Bitcoin Forum

What is the worst piece of advice you've received since you first began dealing with crypto? Mine was to take pictures of my wallet seeds with my phone so I don’t lose them.

Using centralized exchanges for storing your Bitcoin, especially you using it as your personal wallet, for long-term hodling.
Aside from using centralized exchanges, using also custodial wallets for holding your Bitcoin, which for me it is very bad advice at all, even there are some advantage of using it, overall, bad for me.

No one was around when I started, so I had to learn all by my own, unfortunately. In the past I have lost access of one of my wallet and lost some coins there, but fortunately it was not much. The coins that I need to hold long term I transfer them to either a cold storage wallet or in a multi sig wallet. In my desktop, less secure device - I only have those coins that I use for daily business.

The worst advice I have received in the real world from some people is not to invest my time and money in crypto because only criminals deal with it, and that it will all fall apart very quickly. Of course that was back in the days when even Bitcoin was quite unknown to the public, a lot has changed since then. No matter who gives us advice, it is still wise to check every piece of information from multiple sources - because there are a lot of bad people who spread misinformation every day.

On the other hand, what I first learned from some experienced members of this forum while I was a beginner is that I need to have complete control over my private keys, and how important it is to keep them safe.

I don't remember taking advise from anyone,when I started using Bitcoin in 2015.
I didn't trust anyone back then and this was the right attitude.Many people were saying "we don't need escrow,send me the bitcoins and I will deliver the service,I'm trusted".I am glad that I didn't send any Bitcoins to anyone without escrow back then. ;D
I made some wrong decisions,when I was a noob,but it was my fault.I wasn't told by someone else to make those decisions.

didn't really receive any advice since no one around me actually knows bitcoin at the time I found out about it. but the worst advice I've heard was encouraging and enticing someone to invest in bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies just because the price is increasing. I have several friends encouraging some of my and their friends to buy now or they'll be left out.

It was during the time when bitcoin was going $400 and under. A lot of people here in the forum advised to short the cryptocurrency to make money as we are in a downtrend anyway. I never did it, one because I never really am knowledgeable enough to engage in trades and another is I believe in bitcoin's come back. It took a year or so before bitcoin came out of a slump and that's when things change. It was also the first time bitcoin crossed the November 2013 ATH and the rest is history from there. Had I really shorted bitcoin and not saved any, I wouldn't really be in a position on where I'm at right now.

I've just taken that advice into consideration when I'm making a decision when it comes to finances but there's nothing such as bad advice since it depends on you if you'll consider and follow it. I don't really know what happens in your story but from what I know, taking pictures of your own seed phrase is prohibited when using the phone. So don blame someone when you were having misfortune due to someone's opinion, it's your choice after all.

It's the same here.  ;D  It is not even safe so how can someone give such an advice?. I really don't understand. One should keep their sensitive information for a wallet in the safest place possible to prevent it from being stolen.

Someone advises me to invest on bitcoin doubler, I was relatively new that time, so I invest a little. Actually I did received my first pay and so I just re-invest it and obviously, it was a scam so I lost everything.

But that's it, after that I really study how everything works from private key protection to scam sites. So I make it a point to really exposed these scams whatever method I can.

The bad I received when I just started in this crypto space is to invest in some Ponzi scheme to double my Bitcoins. Not gonna lie it was really effective at first but when you get comfortable with it and you put your trust into them that is the time you wouldn't get your payout. After a time I learned to never invest in Ponzi because it is not effective to earn profit but instead effective from losing your funds. However, I am grateful I did that because of that I gained experience and I learned from my mistake.

True. I made that mistake once when I was still just getting into crypto. Had some Coins I had some coins in an exchange and left them there for more than a year and didn't even check until after a year or so, logged back into my exchange and the coins where gone, saw the transaction and every thing and I know it wasn't me that did it.  

Back in time it was obvious that people shouldn't hold their cryptos in any cex. Those were very risky, sketchy and most of them were exit scamming sooner or later. Only handful of them are even left.

But i would say that if you are not wanted by government, these days you can pretty much trust some of them almost as much as you trust banks. Bearing in mind that they aren't backed by governments and hackers are constantly after them. I still think that they can keep your money safer then most of newbies can themselves. For example i personally would keep my gold for example in the bank vault rather then guarding that myself, or try to build bank vault infrastructure with guards in my home.

Sure, exchanges can mess up too but they hire experts to prevent that and most of newbies buying cryptos aren't experts. Lot of them aren't tech-savvy at all.



But what comes to OP's question. My worst advice was to blindly listen to any influencer, most of them are maximalists and tribalists. I lost my change buying eth at the start because i listened to bitcoin maximalists. I wonder if i had seen the potential if i only bothered to look myself.

Bad advice? Well, for me is to invest into someone who's trading into cryptocurrency, and I know the risk and how Bitcoin and crypto works before. They even offer 200% return every week.
So, to make things short that was the worst someone in my local's advice. It became even worse because I was into Bitcoin way before these scams appeared using crypto has been rampant.

I had some advise and fortunately , they were good ones. They were advises meant to guide, not to lose my invested coins. Unlike yours that you were told to take snapshot (which are default advise from the wallet apps), I was doubtful of that because it maybe easily misplaced but I choose that of writing my passphrase somewhere. I think that is better and you can store or write them down even in the email. So that has been working for me and till date, I have not lost password to access the wallet.

Well, my friend brought me into crypto and didn't give any bad advices. I'm glad i have smart folks and can think of my own too haha.
Only heard from colleagues that "crypto is bullshit" and i don't need to invest there.

For me the worst advice was given by one of my acquaintance back in 2017 to "cash out after the crash" because the market will not witness any further growth afterwards.But more worse part was me making the mistake of selling on his advice as I was new to trading and have little funds in bitcoin only.But afterwards I realised my mistake and that lesson gave me experience that listen to all but make your own decision.Many people will give you advices which can turn both positive and negative for you but it is you who has to make choice based on your experience.

I did not really recieved a worst advice when I started to invest in cryptocurrency. But when started with stock market I received the worst advice to "buy the dip". Every time I bought the dip, it gets deeper and deeper. Those I decided to study about timing like reading the graph etc.

The worst advice I've recieved ever since was to sell as soon as I see that the value of bitcoin increase. It made me limit myself into selling to the lowest possible price of bitcoin when in fact, it can go a lot more further if I would wait a bit more instead of selling right away. It was the old me actually, the one who always listened to the instructions given to those who have been here for a long time without taking consideration on researching about it. I now learned that holding my bitcoin is much more complicated than I ever imagined before, it takes a lot of courage and patience to achieve the price I percieved the bitcoin could make.

The worst advice for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies came from my parents when they watched the news on TV and they advised me to get rid of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as they are scams.
It took me a long time to show them my beliefs were correct. Even though I lost my Bitcoin trading, each Bitcoin is worth up to $ 55k right now. That proves my beliefs were correct. Right now my parents don't have any complaints about what I'm doing with crypto because they know I'm right.

TyI haven't any bad pieces of advice regarding Bitcoin but have a big problem dealing with bitcoin that our government restricted it yet and there are no chances to accept it soon. So it is my big and bad experience in Bitcoin.

Worst advice I received was people telling me to not invest in bitcoin, because the internet is full os scams and thieves. This kind of advice made me fearful, so to avoid being scammed I sold many coins when bitcoin's price was still low. Next, I told people around I was able to cash out the bitcoins and turn it into fiat profit. But it wasn't enough yet to make them change their minds.
If I had received the correct advice on that time, today I would hold more coins and if people around me had done the same and followed my intuition, they would be much better financially. But as we can't change the past I prefer to not think too much about it.

Not only advice but there was a guy who selling trick in gambling dice. I think that is my worst experience to believe there is a trick in gambling and i bought it. What the end is same, i lose in gambling and then not want to believe it again. Never get any problem about wallet, exchanges beside keep lose in trading and i avoid any kinds of HYIP/ Ponzi scheme.

The worse advice I received when I started my cryptocurrency journey is joining the MMM Japan crypto ROI investment with my BTC holding then and also asking a friend to help create a wallet which later landed me into trouble but it all good though.
Mistake makes lesson learned.

Buy this or that coin because it will moon or Mars.

I received similar advice to the one you described, but, perhaps, even dumber. To write down the password, seed phrase, and other data about the wallet in the notes. Turned out really bad for me.
The other advice wasn't general, but it was rather casting doubts and putting pressure on me so that I will sell my crypto at a time when the market is bearish. Many of my relatives don't trust cryptocurrency and every single time the price starts dropping I hear the good old "I told you so" and the panic, that this will be the end of Bitcoin, sell now or lose everything you have  ;D

Same mate, I've always heard a lot before telling bitcoin is not real and people behind it are scammers. I've been interested in bitcoin before but got scared to try because what people told about it. Until I meet people who educate me well about this thing and I decided why not to give a try. If I met that people before maybe I am better financially now. But like you I just not think it too much. I focus right now to be better in what I'm doing now and be more financially successful someday.

I'm sorry but I don't think that's a totally bad advice, especially if you are using a passphrase with your BIP39 seed. Because a seed written on a paper is generally more at risk of being lost, destroyed or discovered by an evil maid than a file online. If people are using cloud storage that's because it's more convenient and safer than paper. And a picture is safer than a text file because it can't be easily parsed by bots and monitoring malwares.

Investing in a fake website recommended of one of my classmate before, it is an investing website that offers to double my money in just one day, he is not also an expert in terms of the crypto world and he also doesn't have any good experience yet in the crypto world but still, I trust him because he is my classmate, I am also a beginner that time so I am not bothered about getting scammed. It is not like advice but we can still somehow considered as advice because he told me to invest.

Taking photos of the wallet seed is a serious mistake. Fortunately, I didn't get bad advice when I first started crypto. I would advise crypto beginners to be disciplined and to keep their passwords, private keys, and seeds in a safe place.
Take a notebook and a pencil and keep all the information you need and also keep it in a safe place. I would make two copies avoiding any loss, living in crypto is not for lazy people.

When my family found out I was involved with bitcoin, many advised me to leave because they said it was "dangerous" and "bullshit".  I had my doubts and stopped for a while because I didn't adapt well so I didn't get much profit at that time.  but because I want to get additional income from the internet, I stay here.  until finally I met a lot of people, learned a lot, kept trying until I could find the best way to get a profit.

it's great to read your experiences.  really a valuable experience from many points of view.  Regarding investment, I was also caught in the ICO scam because of Fomo from my friends on Facebook.  haha ... at that time I just joined in doing the analysis.

Bad advice about bitcoin is that when bitcoin has gone up dramatically, many people suggest to me to buy after the price goes up. even though it was wrong because of the risk, but I did that and almost suffered a loss due to being trapped in a correction, I continued that and I was able to get a profit. it is very annoying and bad, because they advise but in the way of bitcoin uptrend is not good

Hello everybody. No matter how funny it is, the worst and stupid advice was not to get involved with cryptocurrency and withdraw all the money as soon as possible. Here, I think, there is nothing to even discuss. The rest of the advice, over time, I began to consider through my own experience. If you understand, then in general it is not worth resorting to other people's advice at all. Live your own head, earn your own experience, and learn from your own mistakes.

The worst piece of crypto advice I got was: DO NOT BUY Bitcoin.

You see, I was told not to buy Bitcoin for several reasons:
Bitcoin will eventually disappear. It has been inflated too much. It is too hard to buy Bitcoin with cash. There will be another Bitcoin bubble coming in the future. You will lose money and probably lose it badly.

This was the first piece of advice I was ever given that helped me lose money. :D

Who did this to you? Really funny because the platforms themselves will never allow or suggest we take pictures or screenshots of the seeds.
And when if you did this, he will ask borrowing your phone in order to take the seeds  ;D ;D
Glad that you didn't follow it.

Mine was probably about invited to make an investment in a certain hyped coin at that time, saying that I would be rich soon  ;D ;D
Gladly at that time, I didn't have any money.

I haven't met to take a bad advice from someone else since I just newbie to crypto currency. Because, before I spent money to buy bitcoin I just find a lot of knowledge first about bitcoin especially in this forum through beginner and help section. Yeah, the beginner and help section is so helpfull for newbie, there are so many information or some guard to know the ins and out about bitcoin.

But, maybe there a worst thing that happened to me when I started to trade crypto currency. Yeah, I take a lot of advice from other people and make it as my own strategy without I know I took the decision. Almost $1000 I lost my money because I made other people decision. That is the worst thing that I did then I realized and learn hard about trading strategy and until now I still learning it.

The worst advice I hear people give newcomers all the time is: don't put all eggs in one basket. Don't hold only bitcoin, buy top 10 market cap altcoins because they're cheaper then bitcoin and you'll make more money.

It shows that people don't understand that the altcoin market depends on bitcoin and altcoins are more volatile than bitcoin in both ways. You can make money quicker but you can also lose them quicker. For newcomers who don't own any cryptocurrencies it's always better to buy bitcoin.

The second worst is: trade because trading is the best way to get more coins.
Trading isn't for everyone and if you haven't done that in the past you'll make mistakes and lose money. This advice is usually given by people who made money in the bull market and think trading is easy or by traders who want newbies to fail and lose money. For someone to win on the market someone else has to lose.

In all my years of being involved in holding and trading bitcoin, the worst advice i have gotten at one time was to exchange all my bitcoins for altcoins, not some, all. Good thing is I was already knowledgeable enough to know that that was not a good advice and the advice was coming from my advicers point of view.

I mean taking a picture of the wallet seeds is not actually bad as long as you store it offline that could probably be a good thing instead of writing the wallet seed on a piece of paper.

Most of the member here are lucky because they are getting advice from different people here in the forum, in the past years getting information was really difficult you need to have the resources and everything but now is different and it just an information overload to the point where you do not know what to follow.

When I just getting started I need to do it on my own and learn everything about this cryptocurrency, that includes making a lot of mistakes or losing a lot of money.

Using an online wallet to store my Bitcoin my friend advice me to use an online wallet because he too is not aware of the existence of desktop and ledger wallet, once I found out about ledger and desktop wallets are more secured I bought a new ledger and download desktop wallet and transfer all my coins, before investing be sure you are educated on where you are going to store your coins.

In the last bull run, i got advises to hold the altcoins for long term duration. I held few altcoins throughout the bear market and they always dump and never reach their all time high again. So i learnt my lesson is not to hold low volume altcoins for long term. Only hold Bitcoin and ethereum for long term duration.

the worst advice that i have when i was noob is to trade  my money through bitcoin,  just imagine without any information how this thing realy works.? Wherien they just say put you money in it then leave it after day or two then you will receive 2x profits,  but unfortunately it's negative until my money disappeared like a bubble..  Lol it sounds funny for me now..  I can't imagine what the heck comes to my mind why i trusted them the fact that I'm lack of information as well. Lmao

Starting mining ponzi sites is my first start bitcoin, Working to find reffral turns out they are scams, to get into ponzi that can multiply funds in just a short time, it's very dangerous for the long term. Try to play with medium risk.

Even the coins with good fundamentals were down to earth. In 2017, the ethereum price reached 1000$ but in next three years it went down to around 250$. So even holding ethereum in the year 2018 - 2020 was painful if you have bought it in 2017 price. Many people would have sold in loss as not everyone can hold the coins with losses.

we've done terrible mistakes while we are new to this industry. I've been using blockchain.info wallet when i first started. worse is that i forgot the password of the email, i can't recover it and then also forgot the password of blockhain wallet. a small amount is left there that is now worth $200. it's going to be funny if all we practiced today that seems to be right could turn out to be wrong after all in the future like installing wallets on phone.

In 2013, I worked on the Internet with a team, and our employer offered payment in bitcoins, to which the whole team reacted extremely negatively. Bitcoin then was completely unfamiliar to me, and I listened to the advice of more experienced, in my opinion, people, not to trust Bitcoin. And how we regret it today. Had I agreed to pay in bitcoin then, now my life could have taken a completely different path.

Maybe the worst piece of advice that someone I do know and someone I do not is to stop patronizing or supporting Bitcoin for they are seeing me as wasting my time and I am just pathetically having my sweet time dreaming that something like that will boom any soon around. But look at them right now, chasing the phase of Bitcoin to buy and see if they can make it through themselves to attain and reach the peak I have because I still believe on Bitcoin despite of their discouragement.

Didn't really did the actual mistake, but I was almost phished in my online wallet because someone shared my photo claiming that I won a prize and I just needed to login.
I reported the phishing site after that.
I guess I could call it that my mistake was trusting too much in online wallets.

Mine is thinking that bitcoin will do 10× profits between 24 hours, and storing my wallet keys on my email address,

I guess we all have funny mistakes in our dealings with bitcoin and the entire digital currencies.

sometimes, the person who breaks our dreams is the closest person.  I have experienced that when I first joined the cryptocurrency world.  even the scorn did not come from other people, but from those around me.  since then I decided to "work" in cryptocurrency in silence, I just want to show that the negative talk of people who don't support me is just an unwarranted fear.  and now, after they saw what I got, they turned to ask for instruction.  this is the win :)

Mine was forgetting the password to my first blockchain wallet but I still have the email,and it really pains me to date that I can't access it, I had little things left in there