Investing in Crypto currency - Beginner's view

One month ago , i decided to take my first step towards crypto-currency investment, after paying close attention to how it works, how to keep on getting more information about it, etc. Today, after 30 days, after multiple trial and errors, stupid mistakes, but also a couple of successful investments (mostly on steem and on bitconnect), i managed to get my balance increased by 10%-20%. Lately, i have been talking to friends about it , and without being pushy, suggesting them to do the same, mostly on steem (and also on bitconnect). That was it, I started being bombarded with questions, ideas, skepticisms.

As a result, i decided to make a post with i learned and what i heard from them. Here are the basic questions i got from almost everyone and thought to share them with you, along with the answers that i managed to gather up based on my (short) experience:

1. How much should i invest?

Well, thats not something I can personally decide, so in the beginning i was mentioning something like a small portion of your bank account , like 5%-10%. As you go further, you can increase that, based on success and experience. However, then i figured that this doesn't take into consideration important factors, like the daily expenses. Let give me an example.

5% of 100k and 5% of 1k might be proportionally the same, but it could have different impact on the person's life!

What i mean is, a person with 100k in the bank, obviously can survive for a short while without even a steady income, thus some loss could be 'acceptable'. A person with 1k though, even though 5% would mean 50 dollars (or whatever currency you want) could still find great use in those 50 dollars. Point behind this is, that we are the only one who can decide 'how much' is good enough, not just because of our income, but especially because of our expenses. In the end, just ask yourself this simple question:

How much can I afford to lose right now?

Putting the word 'investment' doesn't make it less risky than it actually is, some could make the argument that it's more accurate to describe it as a gamble! So how much money you could 'lose' right now , without having a financial, or even a psychological, impact on you?

2. Where exactly should i invest? What coin should i choose? Should i buy bitcoin/ethereum?

Ha! Another common question. Should you follow the flow, the wave, and buy the standard-stable(ish) ones? You could, and actually for a beginner it might be a good starting point , until you familiarise with the trading, price fluctiations, exchanges, platforms, etc. Later on, you have to be able to choose on your own where you will put your faith in.

3. Where should i start? How to buy coins?

That's pretty easy, i always advise to start with https://www.coinbase.com/ (low fees) and always make the first transaction as a test (send only 0.01 dollar or similar) until he familiarises and gets used to the concept of wallets. Private and public keys are difficult concepts to grasp , for a newcomer, so first step is to avoid making a mistake and sending your coins to the void!

Any Tips or recommendations?

The most important thing is mentality. The money that you are going to start with, you will be eager to see them grow, you will spend hours watching prices go up and down. In order to make it enjoyable, consider this amount of money as 'lost', which is also related to my first point (how much should i invest), because a bad,deflating day could start affecting your mentality and mess you up a little bit, be prepared. Second most important thing is security. Private wallets and even more important, 2 Factor Authentication. I cannot stress enough the latter one, too many people online lost their passwords, accounts because they thought they were invisible on the internet, or invincible! Keep your money safe!

I hope you enjoyed my experience/guide, feel free to comment/like or criticise it!

P.S

Recently created a youtube channel, check it out:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCopFT0Lz5jq4Fx7hkHhsV3Q