Bitcoin Forum

Everyone has to start as a newbie, and along the journey, there are always lots of challenges and traps, that can steal your money. After reading this thread: Advice for newbies (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5157235.0) (on hardware wallets), I have idea to write my thread
in order to share some of my advice, based on my experience, for crypto newbies.

• Having healthy behaviours when using Internet
• Using bookmarks for your favorite sites
• Narrowing down sites that you have plan to visit
• Backing up your wallet regularly, and storing your private keys/ seeds / paraphrases careful and safely
• Don't tell / give anyone private keys/ seeds/ paraphrases
• Trying to spend a litle money to use hardware wallets
• Staying away from downloading and installing wallets from newborn projects
• Staying away from cloud mining (most of them are scam)

[1] Having healthy behaviours when using Internet
The healthier behaviours on Internet space you have, the safer your devices, your identities, and your funds are.
You can spend funds to buy whatever antivirus or Internet security softwares for your devices, but their database have to upgrade regularly to keep your devices safely. Sometimes, database of software providers are not relevantly updated to newest harmful threats and your devices will be under risks of attacks if you have unhealthy habits. Basically, such softwares are unable to completely to secure your devices for sure.

[2] Using bookmarks for your favorite sites
This one will save your time and help you safer a litle bit from phishing sites. Because you don't have to type in website addresses everytime you want to visit them. You don't have to search those websites when you don't remember their sites' URLs.

[3] Narrowing down sites that you have plan to visit
I meant, you should not over use different sites that give you nearly the same thing. Personally, coinmarketcap.com is my favorite site, and I don't have intention to use other sites, like coingecko, and so on. It is obviously a personal favorite, but the more sites you visit, the higher risks you can fall into phishing sites.

[4] Backing up your wallet regularly, and storing your private keys/ seeds / paraphrases careful and safely
I have to do it, definitely. In worst cases, you can recover wallets and funds inside.

[5] Don't tell / give anyone private keys/ seeds/ paraphrases
Don't tell untrusted people those very important information because they can steal your funds. Even with trusted people, you should also narrow down list of people you give them such important details. Personally, I think I will tell it with my wife, in worst case when I pass away, she can recover my funds and use it to grow my children.

[6] Trying to spend a litle money to use hardware wallets
Please read more in recommend threads.

[7] Staying away from downloading and installing wallets from newborn projects
You can apply tips below (in recommend threads) to check before downloading and installing wallets. However, basically if you are newbies and don't have enough knowledge and skills to check potential threats, you should not download and install unknow wallets.

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Recommended threads:
Advice for newbies (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5157235.0) (on hardware wallets)
[General] Bitcoin Wallets - Which, what, why? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1631151.0)
[Guide] Hardware wallets - which one is a good choice? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4578719.0)
[Guide] Virustotal scan guideline to detect viruses, trojans, malwares, worms (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5114735.0)
[GUIDES] on Bitcointalk. Index thread (until there is a dedicated subforum?) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4928968.0)

Thanks.
What wallets you recommend?

I can not tell you, because you did not mention that you want wallets of which coins? Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, DASH, Monero, Stellar, Dogecoin, Bitshares, which one?

Also good to note that though you should always use a hardware wallet (or multiple if you're holding larger amount of money), for smaller purchases and more frequent transactions you can send funds from your hardware wallet to a hot wallet such as a mobile wallet. You shouldn't be holding significant amounts of funds nor funds for extended amounts of time on whatever hot wallet you're using, but as long as you're abiding by these guidelines for a hot wallet you should be fine.

Good advice thanks for sharing but you should include downloading of wallets from unofficial websites is dangerous too,not just new born projects,we have many fake bitcoin wallets for mobile phones on stores that will actually gives you private keys

Hardware wallets sir  ;)

List of some good hardware wallets-
1. Ledger Nano
2. Trezor
3. Keepkey

Among those, keepkey is cheapest, however, I recommend using Ledger Nano or Trezor. It's always better to invest some for the safety, isn't it?

I think hardware wallets extra safe for Cryptocurrency holder other hands few future problems supposed that damage hardware wallets so lost her money very tough to recovered. 

have any way to recovery hardware wallets?

Backing up a wallet file regularly don't add any value. It's the same if you do once unless you haven't change passworded. It's better to put the same file in several devices ao that if one file get corrupted, you can recover. Storing seed key is best in my opinion.

In addition, new people need to stay away from spam from emails, investment offers from telegram or winning programs. They need you to send a fee to receive the reward, and that money will never return to you. Get to know the applications of unknown origin before downloading, although on the app store it is still not absolutely safe. Be careful of using the internet and communication tools, when there are strange links, don't click in a hurry, you can be a victim of the virus.

Are you talking about physical damages to hardware wallets?
In case your device malfunctions and it is still under warranty you can contact the customer support, explain your problem and you will likely get a replacement device.
Ledger has even sent replacement devices even after the warranty period expired.

As long as your seed is safe, your funds will be safe.

To my knowledge there haven't been instances of people getting hacked and having their funds stolen from their hardware wallets because the attacker would need physical access to the device to send the funds.

Don't being over-greedy, then you all will be fine. There is nothing free, so be careful and take care of yourself, your devices, and your fund.

In generally I can advice to avoid online wallets and choose the wallets in which you have control over the private keys.



I do not recommend Hardware wallet to everyone. Many people do not have that much big quantity of bitcoins and it is not feasible for them to buy the hardware wallets. For most people, desktop wallets are enough.

I like using my mobile wallet and  i'm very careful with it so i don't have to buy hardware wallet moreover i don't have much funds in my wallets that will requires hardware wallet instead.

Online wallets are best for newbies not only for newbies also for them who want to store small amounts and wants quick trade.

Desktop wallets are recommend too, but it is useful when you are not involved much in online, I mean sharing your profile like joining many airdrops and bounty campaigns.

Hardware wallets are must, if you want to store coins for long time and more in values.

Recommend hardware wallets are Trezor and Ledger wallets.
And desktop wallets are Electrum.

Electrum maybe difficult (not much) for newbies but if you will not start learning from here then you are wasting your time only. Best time to start Learning and Earning is Now.

Hard wallets are very expensive though and they're just only starters in bitcoin. I would like to recommend a local wallet if your country has one. Here in my country, the common wallet that we're using is Electrum and coins.ph. When segwit BTC address is needed, electrum is the platform that we're using. We're also using coins.ph to withdraw and deposit, we can also but bitcoin in there. Through our local wallet, the platform has the ability to send digital money with no tx fee if we're both using the same platform.

If you're a huge investor, escrow, holder of the company then hardware wallets are really recommended for security of the cryptocurrency.

Yeah, hardware wallets are not the first option new crypto starters should think of, especially if they have small funds. However, in the long run, if their funds become big enough, they should think of it.
Nevertheless, I would like to emphasize that crypto starters can secure their wallets by strong passwords, carefully store their private keys and wallets backups. Lastly, besides those steps, carefulness on internet space will keep them and their wallets safe.

This post is very informative, enjoy!

bump

I don't care to visit the site you suggested, because with me all third-party rating sites are not reliable. Projects pay fees to get ratings they want, so ratings on those sites are biased ones, and unreliable. Investors should do their own researches on projects that they have interests to invest; and compare results of those researches with their own rating criteria and scale. If total rates of all projects' components are above average, they can consider to invest, if not, ingore those projects to protect their funds.
In addition, I don't care to invest my money in new-born projects. I keep my rules even with extremely potential projects, because it is too difficult to assess quality of newborn projects; time will help us to easier assess their quality, and have more exact assessments.

This information is really vital for any newbie in the crypto space especially for those who want to make a successful crypto career.
Thank you for sharing such good information.

- start trading cryptos with a clear purpose and well defined plan
- manage your risks with stop loss and take profits
- buy a coin considering its market cap and not its low price
- keep diversifying your investments
- take it easy while trading. Don’t rush.