So, you finally decided to enter the extremely dynamic, ever-changing and fast-paced world of cryptocurrencies, great! Now what? Where do you start? how/where do you get some? How do you use them? What is a cryptocurrency? And even more, should you really get involved?
These are just a few common questions that everybody has at the beginning, but trust me along the way many more will arise, the more you learn the more you realize how complex this sector is and the more you will want to learn. For that reason, I decided to share a few resources that IMHO will help you reach some clarity. This is by no means an exhaustive list of all resources I follow but a first attempt to share if you are interested in more please leave a comment below.
Disclaimer, I may agree or not with the comments and opinions shared by the channels below, in all cases, I believe all of them provide quality information backed by sound research, also, this post contains only my opinion, is not a recommendation to buy any currency/project do your own research before investing your money. Finally, many of the links provided below are affiliate links, if you like any of the products and my content and would like to support me and see more content by this humble servant please use them otherwise feel free to go directly to the corresponding vendor.
Basic concepts, technology as well as the social and financial impact
Let’s start with the most basic and sometimes most fundamental questions around Crypto, Blockchain and Bitcoin in particular, because if you are going to enter this space, in my opinion, you should do it for the right reasons and with the right information so for this, I will absolutely recommend to follow Andreas Antonopoulos, he has been around since the very beginning of Bitcoin and to me, he is the most reliable, deep and wholistic source of information I know on this space with talks and books on almost every aspect of cryptocurrencies, I have seen him talking about everything except trading. He will help you understand the history, purpose and use cases of cryptos (with strong focus on Bitcoin although he also has a book on Ethereum), I would recommend buying his books which he has written with different types of audiences in mind, from the complete beginner to even experienced programmers who would like to develop their own solutions on top of the Blockchain infrastructures.
You can find him in his own site here:
You can buy his books online here:
If you really want to learn the inner workings of Bitcoin and Blockchain at a developer level: Mastering Bitcoin: Programming the Open Blockchain
Similar to the previous one but for Ethereum: Mastering Ethereum: Building Smart Contracts and DApps
On a more broader set of topics, this is a three books series, basically, a transcript of Andreas previous talks, which you can also see on Youtube, in this series Andreas talks about many different subjects, from history of money to social and financial impact that Bitcoin and Crypto, in general, may have on a worldwide scale, also all the smaller details about using Bitcoin, like wallets, usage, security, privacy among many others:
One thing I like about how he approaches his mission to educate as many people as possible about Bitcoin (in line with how it is stated in his web site) is that if for any reason you can’t buy the books, you can always read them online here (at least the Mastering Bitcoin book):
https://github.com/bitcoinbook/bitcoinbook
You can also find it translated into a few other languages here:
https://bitcoinbook.info/translations-of-mastering-bitcoin/
Finally, his lectures captured on video:
https://www.youtube.com/user/aantonop
Learning about development and programming on Blockchain
From the resources in the previous section, you should be able to get a good grasp on the concepts and building blocks of this revolutionary technology, if you would like to dive even deeper from a technical point of view, to be able to actually develop or understand how DApps work, write smart contracts at code level or just out of curiosity, then the following resources should be enough to get you started (definitively Andreas books on Bitcoin and Ethereum also are resources to consider for this section):
Ivan on Tech: is a Youtube channel with daily videos streamed at 08:00 am CET like a Swiss clock. The show usually talks about Bitcoin and Altcoin price however he frequently has very interesting guests, I remember a great interview with Ledger’s Eric Larcheveque which I highly recommend. For those of you not familiar with this company, it is the manufacturer of some of the most popular hardware wallets, the Ledger Nano s and Nano X, among others.
His channel can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/user/LiljeqvistIvan
But most importantly the coding Academy can be found in this link (affiliate), there are a few different tracks in the academy if you are new to this are I would recommend starting with the basics: Blockchain 101.
https://academy.ivanontech.com/a/17936/2gbV2hMW
Dappuniversity: is similar to the previous one but focused only on development and teaching, great resource for learning from the most basic concepts, tips, tutorials, news sometimes but from a technology point of view, all the videos are really easy to follow and well explained he also has his own page with a whole Bootcamp on blockchain development definitively one of the bests out there and many free resources, I believe you can hire him for consultancy services but other than that free access to learning content.
You can find his Youtube channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY0xL8V6NzzFcwzHCgB8orQ
His website here: https://www.dappuniversity.com/
News, general information, price action and trading
Davincij15: Is another great channel, Davincij15 has been in the Crypto environment for a long time, I would say almost as long as Andreas. His channel dates back to 2008 when he was talking (as far as I could see) precious metals, hard money, the economic crisis which started that year among other topics. Then in early 2011, he started posting videos talking about Bitcoin, about that time the price was $1… I will let that sink in for a moment… yes, $1 per Bitcoin later that year it would reach $31 in what was the first “bubble”. My point here, he has been around since the very early days, has endured some really bad times and enjoyed some really good times as well, his experience and the way he shares his knowledge has been invaluable over the time, at least for me, you will see he is great source of information able to take the most complex concepts and transmit them in simple easy to understand terms, is also a very well educated trader, miner at some point and a programmer so he can provide many different points of view, definitively recommend to follow his channels.
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/davincij15
Twitter: @davincij15
His website Davincicodes: https://www.davincicodes.net/
As a programmer, he developed a wallet for crypto assets, check out his page here: pandoraswallet.com
MMCrypto: is a German-based group with great content in both English and German, they usually cooperate with other great channels on Youtube like davincij15 among others to provide updates on different coins, analysis on potential price moves (always do your own research/due diligence) as well as news on the market, great channel to watch with good analysis and very engaging
Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBkGMys0mYl3Myxh3CTsASA
Website: mmcrypto.io
Also, if you would like to be in contact with their community (close to 12k users by the time of this writing) share opinions with them (including davincij15 who is also part of the group), join their Telegram group https://t.me/MMCryptoENG
Sunny Decree: is a Swiss-based channel with excellent content, his content is mostly Bitcoin focused although from time to time you may see other currencies being analyzed. I have seen him online and broadcasting live whenever there is an impactful event occurring, as the recent dump on Feb 19th chatting with his community and trying to make sense of the situation as it develops. I highly recommend his channel; his well-grounded comments help provide context and perspective of what is happening with the Crypto markets.
Find this Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjXdoICJ4KXHuDIEFYfBgHw
Additional sources
No article like this would be complete without a list of Crypto Twitter accounts to follow, however, I would like to keep this first article short so I will reserve the Twitter part for the next issue, along with more channels a few other sites like Telegram, Discord and Tradingview, also some exchanges provide great educational content for beginners not only on how to use their platforms but also about some of the coins. Finally, if you would like me to review any project, exchange or resource in general please leave a comment below I will get to them as soon as I have the time to do it.
If you would like to start buying some of the cryptocurrencies available in the market, there are a few resources I recommend:
Exchanges
Coinbase (get $10 when you buy or sell $100 on Coinbase): https://www.coinbase.com/join/rodrig_rxf
Binance (get 5% commission kickback): https://www.binance.com/en/register?ref=OV02LQ1E
Kucoin: https://www.kucoin.com/?rcode=2wsw7
Storage
Once you have purchased some currencies the best way to keep them is in your own hardware wallet, not on the exchanges, for that, I recommend the Ledger line of wallets reliable and easy to use, you can review and purchase here:
https://shop.ledger.com/pages/ledger-nano-x?r=bc24928c68ad
Charting
To get the best possible view on the markets and trade accurately I recommend you do your analysis with Tradingview.com, register with the link below and get $30 after you upgrade to any paid plan:
You can also follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Thecryptohub1
