Bitcoin Forum

Hi Everyone, hope all is well.

I have just established my HODLing career in crypto currency and wanted to share some steps I took to get started. One thing I quickly learned is that cryptocurrency is a MINEFIELD for newbies. There are so many ways we can get caught out and subject to eye-watering fees, scams and pitfalls.

I joined this game only 2 weeks ago due to FOMO as part of current surge in BTC value, so I'm still very much a newbie myself. Nevertheless, I've learned some valuable lessons. In many ways, ignorance is bliss.... as I will explain below. I think there is a rollercoaster ride ahead of us but I'm a true believer that the endgame is to hold on to Bitcoin for dear life for the next 5-10 years. I believe it will be a valuable asset despite the immediate future being volatile and uncertain.

The first trick is to not overwhelm yourself. You only really need to know the basics; go on YouTube and watch a couple of "summary" videos on Satoshi's White Paper. It will summarise the key points of Bitcoin. The other trick is to only bite off what you can chew. Binance exchange looks fun right? You want to trade crypto right? WRONG - leave it, don't bother, you DO NOT know what you are doing. It's unnecessary anxiety.

So if you want to HODL, here are my suggested steps:

1)You need a hardware wallet. Do not leave crypto in an online wallet, you are subject to theft and scams. Visit https://trezor.io and order your Trezor. It's a self-explanatory process once you're on the website. Trezor offers almost all services now. You can buy crypto direct from wallet at modest rates. I tried to buy crypto on various other platforms and it just overcomplicated things for me.

2) set up your hardware wallet when it arrives. It's dead easy. This isn't a how-to message for how to set up Trezor. Seriously, just follow the instructions when it arrives.

3) Keep your Trezor recovery seeds somewhere safe. The recovery seeds are literally just a series of randomly generated words that you write down on a pice of paper. Key thing to remember is if you loose the recovery seeds, you will never see your crypto ever again. Keep them safe and out of harms way. Never disclose the location of your recovery seed. Never reveal it to anyone ever.

4) Buy crypto direct from Trezor wallet. I suggest using dollar-cost average approach, i.e. once a month, plug in your Trezor and buy as much crypto as you can afford to lose. Repeat this every month. For example, I log in after pay day every month and buy £50 worth of BTC. YouTube "dollar cost average" for more info - it's a cheap and low-risk model for HODLing.

5) Download an app called "CoinGecko" if you want to track the price of BTC and other crypto. It's a nice addition but not essential

6) If someone DMs you on Telegram, Whastapp, or even drops you an email - DO NOT engage with them. Ever.

7) Trezor is currently developing a "sell" feature so we can exchange crypto to Fiat currency and send to bank account. The feature is not available yet. Since the endgame is to HODL for 5-10 years, don't bother trying to send crypto to an exchange and convert to fiat currency. It's honestly not worth it (my option only). I will just wait until Trezor have released this function in the wallet.

Hope this helps.

Happy HODLing x

For tracking price, coinmarketcap is also good. For hardware wallet, ledger nano, cold card and Keepkey are not also bad. Online wallets are not safe like hardware wallets but there should be care to be taken to avoid scammers generally, phishing attacks must be avoided, malacious file downloads must be avoided too because it can have effect on your hardware wallet if performing transactions. Though the wallet will be cold one and will be for holding but holders should still know all these. Your post is useful for people that want to hold bitcoin.

it looks like a blockfolio-like app would be more useful. because we can get notifications directly when there is a change in price, either an increase or a decrease. only need to set the purchase price that we take.

point 6 is also very important to note.
We should also understand the risk factors, learn market analysis, update the latest information, and the most important thing is to train mentally so as not to be easily influenced by Fomo, Fud, etc.

We're just the same, I currently used this app for my portfolio monitoring, it has a straightforward design and easy to use and monitor your crypto holding while the phone is very convenient to use.

Thank you for the advice, for now, it really has a great help if you have a tracking app when the bull run occurs, if you invested around $35 and want to cut your profit ahead on that amount, much better to monitor the market. But if you are long-time holder, there's no need for all of these, forgot your holding for years and come back when your profit was there.

Crypto exchanges are also good in tracking crypto market movement. Kucoin, Lumen and other wallet will notify you if ever an all time high will be recorded or when the market records good. Holding is the best way to achieve goals or profits. However, it needs patience in order to become successful in bitcoin investment. Bitcoin now slowly showing the world what could it be done when one will get bitcoin.

When it comes to mobile then i do make use BLockfolio for years now when it comes to tracking off prices and making some alerts and notifications.

When it comes to Hodling then this would really be needing lots of patience and try to be concern when it comes to security from time to time.

Just use your own common sense and having some set up some goals for future targets even though these are subjective to change depending on the situation.

It's such useful information for beginners! You've written everything very clearly and correctly. I'll definitely send your post to my newbie friends because I'm sure that this information will help them! Thank you so much!

If you are a holder of a coin or token you need to always monitor the price and the easiest way to monitor the price is to search in google or install some apps that can track the price and the trading volume of the coin or token that you are holding, it is important to take a look at the price of the coin that you are holding because the profit is always depend on the percentage of the price that is risng.
The advantage of using some crypto app that can track the price is that you can see what coin or token that is fast moving or has a high in trading volume on exchange.

I put all my btc in coinbase, is it safe?

I would advise exact opposite of that if you are starting your hodling career. There is no need to have any sort of app on your phone if you plan to hold for longer period of time as it may only distract you from your goal and you might be tempted to panic sell once BTC starts dumping and these things will happen occasionally during your hodling career.

I joined the hodl club sometime in the late 2018/early 2019 and one of the first things I did was to remove Blockfolio app from my phone. I simply stopped worrying about current BTC price and fluctuations and focused on the long term goal, and that's the biggest advantage of being a hodler.


No. Not your keys, not your bitcoin.

Good write up OP.

The smart thing is definitely to stay away from trading unless you are experienced,
have the knowledge and the time to spend.

+1 for blockfolio, you can track your pricing on the popular exchanges or choose a global price
based on an average of the exchanges.

You can also set alerts and notifications including "signals" which are news related to your
chosen holdings.

Anyway you have made all the correct steps so far!
take a trip over to the beginners pages of the forum if you havent already.

Coinbase is an exchanges (third parties), if put your funds in third parties it mean you're trusting your funds with them and you don't have full control about your coin. If Coinbase get hacked in the future, you coin will be lost too.

So, it's not safe... move it to non-custodial hardware wallet.

You're a holder not a trader I don't think you need to keep monitoring the price since you're hold for long time. It doesn't matter if the price drop or raise since your goals is long term.
If you're a trader, monitoring the price is a must since you aim some profit by buy low and sell high.

I am using Exocrow from last months. It's easy and safe way to access cryptocurrencies.

If you are planning for long-term holding you must not put your cryptos on an exchange that would be quite risky. One should use a Hardware wallet if He/She can manage to buy one. Apart from the Trezor wallet, one can consider Ledger Nano that is also a good Hardware wallet option. Even I like your strategy of buying BTC that's a good idea and it will not pinch your pocket too.

Very good points, but as a newbie take more time to study remember EDUCATION is the key. Also, Security is necessary so take time to learn how to secure your assets.
CoinMarketCap is also a good place to track crypto currencies.

Well, your experience in beginning the holding journey is great. But, i do feel it depends on the interest and the philosophy of individuals or newbie on whether investing or trading is the option they choose.

well, Binannce can be very helpful for learning how to trade crypto , and watch the how the chart is formed and take actions as they learn. Well, i also believe that Holding is the goal of Btc but it can also be used as a speculative vehicle to grow money for immediate needs.

To me, i am very much interested in both holding and trading, i am currently developing my crypto portfolio.

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When it comes to security, there are two parties that have roles to play. The company that has the wallet and the wallet holder. The company that has the wallet will protect the accounts of users from the activities of black hat hackers which is a commonplace in this industry. so, they need to invest in cybersecurity technologies and strategies.

Secondly, the holders of the wallet needs to keep their passphrase very safe and be able to locate it whenever they need to access their account. Without passphrase, when your device get missed you may not be able to access your account.

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Also good not to recommend storing your funds in exchange there are a lot of people doing this kind of activity and we don't want to courage this kind of activity still the best way Is to put it into your wallet.

If you want to make a crypto investment follow the basic rule "buying low and selling high" and "always buy in dip". This is the best thing for beginners.

Also another note. States by OP about having PM through telegram.

If someone messages you that came from the bitcoin talk please always verify and try to contact the person here in bitcoin talk. (Mostly this happens to higher rank) just try to reach them if it's a higher rank.  But if they are newbies do you expect they will help you? Nah just ignore.

This is an example of too much confident on storing all of his bitcoin in only one exchange. If you are a holder, try to explore those exchanges or wallets which are really safe in storing your assets and you will not have any fear of getting hacked. You always need to have a plan B or other wallets or exchange where you can hold your bitcoin so that you can still secure your assets when something bad happens on your bitcoin.

"Do not put all your eggs in one basket", they said.

But still, Coinbase is good because it has a lot of users, but Binance is really what I'm using for 2 years.

With custodial wallets being vulnerable to hacks, you can never guarantee the safety of your funds. Therefore, you should search for a better alternative wallet in which you have full access to your funds and comprises a good security feature. Read and follow the initial phase indicated in the post to convey the main idea. Nevertheless, I will suggest reading these threads to gain a better insight into the types and differences between cryptocurrency wallets.

[1] [General] Bitcoin Wallets - Which, what, why? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1631151.0)
[2] [GUIDE] Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency Wallets and it's risks [UPDATED: 10/8/2018] (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3743071.0)
[3] Custodial vs. Non Custodial Wallets - "Not your keys, not your coin" Explained. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5173370.0)

Having a reliable source for tracking purposes is a must so you'd know if you are hodling the right way, not only that but patience is a must when you are hodling, don't just go right away panic selling your holdings just because of what the forum says, always look up to those reliable members in this forum that can actually give accurate information, not only in this forum but the whole web itself is filled with information, a website like coinmarketcap is actually a good source for tracking values of almost all of the cryptocurrencies.

OP best option to become an hodlers is... a cold wallet! the safest (and cheap!) way to store bitcoin.
my suggestion to your guide: try to access to your fund (private key) before send any fund!!!


absolutely not! if you make a research about this argument you will be surprised about how many exchanges have scammed during the last years.

yes you still need to be careful even though you already use hardware wallets such as Trezor and LEDger. Some people sometimes don't realize when they make mistakes, are careless with their own phrase hardware wallet.

Hardware wallets are the best place to store assets for a long time because you have full control of your own assets and can do backups when the hardware wallet is lost or damaged.
I have been using a hardware wallet until recently and there have been no problems with usage and security.

I see that you focused in hardware wallet but for the holders, hardware wallets are just an option for them because there are many local exchangers right now that are safe to use compare to hardware wallet as they will refund any amount that were being stolen to their exchange if a hacker can penetrate their defense.

In this case, we don't need to worry that our money will be stolen as most of the local exchange are being backed by banks or a big insurance company that will assure your money to be safe in case there are attacks that will happen to their platform. But in other hand, hardware wallets are more secure compare to online wallets also where most of the newbies didn't fully know yet on how to defend their wallets from incoming attacks from hackers.

This advice for beginners is a good one and generally too this is an investment once ventured into you have too take your time to hold enough for you to know when to sell, don't sell cheap because you are afraid of dump remember this moment in Bitcoin history

You have good plans, but most people are already aware of this. It’s good that you have plans to hold for five to ten years, because it’s not everyone that has that kind of plan, some people prefer to invest short term and have their money back and sometimes it doesn’t work out for them, and sometimes it does. I don’t think I have ever HODL for more than two years, although my way of investing has always been to wait for when the price is very low, then I will invest and wait for increase in short time.

Around last year and last two, I invested and made profit as the price reached 12000 and 13000 dollars. Then 2020 the price fell again, and I still invested again, expecting to cash out in another 12000 USD price, but when I noticed there will be bull run I held on to it.

Hello sir your article has Very helpful for all Newbe investor or Holders. Since we work on Crypto, so we need to more aware about crypto Security. We Can't trust all time any Third party Crypto wallet or Online wallet.  We know that this type wallet is not Secure for our fund. So as my opinion you are correct that for more security for our Holding coins need Offline wallet.         

This is one of the easiest ways to lose your bitcoin, storing crypto on any third party app/site is always a bad idea, remember you don't hold the private key to that coinbase account, your account could get hacked or even permanently banned by coinbase, I have seen some cases where someone stored a huge amount of bitcoin and overnight coinbase decided to put his account under review, meaning he can't gain access into his coinbase account and his bitcoin is locked till they decide to open it, to be safe always make use of a hardware wallet like ledger to store your bitcoin or use a regular mobile wallet like trust wallet, keep your private keys/seed phrase safe don't share it with anyone.

You shared 7 steps but that can be compressed into 3 steps.

1. Buy a Trezor Wallet and setup it.
2. Download a crypto price tracker like Coingecko like you said but on my part I use Coinmarketcap.
3. Don't ever entertain strangers in any social platform.

These steps might help some newbies and some ignorant investors out there. For those hodlers like me, follow these steps but I will not follow it because I'm not holding too much BTC :D.

I faced a serious problem while I was choosing my broker. I searched on the internet for a good broker and I found that most of the reviews are fake regarding broker's experience, credibility, and so on. I was really confused about how to choose my broker so I found Bitcoin Profit App (https://www.bitcoinprofit.app/) as my advisor. It helped me to find my nearest broker that has tons of experience, best advisors, and trustworthy, because it actually works on GEO based.

This is literally a perfect setup, thank you.

Been said and read this many times but you cannot stop people to sell every time the market drops. As when you see the price plummets, it creates an emotional sequence which will make you sell those bitcoins that you hold.
Always happening most of the time and for the newbies that just bought bitcoin and suddenly, the market falls.

Indeed, the best way to be a long term hodler is using hardware wallet as a place to store your bitcoin. At least you will not be tempted and didn't have an easy way to sell bitcoin when its price just increase in the short term. It will be different when you use exchange wallet to store your bitcoin then you just have a little change to keep hold your bitcoin for long term hodler. You will be tempted when bitcoin price increase and really to sell it.

But indeed, you have to spend more money to buy hardware wallet. And you have to really be able to keep everything about your prikey. I heard a story a few days ago when someone had 7002 bitcoin in a hardware wallet and he had been holding it since 2010 but now he forgets about prikey to access his wallet. You can imagine how you feel when you forget the prikey and you have a lot of bitcoin in your wallet, it's quite depressing.

Coinbase isn't good because it often changes its TOS and you have to keep track of what they're doing all the time. Their support takes their sweet time to answer questions and as all other exchanges they don't like to take responsibility for anything.

Never hold coins on a centralized exchange! Use it if you have to trade but when you don't trade move to a wallet. It takes maybe 5 min of your time to set up a withdrawal.

That phrase about eggs in one basket is abused so much, especially in the altcoin section ;)

Yes, in my opinion, online wallets in general can be said to be insecure than offline / hardware wallets like the nano ledger, but you also have to be careful for hardware wallet users against phishing attacks or download files because of the danger and must be avoided at the time of the transaction.

Buying and HODLing BTC is not rocket science(even though buying BTC can be a little bit complicated and expensive with KYC policies).
Newbies would need a Trezor wallet,only if they plan to buy big amounts of BTC,I'd say more than 0.1BTC.There's no need of a Trezor wallet,if the investor plans to HODL 0.01 BTC for example.
Not falling into crypto investment scams is just common sense.
Downloading an app like Coingecko to track the Bitcoin price is pointless.If somebody plans to be a long term BTC HODLer,then tracking the Bitcoin price every day is not needed,and the price volatility might drive him crazy. ;D

Yea i do agree with you, im using online wallet but i have the private key and is below 1 bitcoin  ;D
Not falling in crypto investment this big yes for me since i join crypto industry scammer is poped out everywhere and if u join multiple telegram groups they also try scam with dm you damnnn they also smarter nowadays  :D
But about coingecko i think is still good to install it but dont to much look at it there's fiture "Portofolio" you guys can fill with price you are buying and how much of it etc and can set price alert to highest bid  and good luck 8)

I think newbies won't hold a lot of bitcoins, they don't need to use hardware wallets for complexity. Store their small amounts on binance wallet where is also very secure, they can also easily transact and save on fees.

The best advice I want to give to beginner HOLDers is to not be a person that checks the price of your coins every day. 

There are some people who will become anxious and always want to see how much they have but it will not be healthy for you.

So many dips and corrections its best to not pay attention to price until an new all time highs is reached.