bitcoins as possible. Of course I hold some of my bitcoin but that is just for insurance. Bitcoin is the biggest and you could argue the most profitable currency of all. It has been number 1 since day 1. Here is the interesting thing, since day 1 other developers started to create new crypto's that arguably could kick Bitcoin off the throne(altcoins). Go check out https://Coinmarketcap.com. You can see here that the amount of different cryptocurrencies is insane. They all could be the bitcoin 'killer' and rise above it.

There are created platforms where you can exchange your bitcoin for other cryptocoins. I will show my strategy for this after the links.

I'll give some links which are user friendly for the newcomers: 

1. https://gatehub.net                                 (I am using this exchange just for my ripple(=altcoin) sales)
2. https://cex.io/r/0/up113373077/0/    (I am using this exchange for most of my sales)
3. https://simplefx.com/?sfx-r=93f5de5b-dd62-43e9-9074-2d489a0544f1                                                          (an allround and easy to use platform)

The strategy for trading

My strategy (nothing new though, im not taking credit) is to pick an altcoin and read as much about it as possible and get a feeling on how it will do the next few days/weeks/months. Buy it when bitcoin is at a high point on the charts (check this on your exchange or on https://coinmarketcap.com) and the coin you want to buy is on a low point, this way you'll have more purchasing power for the specific coin. What you want to do now is wait, or repeat this step with more coins. This way you'll increase your purchasing power with the coin to buy back the bitcoin. This will eventually (if executed well)  make your bitcoin wallet. 

If you do not understand this strategy just read this a few times, you'll understand it soon enough! (buy gold with steel wait for the steel to go down in price and the gold to go up in price, buy steel with gold and wait for the return, this way you'll end up with more gold!) Good luck if you do understand! 

Crawl back to Fiat currency

Don't... This is the future.

Start cloud-mining (50% of my cryptfolio)

Mining is essential for Bitcoin's transaction system. Miners use computing power to create blocks inside the blockchain for which the miners get compensation for. This compensation is 12.5 bitcoin at the moment. This is a very bold explanation but it covers the important parts(the compensation;). The downside to mining as an individual is the high buy in costs (graphic cards, motherboards, electricity costs, etc.). So a few years ago some very clever developers started cloud-mining. This allows people like you and me to mine Bitcoin without having to buy all the technical stuff and pay huge electricity bills. We pay for a contract that lasts a year and get daily payouts in bitcoin in return. 

I've spend most of my money and bitcoin on these contracts for a reason, it creates passive income. That is what im looking for. Im not saying you should mine but I am, and it is highly profitable!

Without further ado let me give you some links to the mining sites. Only use these sites while other sites like Nicehash have been hacked. Only these two have been around for a long time and are safe!

Im mining on both sites for around 20 TH/S in total paying me around 50 dollars worth of Bitcoin each day! Enjoy

https://hashflare.io/r/BE218DFE  

https://www.genesis-mining.com   With this code (Tt3cFZ) you'll get a discount when buying mining power.

Boys and Girls 

I hope this will have helped you a little bit in understanding the options in this crazy virtual world. 

This is the future! Hop on!

Cheers,

David