Can someone dumb this down for beginners? Where should a beginner buy and hold BTC, ETH, etc.? You buy it on an exchange like Coinbase but you should store it in a separate wallet? Is a coinbase wallet not secure enough? I realize there are cold wallets in addition to hot wallets? Is a cold wallet recommended? If you have a cold wallet - do you also have a hot one? Are they linked somehow? If you lose the cold one, does the hot wallet essentially back it up somehow?

Long story short - what's the best, safest way to buy and hold safely?

I realize there is a long thread that probably discusses all of these things over and over - but it's hard to sift through that thread among all of the other discussion.

Thanks - that's really what I wanted to hear. My preference would be to keep it as simple as possible. I'm generally a buy and hold person so I'm not looking to make a bunch of moves. I've never really understood it - which makes me nervous (and probably just dense).

MAS444 said:

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Thanks - that's really what I wanted to hear. My preference would be to keep it as simple as possible. I'm generally a buy and hold person so I'm not looking to make a bunch of moves. I've never really understood it - which makes me nervous (and probably just dense).

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I don't think it makes you dense. Some of the platforms on the edge of this market are still very wild west and user unfriendly simply based on the steps I've read on here just to make a transaction. I'll stick with my Coinbase training wheels for now.

Yes, exchanges have been hacked. Online soft wallets have been compromised before. Cases are extremely rare.

Has your online checking account or online bill pay ever been hacked? Do you know anyone who has had their online banking system hacked?

If you bank online or use banking apps there is no reason to think that your crypto wallets or exchanges would be any less secure. It's safe for basically all normal users.

Anyone familiar with BTCS? I'm thinking with all the hype around cryptocurrency there may be a bump to e-commerce accepting the currency

I can't buy crypto but I did buy the ETF recommended here

Isn't there also a couple hundred million sitting on a hard drive in a landfill somewhere?

Four Seasons Landscaping said:

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Isn't there also a couple hundred million sitting on a hard drive in a landfill somewhere?

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It's with the ET Atari game.

What online casino?

TexAgs91 said:

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I should have listened to this guy at work who was going on and on about bitcoin back in 2013. I think he purchased about $3K worth of it back then.

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No sheet. We had a super-nerd talking about it way back, and like everything else dorkish this dude talked about, we blew it off.

I don't think it's crypto itself that's valuable. Anyone can come up with a new currency. People and countries have been doing it since the dawn of civilization. What's different, new, and therefore valuable is the blockchain that allows for spending in a market that is further out of reach from government manipulation. It is the literal definition of a free market and that is why crypto is taking off as a viable alternate currency.

coinbase

I got a question, I got a decent amount of $$$ in my coinbase account. Nothing life changing but could be if BTC lives up to its hype. I keep on reading that I should invest in a cold storage wallet to keep my crypto secure.

Is keeping my money in coinbase not safe? I always presumed coinbase served as a brokerage much like a (fidelity, ETrade etc)

Coinbase is expensive...it's like the Spirit airlines of crypto. There have fees for literally everything you might want to do. I suggest opening an account, getting your free crypto via they offer and then move your funds to Voyager---which also pays you decent interest on your crypto if you keep a couple hundred dollars worth it in your account (5.5% on BTC)

matthop said:

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I got a question, I got a decent amount of $$$ in my coinbase account. Nothing life changing but could be if BTC lives up to its hype. I keep on reading that I should invest in a cold storage wallet to keep my crypto secure.

Is keeping my money in coinbase not safe? I always presumed coinbase served as a brokerage much like a (fidelity, ETrade etc)

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I would get it off of the exchange wallet and at least into a secondary wallet that you have the key.

Best would be to buy a hardware wallet DIRECTLY FROM THE MANUFACTURER.

Use the coinbase vault and implement good security measures.

https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbase/privacy-and-security/data-privacy/how-can-i-make-my-account-more-secure

Most of us keep our retirement in 401k and IRA accounts at a single bank or brokerage firm with far less security measures in place. Few lose sleep over it either.

If you are only looking at BTC and want to buy a little at a time, check out Swan: https://www.swanbitcoin.com/clay?gc=yanbook1020&utm_campaign=yanbook1020

That link also gives you a free ebook and they try to educate folks about bitcoin.

If you want to do ad hoc purchases of bitcoin, I would suggest using CashApp (
https://cash.app/app/BFSVCLN) or River (https://river.com/signup?r=QL4ZPRJA).

You can still look at Swan's education. For any crypto that you want to hold yourself, I would suggest a hardware wallet. Start small and make sure you know how to restore from your seed phrase. Many education sites will say start with a software wallet but I don't think hardware wallets were that hard to start with. Just start small so you know what you are doing.

I have a lot on various exchanges and don't really worry about it. One of the exchanges (kucoin) got hacked last year and I think I may have been affected, but the token devs froze the stolen toxens and swapped them all out (centralization to the rescue!)

Ironically the biggest scares were when my ledger effed up and factory reset. Luckily the keys worked. Oh yea and the company ledger got itself hacked and some of my personal info got released online with a million other people. I got some legitimately sophisticated phishing emails that made it through my work filter.

I'm not suave enough to be shady. I just don't want some Boris from goldeneye like guy to hack my account from across the world and leave me with sol

Four Seasons Landscaping said:

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Isn't there also a couple hundred million sitting on a hard drive in a landfill somewhere?

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Would be a couple billion at this point. The urban legend is that he committed suicide. Not sure of the veracity of this story at this point.

Another guy has a hundred million on a harddrive, but forgot the password and had used 8 of 10 attempts.

Has hired hackers and hypnotists, anything to figure out the password.

Esteban du Plantier said:

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Another guy has a hundred million on a harddrive, but forgot the password and had used 8 of 10 attempts.

Has hired hackers and hypnotists, anything to figure out the password.

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Oh yea. Heard that story recently. The one I referenced was about an early miner hobbyist who later realized his old desktop that he had since discarded contained dozens of coins. The story was that he combed the local land-fill for the old machine for months before finally committing suicide. Sad if true but might not be true.

Uncertain about suicide but guy who threw hard drive out is in London and this story pops up every so often of him trying to convince the city to comb the landfill for it.

Loaded said:

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Use the coinbase vault and implement good security measures.

https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbase/privacy-and-security/data-privacy/how-can-i-make-my-account-more-secure

Most of us keep our retirement in 401k and IRA accounts at a single bank or brokerage firm with far less security measures in place. Few lose sleep over it either.

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insurance helps you sleep. While coinbase has some it won't cover an existential loss.

Definitely most secure exchange that I'm aware thusbfar but that just means it's the least likely to fail and you should IMO implement measures to hodl off-exchange. Just keep exchange funds for buy/sell/trades.

Practice makes perfect.