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[JunkMale]

Hello EMS, I'm an old head in crypto. I was initially introduced back in 2013 to Bitcoin and ETH in early 2016. I still remember seeing the original "Frontier" website for ETH way back in the day. It's been amazing to see the entire Crypto ecosystem grow since then. In my time I've worked at a variety of Crypto/DeFi startups, some successful, some not so much.


You've probably seen a lot of different types of sites and opportunities here based around Crypto and DeFi. I hope I can share my experience and help illuminate a path towards profitability for you in this thread. I personally went through a lot of heartache/pain for the knowledge I've gained and I'm hoping through me sharing some tips you can avoid some of the mistakes I've made.


Before going too much further I'd like to share three of my main rules for Crypto. These have guided me on my way since having learned them

    Rule #1: If something sounds too good, it probably is.
    Rule #2: Time in market beats timing the market everytime 
    Rule #3: Never put money in you can't afford to lose

#1 is pretty self explanatory. There is no get rich quick. There is no easy and quick path to wealth. Wealth is built over time, how much work you put in and the opportunity you choose determines how long it will take.

#2 I don't recall the exact study and cba to find it, but if you remove the top 10 or 20 gain days in the stock market over the last 80 years it goes from up 80,000% to only 200% or so. So being in the market is always way more valuable than not or trying to time that exact day.

#3 People only become emotional investors and pull out too early, or too late, when they've put too much in. So don't do that.

Life lessons done, let's get into some more specific tips.

Determine Your Onramp

You will need to decide how you will be acquiring your first bit of Crypto. Most of the time this is going to be an exchange. Bitcoin ATMs and the like are typically huge ripoffs. A few years back I would use a service like LocalBitcoins, today I use a few exchanges. My personal favorites are Gemini and Coinbase, however you can never go wrong with Binance. I have linked my bank account with both of these, however if you're having issues with doing that I recommend LocalBitcoins or maybe scrolling down to the "Start Earning" section below.

Personal Safety - Secure the Bag!

Some people might skim right past this but this is one of the biggest tips here! Don't just leave your money on some exchange or hot wallet. Secure the bag!

Personally I recommend any cold wallet, Ledger is obviously one of the most well known cold wallets out there and a great choice. Another lesser known option is Ellipal, I like Ellipal a bit better than Ledger for the display screen and descriptive info provided. However if you're short on cash you can pickup any cheap knockoff android phone, remove the SIM card and any connection to the internet, and use any wallet app on it. Without connection to the internet your private keys are generally safe.

Another thing worth pointing out is never share personal info (your location, your personal details, etc.) and never share your private key or mnemonic phrase. Keep personal info personal.

Start Earning - Faucets, GPT, DeFi, Work

Usually where people start is with Faucets and GPT, I can't say too much here, they don't generally pay very well but the two that I can personally recommend are Freebitco.in and Cointiply. Both have been around for a long time, I've received payments from and earned a fair bit at. With Freebitco.in the idea is to use their other services and Reward Points. Cointiply is a typical GPT with a faucet and additional fun leveling services. Another great, lesser known faucet is Publish0x]. You can earn some decent returns for reading and tipping authors out of the communal Publish0x pot.

As for DeFi, this is a world of possibilities. What I would recommend is only using the Blue Chip protocols and only highly known coins/tokens. A valuable resource here is DeFi Llama, you can see a Total Value Locked breakdown of the top DeFi protocols. I do not recommend venturing outside of the top 3 there or using any coin/token outside btc/eth/usdc/usdt/dai. Another useful tool for DeFi is Debank, it's a portfolio viewer and can help you track some of the biggest wallets around.

Lastly you can get to work. Both Fiverrand Upwork have solid job/freelance listings all the time that are usually related to Crypto. You can also get involved in DAOs, these mostly function in Discord or Telegram. I've personally found a wealth of experience doing both of these options.

Other Methods/Tools

Trading Bots - These are tough to setup and even harder to master, however I've heard of success with HaasOnline. But please keep in mind you need to do a ton of research and testing to make these things work. There's no such thing as no effort, no work, set and forget. Everything worthwhile requires effort.

Swap Services - There are a ton out there, my favorite/one that I've never had an issue with is SimpleSwap. Others I've had delays and/or complete loss of my funds while I've never had a single issue with SimpleSwap. These make it easier for you to swap non like assets, so ETH -> TRON and can act as an easier path for arbitrages or other types of exchanges.

Staking - As I said above you'll want to stick with the Blue Chip assets here. I currently stake ETH and ATOM however I wouldn't recommend any beginner to get into staking at this time unless they have a 5 year+ time horizon. Asset prices will likely continue to fall so you will need a strong gut to make it through.

DCA - Dollar Cost Averaging. This is the poor man's entry into long term investing. I don't have time to extol all the benefits but there's a great article here about DCA here that I found.

Taxes - There is no one size fits all solution here but I really like CoinLedger. I make an obscene amount of trades and they were able to help simplify the process. However the onus is still on you to keep good records.

I'll continue to update this guide if it gets any sort of traction. Full disclosure my affiliate links are above but you can avoid them by using Google, however since I took the time to write this I would love if you used them