Attention newbies and aspiring coiners!

1st: read what BTC is about
Even many experienced traders cannot tell you what the blockchain is. It is a mistake to not research Bitcoin thoroughly when dealing with cryptos, even if you only trade with coins. Bitcoin is the very first crypto currency and still the one with the highest market capitalization. Most things we do is measured in BTC. If you trade with altcoins, you mostly do this with BTC as a foundation. It is of no use if you buy into BTC when it is at $3000, trade in altcoins until you have a 50% profit and cash out when BTC dropped to $2000, because then you made exactly >no< profit. Basic knowledge on what BTC is, in which situation it is now and at which price it is traded is the most basic information for any trader and investor in crypto currencies, because the price of BTC influences altcoins heavily. Only that way you can evaluate e.g. news like the legalization of Bitcoin in India accordingly.

2nd: do the same with the top 10 coins on https://coinmarketcap.com/
You don’t do this because these are promising coins (some of them are, but that is not the point), but because the top 10 coins all amount to roughly 90% of the market capitalization of all coins already. You need at least to know the basics about them. Are they mineable? Do they have a high supply? Are they backed from promising tech? Why are they so popular? How did they behave when BTC dropped in value? How when it rose to a new ATH? Did they go down, up or was there no movement at all?
Don’t worry, you just get to know them a bit more, not actual learning the last digit of their maximum supply.

Now you may ask: “But what about the small ones?” and you would have every right to do so. But like I said: knowing about the biggest coins is essential. Not only do you have now learned the name, the price, the amount of coins but also the foundations of the tech, the general air about a coin on most platforms, the basic terminology etc. Also, you gathered a fundament of sources and maybe collected your own individual portfolio of blogs, wikis, forums, twitter-accounts and maybe some people on a discord server or on telegram to write and talk about cryptos.

I cannot emphasis more on the fact, that chat groups are the best option to get information on good coins fast. 10 people doing research for one hour a day can see way more than a single person can in 20 hours. And if you get into a chatgroup of 100 people, that are not talking all day about “moons”, “lamboland” or pnd-actions but simply about possible coins to invest in and why, you got a jackpot.

Now if you are really interested in new coins, you could register on bitcointalk and read e.g. announcement-posts. Within these posts (signed with an [ANN] at the beginning), the developers (short: “devs”) showcase the coin, the tech, the team and the “whitepaper” with many detailed information to the public. If the announcement is good, you can at least expect that at some point in time the project was active. However, for a newbie this is exhausting, even if you did the research for the top 10 coins before. That’s why for a fast evaluation of coins, I advise a simple and easy to learn method to analyze coins which anybody can adopt and change for themself. Let’s just call it “PHAT” (or “PATH”, if you like).

Publicity
This is the so called “first impression”. Possible questions are:
- Are there full names (no pseudonyms) and faces associated with the project?
- Is there already a partnership with other companies?
- Is the project itself based on a credible company or just a hobby project from the developers?
- Is there a website? Does it look professional?
- Is there a thread on bitcointalk?

History
This is important if the coin is active for a while already or the name behind them is known. Possible questions may be:
- Is there a roadmap?
- Had they reached their milestones in time? If not, why?
- Had they problems with the development?
- Was there a pump and dump – action in the past?
- Did the developer team changed recently? If yes, why?

Activity
More to get a feeling for the “today” of the coin. If the devs are not on the project anymore, the project is dead and there is no need to invest into it further, may it be money or time. Examples:
- How is the general attitude on twitter regarding this coin?
- What do people think about it, when you ask them on reddit/twitter/(4chan)?
- Is the developer active and interacts with the community on problems?

Technology
If you are – like me – not from a tech-background, this is always kind of tricky. Luckily, most devs break down on what their tech is exactly solving for non-tech people like us. It is best to keep the question in accordance with your understanding of the tech, like e.g.:
- Solves the tech behind the coin a certain problem?
- Is there another coin which is also offering a similar problem?
- In which respect is it better than its competitor (if there are some)?

I would recommend to conduct at least this amount of research, if you are interested into early investing in crypto currencies. You can of course deepen it further, take an emphasis on specific issues or add other dimensions to it. Do your own research and share your knowledge with people of other professions, countries and languages. That way, you create a network with which you can discuss and debate. And only through that, you can truly find promising coins which might net you a good profit in the future.

It is more easy than you might think, if you show a bit dedication and passion. Also, don’t be scared: the crypto community is way nicer than the often very stiff and starchy finance industry.


If you like what I do on /biz/, ou can also follow me on twitter, where I announce when I post something new here. I also share some basic analytics on coins I hold myself from time to time.
https://twitter.com/Bizcryptanon
If this posts and/or the answers I gave you in this thread also happen to get you a profit from the market, maybe drop me a beer in form of Litecoin:
LT6qfsrxPhVxcYPbNgT267W1aVRd6n5AFq

I also opened a group on telegram for newbies, other helping hands and people that are interested in cryptos in general.
https://t.me/joinchat/AAAAAA6pTLHQxUy7hk3KJw
Please be aware that anyone who promotes pnd-groups will be kicked. This is for everyone to have a common ground for questions, discussions, research and sharing information.

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Bless you anon, you're doing great work to keep us all on a good path and not lose everything in scams and biz spam.
Wish I could spare a beer, but lost everything I had gained in the past two weeks and more thanks to ANS. How much longer is this slump going to last for in your opinion? I know looking at charts for the past 3 months everything has gone up despite downturns (except for DGB).

>>2603805
Ouch, my condolences. Did you go all in?
It is hard to put a date on it, but I expect ANS to stabilize above $10 by august and rise up more slowly afterwards. Before, we might face a more bearish market, as the rush from the past 3 months take their toll.
Just keep these hands strong.

>>2603626
>>2603631
>>2603635
>>2603643
>>2603654
>>2603915
do you really wanna help newcoiners and soon to be newcoiners?

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>>2603915
More like 50% in, still cursing myself out for not selling when it was at ATH on Monday, and then again when it hit around 420k during the conference - greed hurts.
Hands will stay strong!

>>2603925
I want to create more equal fighting chances for the community on /biz/ against the market and pump up the intelectual level on /biz/ by educating newbies about the basics, yes.

>>2603945
Apprentice's due ghas been paid, I guess. In a couple of months, you can laugh about it.

>>2604027
>I want to create more equal fighting chances for the community on /biz/ against the market and pump up the intelectual level on /biz/ by educating newbies about the basics, yes.
then >>2603275

>>2604058
I appreciate any efforts to fight illegitimate pnd-schemes.

Good thread, thx