How to Set Yourself Up for Your First Crypto Trade

So you want to give it a try and trade Crypto? If you’re new to the topic, then you’ll likely not have the tools you’ll need for it, nor will you likely have any Bitcoin or Litecoin, Ether, or other coins yet. Setting yourself up for your first Crypto trade is, in fact, an easy one. In this article, you’ll learn why it’s easy and how it’s done.

Article Summary and Answers About What This Article Is About

Most people who are not into Crypto yet do not hold any Crypto coins or are not trading Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ether, Dash, Dogecoin, or any other of the thousands of available Crypto coins because they may think it is difficult or maybe unsafe, or maybe simply inconvenient to do.

This is not so. In fact, these steps are a lot easier than setting up an online-trading account for stocks, forex, commodities or anything else with an online brokerage (let alone conventional brick-and-mortar brokers or banks).

The Truth About How Easy or Difficult Trading Bitcoins or Other Cryptos Really Is

In this day and age, it should be safe to assume that you have some, or a lot of,  internet user experience already. If you’re like most people, you will likely have used Facebook at some point in time, or you may be using — and have earlier set  up — a Yahoo Mail or Gmail account. Now, what would you say if someone told you that setting up some first Crypto trading tools is pretty similar to signing up for a Gmail account?

However, there is two ways of doing it: Joe Sixpack’s way (that is often unsafe, is not adequate, and may result in losses that ultimately will re-enforce that ignorant belief out there that it’s unsafe or risky or full of criminals and similar) and the more educated approach. Be aware the latter is better. There isn’t much use to do it the stupid way.

A Few Best Practices to Adhere to

So, here’s how you can do it the right way — quickly and easily, and without learning the hard way first but taking advice that’s tested and proven. This way, you’ll be able to take the shortcut to doing it correctly.

  1. Instead of just going online, breaking out your credit card, and buying some coins on Coinbase or Binance in order to also store them there, here’s what you want to do instead:
  2. go to the appropriate website(s) of the open-source project maintaining the coin(s) you want
  3. download the wallet(s) for the coin(s) you want, e g Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash, Dogecoin or other coins (if you have worked out already which ones are your favorites)
  4. install your wallet (or each coin’s right wallet)
  5. open your wallet program and click the receive button
  6. click and copy the “receiving address” or public key or scan the accompanying QR code; this is how you can later get your coins into your OWN computer at home or perhaps mobile device you use (desktop is best)

This, in rough strokes and simple steps, is how you can do it. We will look into the individual steps along with more links you can simply click and all directions you need in more detail next. So stay tuned for the next module of this introduction!

Financial Crisis: Lessons from Cyprus Relevant for Everyone

Although officially “solved”, the Cyprus crisis is of significance to investors, savers and actually every private household in many countries. Seen as a “small scale” model scenario for a “real” crisis in the euro or, in fact, any paper currency worldwide, the handling of the Cyprus crisis offered very interesting reading and insight into how bureaucrats handle — or intend to handle in the future — any kind of lack-of-trust problem in the economy.

Said former German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble: “Touching personal savings always is a very sensitive area, and we need to be very careful when doing so. In order to prevent a bank run, this should always be undertaken over a weekend.” He went on to demand procedures and policies for enacting “special rules” allowing to push through currency controls and ceasing of assets between Fridays and Mondays so there would be “no further need for extended bank holidays” as seen in Cyprus in March.

With this kind of thinking exposed, it is obvious what will happen in many additional places beyond Cyprus if there is any problem — which in light of the publicly known financial state of many countries, including core-European economies and the U. S., is not too far fetched at all.

U. K. Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, MEP, who due to his role in Brussels has significant additional insight into the inner workings of that bureaucracy and those bureaucrats’ irresponsible way of thinking, has already warned everyone having any exposure to the PIIG countries and even the rest of the EMU area to “get out your money while you can”.

The question to be answered, then, would be where to move those funds to. With all paper currencies effectively in the line of fire in the event of a euro, let alone dollar, collapse, there is little use even considering classical safe-heaven investments such as U. S. bonds (of all investments!), cash U. S. dollars themselves, or even Swiss francs and similar. The obvious answer would be moving into tangible assets like real estate or precious metals (the latter also being suitable for smaller quantities than your average minimum property price). Also, some “alternative” investments might be suitable, particularly if they offer regular returns (cash flow) and not just a chance of capital appreciation (which may or may not happen at some uncertain point in the future).

When there is nothing to be found offering such return, the point for “dumb” precious metals just sitting in one’s vault is even stronger: for precious metals offer the safest protection against economic turmoil even if they do not usually provide cash flow like dividends.

The Right Kind of Mix: What True Diversification Should Be Like

Diversification always needs to be across different Asset Classes. Only buying stocks from different industry sectors is usually considered “good diversification” these days — but actually is not diversification at all. (All are in the same asset class, namely stocks, a paper investment.)

Finally, some people appear to awake to more prudent measures. In light of Bitcoin and other Crypto coins, which may well be an emerging new asset class of their own, there is an easy rule of thumb, “Bitcoin for Transactions, Phyzz for Storing Value/Asset Protection”!

Actually, I would even go A BIT (pun intended), as in a few percent, more in favor of Crypto — even for “storing value” although that’s not really what Crypto coins are particularly good at (relying on external factors for STAYING valuable, that is — even if we expect, or hope, for electricity and computing to ALWAYS be ubiquitously available)…

The “mix”, from an Asset Management (or Protection) point of view is, therefore, a matter of personal choice. We need to update Swiss bankers’ 33-33-33 diversification advice of the 1980s to also include today’s “new asset class” though.

Why Data Encryption Continues to Be Secure

The New Yorker, of all ‘specialist’ tech magazines out there, has an article on “How the NSA Cracked the Web”!

What a surprise.

For starters, as the web isn’t encrypted in the first place, it cannot be ‘cracked’. Further down into the article — and after some extensive sorting out all the mis-understandings of its obviously computer-illiterate author — the reader is finally let in on that ‘cracking success’ of the NSA: it turns out to be pretty lame and, in fact, limited mostly to compromising Microsoft’s and some other commercial software vendors’ master keys.

This got nothing to do with real decryption or with ‘cracking’ or  any ‘code breaking’ whatsoever.

What’s noteworthy, though, is that it is admitted between the lines that all the “real” encryption technologies are as safe as always assumed (with e g 2048-bit keys still unbreakable). Therefore, applying these coupled with a few simple steps of protecting and securely hosting any content one might have out on the public internet continues to be the way to go.

At the end of the day, the so-called ‘spectacular success’ of the NSA does nothing more than illustrate why:

  • Microsoft IIS (Internet Information Server software) is insecure (a fact widely known since 10+ years),
  • Windows in particular (and to a lesser extent Apple OS X) contains government backdoors and is less secure than peer-reviewed Open Source operating systems,
  • wLAN setups can never be fully secured (a fact known throughout the IT Security industry since wLANs exist and now re-enforced),
  • mobile communications as well as wLAN technologies are never secure (nor healthy for the user, both facts are known but usually disputed by the industry in order to sell their stuff)
  • common sense is still superior to “intelligence” (as in military etc)
  • all industrial-strength and professional encryption and IT security measures are effective

From the last bullet point it is obvious that encryption tachnologies, in fact, are so effective the NSA and U. S. federal government have stupid media outlets publish their rubbish in order to “win back territory” by means of psychological warfare instead of embarking on the — next to impossible — journey of cracking Phil Zimmerman’s PGP encryption or any of the derivative technologies like GPG (GnuPG) or openPGP. (Read our upcoming separate article on how to obtain these open source tools, for FREE, and what basic measures to take in order to make illegal government surveillance as well as data theft as hard as possible.)

Bitcoin Has Official Seal of Approval in Europe

Back in 2013, the European Banking Authority (EBA) issued a statement warning consumers of certain dangers in using Bitcoin and similar cryptographic payment systems (so-called Crypto Coins or even Currencies). Apparently prompted by significant price increases of predominantly Bitcoin but also Litecoin, Ether, Dash and other Crypto coins, the sudden increase in virtual currency trading, and the fact that virtual currencies are constantly in the mainstream media headlines, the regulators are quoted as saying:

“Consumers should be aware that exchange platforms tend to be unregulated and are not banks that hold their virtual currency as a deposit. Currently, no specific regulatory protections exist in the EU that would protect consumers from financial losses if a platform that exchanges or holds virtual currencies fails or goes out of business,” the EBA bureaucrats said in a statement.

Obviously meant to primarily be a “warning against” using Bitcoin, this statement is, upon closer scrutiny, a great gift in disguise for the worldwide Crypto coin community. The statement reveals the official view of European officials to, quite surprisingly, give a nod of approval to Crypto payment systems like Bitcoin, Litecoin, Monero and all the other similar payment systems.

The EBA statement has a similar effect as some — initially wrongly reported — statement by China that banned Chinese commercial banks from using Bitcoin but, at the same time, defined use for private individual as perfectly legal in the country and stating an official hands-off approach to Bitcoin by the Chinese government.

In admitting that all Crypto coin-related businesses and services like exchanges or merchant service providers and similar are “unregulated”, that they are “not banks”, and that “no specific regulatory protections” existed for them in EU countries, the EBA gave de-facto blessing to that unregulated status quo. This gives all sorts of Bitcoin businesses worldwide a strong incentive to move their operations to Bitcoin-friendly countries within Europe, some of which — like Sweden, Germany, Austria, the U. K. and, to a lesser extent, even expensive Norway — are particularly suitable due to their individual regulatory situations, property prices, and/or overall features of their local legal systems, business culture and similar aspects.

On the back of the above announcement, it is time for any Bitcoin business seeking more certainty for their operations to cease the new opportunity and extensively go Forum Shopping in Europe now.

Retirements to Be Seized by EU and Other Countries

Just as savers in Cyprus have been fleeced by their government a few years back, and made to pay for the incapability and mistakes by bureaucrats and economic mis-allocation beyond the control the individual. Even though, it is individuals throughout the country who were footing the bill.

Cyprus is seen as a “model” for “solving” crises like that. And crises there are. Not only throughout all of Europe — including “rich” countries in the north and Britain having their very own demographic train wrecks coming up — but also in the U. S., Russia, and many other parts of the world. Ageing populations are not the problem, but limitless spending and business-as-usual in light of well-known facts while ignoring them is. Politicians want to get or keep their jobs by making even more outrageous promises while not caring about what happens when their terms end. Politicians are the ones to blame, not senior citizens or other recipients in systems that were designed by politicians (and not the elderly).

One of the politicians formerly responsible, German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, even went as far as openly saying that Cyprus-style “bank holidays” needed to be scheduled on weekends to give bureaucrats a head start of two additional days, thereby openly admitting that “bail-ins” like in Cyprus will happen elsewhere.

Russia confiscated pension plans to convert funds to government bonds of dubious value only two months ago.

In the U. S., dictator Obama made it clear during his latest State-of-the-Union address in January that he always does what he wants without regard for any rules, other people or the constitution. He added that if he’d think it fit to add yet another Obamacare-style program he would do so by presidential decree and without even bothering to ask congress or follow some similarly “bothersome” constitutional rules. He also has a track record to not care about the overall economic consequences of his actions either.

The ongoing discussion about retirement funds, the alleged safety of pension plans, as well as recent events in the banking as well as retirement sectors themselves make it more than clear that confiscation of life savings is the new name of the game — be it in pension funds, plundering of savings, or other seizure of valuables such as real estate or similar.

Surprisingly, the game is still on, and nothing has really (visibly) blown up yet. Even the SBV and Credit-Suisse pre-quakes have been swepped under the carpet (so far). It’s only a matter of time, but it will happen sooner or later.

In light of these developments, it is not only obvious that “Savers Are Losers” but that everyone needs to re-think all pecuniary and financial matters before greedy governments are taking it all.

The Ever-Accelerating Discussion on AI

Talking about AI is a “trending topic” these days. That’s because anything-AI is currently hyped up and, as a result, sells like hot cake. With AI having been made the latest flavor of the day, it’s easy to churn out books on the subject too. Throw in a few claims of “how great” AI would be “for us”, and with that slightly different-sounding angle you have a fairly good shot at selling a good number of copies.

That does not mean that we can, let alone should, believe anything written in books like these when it comes to potential “benefits” of AI for all of us. Especially not as that claim is easily debunked by simple technical facts.

What Are the Results of AI Use in Our Culture?

The overall consensus in Computer Science is that AI is an enslaving technology — whereas ENCRYPTION methods are tools for freedom and for protecting liberties. (Fact number one apparently neglected in this discussion.)

What’s more though is that AI does not even have any trace of “intelligence” in it (no matter what the mainstream calls it), but it is merely a (slightly) more complex way of connecting list entries, database tables, and networked/distributed information. So ultimately merely a “phonebook-lookup” type of “knowledge”, nothing particularly noteworthy actually.

Can AI Truly Learn?

And it gets worse when you know how this alleged AI is doing its “learning”: initially by crawling existing data (so this is not current, but only covers content to a certain “cut-off date”), and also by interviewing mediocre contemporaries (who already are severely deficient in knowledge, reason, and even real-life skills) not as to FACT but as to THEIR OPINION about how something is, for instance, spelled or pronounced in their own language (let alone a foreign one!) with — unsurprisingly — dismal results. This is not science but merely poll-taking, and from an unsuitably selected base of participants at that.

Is AI Biased?

We all know, or at least should still remember even in today’s day and age, that we cannot pop the question “What’s 2 + 2” to a handful of “diverse” groups and let the result be dictated by Trump supporters, the LGBT fringe group, BLM, the Better-Business Bureau or homeowners association, Amnesty International, labour unions, the National Trust in the UK, nor even a “trusted” school board, a Mensa chapter or Wikipedia volunteers. Any such attempt clearly is dumb and bound to fail. Yet, that’s exactly how the foundations of AI are built.

AI only processes information it’s provided to be “trained” on. This information will (and must) be selected from what’s overall available. Today, this selection is mostly taken from widespread sources; these range from Wikipedia to NPR to Google databases, or from university libraries or the Library of Congress to well-known newspapers, plus a lot more current sources that also include social-media posts and similar content. We all know that these are biased (“Wikipedia wars”) and reflect some majority “consensus” rather than a broad truth. So depending on who the owner of the AI infrastructure is, very different “results” in outputs would have to be expected — and in fact do exist when you compare different AI engines available.

A Better World and higher Culture With AI

It is, therefore, fairly safe to say that AI can actually be discounted as a technology altogether, let alone be seen as “overall beneficial”. Anyone alleging this must be severely screwed. AI can be dangerous to our health (and well-being) though due to the simple fact that police authorities, governments, tyrants, and other forces in today’s public life are pouring (rather diverting or mis-allocating) large sums (of our tax money) into “policing” something that does not need to be (and legally even MUST NOT be!) policed that starkly — hence threatens our culture, our liberty, and everything that makes life worth living quite similar to the ex-Soviet secret police.

Steve Wozniak and Elon Musk have prominently warned of AI and are trying to halt any further AI research and development until and unless there are reliable rules in place that define what must not be regulated by AI — for precisely the above reasons.

So we’d all be well-advised to be really concerned, and certainly not believe the idiocies of AI being overall “beneficial” for everything. Not even with AI itself actually isn’t functioning in the first place, better prepare for the worst. Powerful tools of preparation are readily available — more about that in a separate, more in-depth article on Privacy and crypto technologies as methods of re-gaining at least some of our freedom.

Bitcoin Facilitating a New-New Economy

As the European banking and currency crisis unfolds, Bitcoin and the other emerging digital currencies have become a refuge for people fleeing from the euro and striving to protect their assets and savings from confiscation.

Many analysts believe that Bitcoin, which facilitates unmediated fund transfers between individuals, poses a potential threat to conventional banking. Bitcoin and other Crypto coins are certainly exposing the weakness of the US dollar as the world’s incumbent reserve currency, as well as all other similarly stricken paper currencies.

“Faster and easier than One-Click Buying on Amazon.com”, but actually for unlimited amounts of money.

Watch the following explanatory video for details about how — and why — Crypto currencies function:

Why Bitcoin, Other Crypto Coins Have Value

“Where is the value of Bitcoin coming from, actually…?”

Pretty simple: Bitcoin has evolved into something that a lot of people want — like, or even more so than, a dollar or a yen — and Bitcoin is in limited supply due to the complex proof-of-work requirements underlying Bitcoin. This means, that even tough the system continues to crank out “coins”, this will stop when it reaches 21 million.

The underlying idea of Bitcoin was to create a currency whose value, unlike that of the dollar, could not be watered down by some central authority like the Federal Reserve.

When all 21 million “coins” are issued and the system quits making new money, the value of each Bitcoin will necessarily rise further as demand rises.

Along the way, there is currently very high and sometimes extreme volatility and, always will be some degree of price volatility — and this is where speculative Bitcoin traders can make a profit (or loss).

Crypto coins will settle and cease being overly volatile once common uses bot online and in point-of-sale transactions become more widespread than today. That is exactly what our organisation is supporting by publishing information on merchants accepting “normal” Bitcoin, Litecoin, and other crypto currency payments.

A Single Bitcoin is now sometimes worth as much as a full 1 oz of gold. That is not to say that Bitcoin is a proper long-term “store of value”. As that is the very monetary function Bitcoin is lacking, the prudent strategy would be to use Bitcoin for transactions (very efficient and low cost) but gold and silver for asset protection (tested and proven throughout all of history, commonly known intrinsic value, very secure).

If you are looking for highly aggressive and potentially very profitable trading, this is your time to get aboard the Bitcoin express — also remember that high profit opportunity comes with equally high risk of losses (so always remember to invest risk capital only, i e capital you can afford to lose).

With its long-term upward trend and its extreme volatility Bitcoin may in many ways be a perfect currency for traders, but we’d rather see an era of less volatility enhancing usability and suitability of (all) crypto currencies for transactions online and off. This will likely be brought about as acceptance of crypto currencies increases and the user base for every-day transactions expands to outweigh their mostly speculative uses by traders.

The Right Tools for These Unusual Markets

5x-leveraged long and short, called "Bull" or "Bear" coins
Bull- and Bear-market ups and downs illustrated. Image (c) 2022 ffWeb. All rights reserved.

To trade Crypto coin calls or puts, Gate.io is a great exchange offering 5x long and short positions along with many other trading choices. Of course, it’s FREE to sign up for a trading account there. Wondering what to do in falling Crypto markets? Looking for smart strategies to make the best of a pretty bad situation? Then read this post and discover pro trader methods! In this article, you will discover the tools you need for the type of free-falling markets we have been witnessing in Crypto coins for multi-months a little while ago.

Tools to Apply to Any Market Situation

Find the right tools for any market, good or very bad ones! In this article, you will be introduced to and find some explanations about the tools and strategies you need in order to prepare and turn big profits on the back of the breakdown we’ve been experiencing in bitcoins across the board. No matter if it gets worse, or how nasty it’s going to be specifically, here’s how you can turn the tables on markets “doing this to you” right now! There are “Tools of the Trader” that are meant to be used specifically in markets like this! It’s not simply “buy low, sell high” or “buy now and wait for better times” but something more refined (and much more effective).

Call and Put Options for Crypto Markets

To do the same on Bitcoin as an underlying asset, you can use Crypto Long-Instruments and Short-Instruments. These are similar to Calls and Puts as we know them in other markets. Here they are structured as “perpetual leveraged positions” in a Crypto asset, i e a specific coin such as Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, Dogecoin, and many more. To see what this looks likein real life, use this chart and link to register for a trading account on Gate.io. Again, tt’s FREE to sign up.

If you like this post and want to stay in the loop on available “Tools of the Trader” and strategies, then please subscribe on this website in order to be notified of news and updates like this one WHEN the markets change and WHEN they’re needed.

Disclaimer: This article is for general informational purposes only, as are all articles and posts on this website. None of the information in this or our other publications or articles on this site is financial advice. Content authors do not even know your individual situation and, therefore, cannot and do not offer such financial advice here.

Opinions expressed in these articles and posts  are observations, thoughts, and analyses of the article or post author and opinions derived from them. Do not rely on them or any other content of our videos for your own trades or investments; do your own due diligence and/or seek any necessary financial advice from licensed professionals before investing your money.

Disclosure notice: Links in the description above are affiliate links; if you click them for signing up, I will receive a commission — and YOU RECEIVE rebates on trading fees they offer on Gate.io for referred customers, depending on the individual offer chosen.