Bitcoin Forum

Being new to the world of digital finance,  I think a great way to start and excel is by gathering information from the experienced here, on the biggest mistakes you have made, and things to do and avoid. I really think that'd be a big plus for an upcoming investor like myself.

Do's:
Use non custodial wallet.
Use no KYC P2P or DEX (kycnot.me) in order to protect your privacy and security.

Don'ts:
Avoid click any random link, install unsafe plugins, software, crack, OS system etc.
Avoid bounty, giveaway, free money, airdrop etc especially they ask to connect something or submit your identity.
Avoid use anything or impress anyone if you're a Bitcoin enthusiast.

More Do's:
Diversifying your portfolio can be more profitable in the short term, but HODLing has proven to be the safest long-term investment strategy so far.
Don't start too big before you have gained knowledge and confidence on what you're doing, but don't wait for too long to enter either, because a good way to learn is by managing a small personal portfolio.
Learn coin control.

More Dont's:
Don't be too greedy and plan ahead your exit strategy, but hodl a part "forever", just in case.
Don't invest what you can't afford to lose.
Don't believe in gurus online: fancy words, intonation, clothes, accessories, gadgets... hide the real truth: that nobody has a crystal ball. NOBODY.
For the same reason, don't believe in TA pseudoscience.

Even more things to DO:
Start with Bitcoin, not with Altcoins.  You will thank me later.
Learn as much as you can about storing Bitcoin properly and safely.
If you plan to invest a lot of money and are scared of losing it or improperly storing it.  Purchase a Hardware Wallet, but avoid ANY non Open Source one and avoid Ledger in particular.
Once you invest, pretend that money is gone forever.

Even more things NOT to do:
Do not believe any 'giveaway'.  9.9 times out of 10 it is a BIG SCAM.  No body will make you Rich for free.  No body will double your Bitcoin.  No stranger will take your money to give you more back.  Act with strangers as if you were a kid and a stranger knocked on the door.
Do not save your Seed in Cloud storage, in your Photos software, on your E-mail or any thing of the likes.  There have been cases of people whose Seed has been stolen from Google Drive.
Do not pretend you are going to be amazing at Trading.  Seems easy until you realize it is not and you lose a big chunk of money within seconds or minutes.
Do not pretend you know the best.  Any question you have, ask it.  Any thing you are not sure about, ask.
Do not fall into the Altcoins trap.  Altcoins will pump like crazy once in a while.  Do not jump in that boat.  You will more than likely lose a LOT of money.

Good luck.

Good position. Learning from the mistakes of others will lead you to a more secure path. But you didn’t tell us how high your level of knowledge is. We can talk endlessly about the correct saving of the seed phrase, about errors during transactions when copy-paste is used, about the unreliability of storing your funds on exchanges, and so on. It would be easier if you began to independently learn, step by step, the various subtleties of use and then periodically asked what you didn’t understand.
One topic will contain a lot of advice, but it is always better to focus on what is important so as not to turn it into one of the similar ones for beginners.

Well first off is avoid investment if youre a beginner yet. Of course you wanna invest and make money right away but you must also study on which project or why should you invest on particular project right? Crypto is quite dangerous sometimes it could ruin your life by being dragged with so much loss and negative portfolio. Investing is risky which you should alway remember first.

I'll start with the biggest mistake I've ever made regarding crypto, that is being skeptical by not being one of the early investors in Bitcoin, I was told about it but just like many people I thought that it was a scam.

Don't hodle your crypto coins in centralized exchanges, because they can be hacked and you'd lose your funds, it's said that if it's not your keys, it's not your coins, the safest place to hodle your crypto coins is in a none custodial wallet.

All that glitters is not gold, there are more scam projects than legit ones in the crypto market, so carry out a thorough research before investing in any crypto coin, I can only advice you to start with a reputable crypto like Bitcoin.

Welcome to the forum OP.
You should not see trading as a means to make quick profit, because there is a high possibility that you must run at lost.
Make sure that you write your seed phrase on a piece of paper, and back it up in three different place, and make sure you keep it safe from third party, except a trusted one.
Cross check the address that you want send your bitcoin to over, and over again, to make sure that it is the right address because of clipboard malware.
Do your own research before you go into conclusions on any information that you hear, so you don't be misled.

Do: Learn
Don't: Don't be a smarty pants

There are a lot people that can give explanation if Bitcoin is decentralized and no one can control it, but if you ask where they store their coins, they will answer Binance. Holding your Bitcoin in Binance ruins the decentralization of Bitcoin.

Another example is when they get asked where to trade Bitcoin via P2P, they will answer Binance P2P, Paxful, or other centralized exchanges instead of Agoradesk, Robosats etc.

If you want to invest in the market, you don't have to come here and tell us about your intentions.
It is better your keep your plan to yourself because there had been lots of people coming here telling us of so many things we don't even have idea and at the end, it might be a big lie. Please always know that the market is very volatile and you might not understand now untill you lose money.

1. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) - Just because your trusted friends are investing in one coin does not mean that you also need to invest on that coin without sufficient research.
2. Emotion-based investment - do not rely on your emotions, it is not a good indicator.  Always rely on facts and research and your probability of earning (and not losing) will sky rocket.

These are the two (2) of my common mistakes when I am just starting . (Actually, I still even make the same mistakes sometimes hence I need to remind myself always).

My biggest mistake is using leverages to trade my Bitcoin and lose it so my warning for you is Don't do this.

Don't trade with Leverage, Margin, Futures trading types. You will get loss rather than get profit as you hope.

Hold your bitcoin will help you get profit and also more important, get more time to do other meaningful things for your life.

Invest in Bitcoin with DCA strategy.
https://costavg.com/

Everyone has made mistakes in their life, learning from mistakes can help you avoid regrets and at the same time teach you to see a better future from various points of view and always think positively. Always make failure the most valuable experience in your life. Experience does not only come through success, failure and mistakes can also give you the most valuable experience in life to correct all the mistakes you have made in the past.
Now you can take the opportunity to increase your knowledge after being here, use failure as inspiration to achieve success in the future. There is so much knowledge that you can gain here, by learning something that is still very limited at your level of knowledge, you can turn mistakes into a bridge to success.

I guess my first mistake was choosing a crypto exchange as a wallet. Just like some others, I also thought that Coinbase, Binance, and Kucoin were crypto wallets which are not. These are centralized exchanges and are not good for holding your coins. They enable disable their deposit/withdrawal multiple times during the bull run and the bear market as well.

Another mistake I made was re-using passwords on different platforms. You should always use different passwords for each of your accounts online. Use two wallets for two purposes. Use one wallet for holding and another for regular use.

One of my mistakes is to believe that there was no difference between Bitcoin and altcoins. Some folks invited me and my friends to a so-called Bitcoin seminar. We were brainwashed that there is no difference between Bitcoin and others so we were deceived to buy a worthless shitcoin. The lesson is that don't be deceived, Bitcoin has no duplicate or substitute.

I have a friend who downloaded an online wallet and forgot to write down and keep the seed phrase safe. He lost his phone and eventually lost the funds he put in his wallet. Ensure your seed phrase is written down, laminated, and kept in a safe place.

There will always be negative news about Bitcoin which can lead to FUD. I want to advise you to seek information from verified sources and also follow your investment plan. Don't be scared by the negative news in the media because they are just distractions.

Make learning a habit it will really help you from making so many mistakes,  don't be too fast to invest or trade , gain knowledge first . I believe if you gain the right information in doing your own research and also learning from the experience of other people it will really help you. Let your target be to gain knowledge because you need knowledge to survive in bitcoin,  it will keep you going.

I quite agreed with all you said in the whole of this post of yours, except the one that has got to do with airdrop. We know that this industry is hype infected. Airdrop is the rave of the moment and most projects are utilizing that route now to attract users to themselves. What I normally suggest is that anyone getting on airdrops or any crypto reward that they aren't paying for should create burner wallets for them. Don't use your main wallets for airdrops. It's a recipe for disaster. As for airdrops, they're turning to a cashcow ATM in this industry and I think those who are very careful and circumspect should take advantage of that. It happened in 2017/18 and it's repeating itself now. People are cashing out big from airdrops.

First try to know what catch up your interest so that you can determine for yourself on what are important to consider and focus with it. Since if you apply all random suggestion while you don't know anything about bitcoin then there's a chance that you get confuse and get tired with it.

There are lots of suggestion here then see what catch your attention then try to learn from it although having multiple knowledge is really great but sometimes it creates a lots of confusion that's why its better you experience first so that you can learn from it also you are in realistic means sine you fully experience it.
Just to make it simple since there's a lot of good suggestion already posted here, Don't invest on a individual or platform that gives to good to be true profit and they don't have any proof of legitimacy since as expected this is just a scam operated by people who's greedy to earn money in bad way.

I have been fortunate throughout my bitcoin journey, I found bitcointalk early. Newbies are often victims, they are always yearning for more, the forum was a place to learn and correct the misinformation I was getting elsewhere. For example, in the beginning I was attending a lot of crypto seminars and events, most of these events were sponsored by exchanges, so I could have easily fallen into the web of fully trusting and storing my coins in crypto exchanges if I was not a member of BTT.

My mistakes in my beginning of my Bitcoin journey: didn't really know how wallets worked, didn't know about UTXO transaction model, didn't know how to redundantly and safely secure my wallets (back in 2011 that was basically file backups of wallet.dat files), didn't separate my crypto wallet usage from my daily usage computer, didn't know a lot of the technical stuff how Bitcoin works, didn't aks enough where the money comes from in new crypto stuff projects. (This list is not exhaustive...)

Do not store and handle substantial amounts of crypto coins in wallets with your mobile phone that you use for your daily mobile phone shit. Too easy to loose, get stolen, get compromised by unsafe or malicious apps unless you're a mobile phone security expert (and those won't do it anyway).

After some bumpy experiences where I also lost some of my bitcoins (including a tough recovery procedure due to a failing harddrive), I had to go a lot of steps further to avoid more desasters. Learning and understanding deeply how Bitcoin works, how hot wallets are not safe, how hardware wallets are a lot safer and how to spot scams.

Avoid chilling on (a)social media, Youtube or similar and everyone who pretends to show you a way to get rich quick. It's a trap...

People think once they make it to the world of cryptocurrency they can now earn like others with easy money one of the newbie mistakes is they keep joining with different investments, get caught up in the promise of different projects, get a honey pot and lose their money, if you see that the investment is too good to be true better to avoid this kind of projects, people earn here in the crypto with their hard work and knowledge, its just an opportunity to have the crypto space still you must work on it.

Also invest in your security if you have an asset to invest, invest too with your device security, like hardware wallet, antivirus for your device safety, and more to prevent having a loss of asset due to this people keep an attacks just to steal your money.

Only those that haven't undergone through the normal procedures for learning about bitcoin will be the type to get involved in making mistakes that could cost them loss of assets, but you're already on the right path because you're interested in learning first before you also fall into same category as others have been when they started without learning.


Avoid been greedy or too desperate for making money, then make sure you maintain a continuous learning process although your cryptocurrency period.

You are still a newbie and you want to invest, which is not a bad idea, but the thing is that you need the knowledge first; don’t think about how to earn at the moment. You need to learn before you start earning. As everyone has said, try and gather the knowledge of the investment, then later think of how you can be a successful investor in the crypto space. Although I haven’t made any mistakes that I can tell you much about, I’ll advise you to avoid any news that doesn’t have a source. The crypto space is full of different information, and you won’t even know which one you will follow because you are still a newbie, so what will favor you is that you should always be sure of what you are doing, and that’s why you need to learn first.

Another thing you should do is, while making the decision to invest in bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, make sure you invest the amount you can afford to lose. Don’t follow the market; the cryptocurrency market is volatile and unpredictable; furthermore, don’t follow the current market you see now and invest a huge amount of money thinking that the bull is near. Just make sure you invest the amount you can afford to lose because the investment carries different types of risk, of which you need to be aware. 

After reading your previous post, I think I might have a fair idea of where you are in your bitcoin journey. These notes will be of help to you and other newbies:

Do's:
- Store your seed phrase offline (you can write in down on paper, use washers or engrave them on metal). Store in a location that is safe from theft, fire and water.
- Buy a hardware wallet if your hodlings are up to $1000 and above.
- When it comes to crypto investments, DYOR and trust your gut regardless of what everyone else is doing.
 
Dont's:
- Don’t rely on your memory for your seed phrase. Make sure you have a physical backup.
- Don't invest what you can't afford to lose.
- Don't trade futures if you are not a professional trader.
- Don’t be eager to diversify your portfolio as a beginner, altcoins can be tricky. It’s safer to hodl Bitcoin for long term.
- Don’t invest your money in trading bots or signals.

I think you should be doing more of studies form other threads on the forum although there are some knowledge some persons will be kind enough to share under this thread of yours but then you can further invest in knowledge from other platforms and you can be sure to still get the required information you will need to succeed as an investor which you are aspiring to be in the nearest furniture.

The world of cryptocurrency is such a broad one and very versatile that you can choose a niche and investing more knowledge there you get to do much more better than trying to know every and anything all at Once on the platform, explore the various niches available, pick one and make it your area of expertise and then you are going to do just fine as an investor.

For me, not too many mistakes I've made aside from the couple of times I sold my crypto investments too early, for example, in 2020, I sold all my Ethereum (about 30 of them) for $250 each, and just about 5 to 6 months after, Ethereum made it to a price of around or above $4000 in the 2020/2021 bull run, I was pretty naive at the time and this action is one I've never stopped regretting over, as I missed completely on all the gains I should or would have made from that bull run.

And as a newbie, another important thing you must learn is to always know that "not your keys, not your crypto", which simply means that if you do not have access to the private keys of a wallet where you store your crypto, then ultimately know that your crypto is in the hands of whoever has the keys to that wallet, and you are at their mercy, so, to always be in control, make sure to always store your crypto on wallet where you control the keys.

And another important thing again is to try as much as possible to be open minded in crypto, crave for new knowledge for there is a lot to learn, learning never stops, as long as its crypto we are talking about.

After entering the cryptocurrency world, new crypto investors think they can make quick profits and become rich overnight, but this is the biggest mistake new crypto investors make. I wasn't out of it either, I lost my bitcoins by overtrading and I will probably have this regret for the rest of my life. So don't over trade hoping for quick profits if you want to do well in crypto, I made this mistake I know how painful it is.

Many crypto users face various problems after they start their crypto journey due to little knowledge about wallets, hence crypto users make mistakes in selecting wallets and lose their precious bitcoins by overtrading in hopes of quick profit. So these mistakes should be avoided for a safe crypto journey.

Never invest what you can't afford to lose.

Never share your private keys to anyone.

Never get hype with what the market is showing you. The most patient people earns the reward later on.

Invest on the things that you're able to do research.

Not everyone that you see on social media is real.

Never panic when you see Bitcoin plunging as it is normal whether we're in a bull market or not.

Never be too public with your Bitcoin investments because you might be a target of those scammers and physical attacks like a $5 wrench attack.

I agree with you new people who want to invest in cryptocurrencies should learn about the market and the risks first. If you trade too much and expect to make money quickly you could lose a lot like the others did. Before investing it's really important to understand things like wallets and other parts of cryptocurrencies to avoid making big mistakes. Being patient and careful is really important when dealing with cryptocurrencies.

I will just give very fundamental advice, "Don't buy anything what you don't know" including bitcoin, if you don't know bitcoin, how it works, how it can benefit you, how your bitcoin is safe then never buy if you don't know it, that is the basic thinking you should have before doing anything, if you insist you will become a gambler and if the price is not what you expect then you will think bitcoin is a SCAM and you will curse Bitcoin, when you just don't know what you are buying and how it can benefit you sir.

Some things have been given by forum friends, but I want to emphasize that you should never think that you can get rich from bitcoin, I think it's enough to concern your mind about bitcoin.

Learning is the basic fundamental that you need, for you to take learning as your first step, you will achieve success along the way because learning and getting the appropriate information before starting anything is good especially in the digital world.

Take every information you will get here in this forum serious, people in this forum always share the right information and any news or information you get outside here and you are doubting the information, you can bring it up here for further discussion with experts and experience users.

Learning is very important and we need to know what we are doing so that we can make money either from trading or investing in cryptocurrency. For us to keep making money in the market, we need to know what we are doing and make sure we put our money in something that is going to benefit us and give us result that would determine what we would be making in the market. Cryptocurrency has bigger opportunities for us if we know how to invest and take money from cryptocurrency based on the experience we have gathered to help us make consistent profits from the market. We either learn or unlearn which is two we need to make decisions on.

These area I totally agree with you,  it's  were many failure lies quick to get rich in the crypto system by new investor, most time the scam we here people is as a result this believe of getting rich quick , the system can make one rich but not as speed of light as many new investor pursue after the fast making of income and profit.

First of all, there is nothing like too much information and too much knowledge, you need to never stop learning in this space, there are many things you will get to know if you don't stop learning.

The first mistake I made as a newbie was the crypto wallet I used, you need to understand that non-custodial wallet is what you need, make sure you read about the differences just to have better understanding,  open -source wallets that are non-custodial are the best.

Don't rush to invest, unless you are here for Bitcoin only, you can easily do research about bitcoin and chose the best bitcoin wallet for you and start buying and sending bitcoin into your wallet, but if you want more you must relax and learn even more, there are many things that you must know to avoid getting into the wrong hands.

Avoid social media that's all about crypto, like Facebook and Twitter, they are filled with bad actors, impersonators, people that will pretend to have your best interest in mind, avoid strangers, nobody cares about anybody in this crypto space, if they come seeking for your attention it's for their selfish interest.

Learn and learn and learn again, never stop learning, because this is what will make you a better crypto investor someday, every corners in crypto space is unsafe for newbies, this is why you need to take learning very serious here, it's the only tool you can use against any possible mistakes in crypto space.

Always look for information, in the cryptocurrency world, the winner is the one who finds out the information first. Therefore, subscribe on Twitter (X) to all the projects in which you have invested in order to receive changes promptly. Use only good wallets for storing bitcoin and altcoins, this is very important! For example, once I failed to keep track of the fact that Jaxx became an unreliable wallet, and $600 was stolen from me. I recommend using the Trust Wallet or Exodus now. Also I advice to use a two-factor authentication on exchanges.

Op you're welcome to the forum, and this is the right place to be. Learning and gathering information is one vital part we should miss as humans, the more you learn the more you begin to gain exposure to solving life problems. As a newbie I recommend that you start your investment journey with Bitcoin, even if you have an altcoin you've spotted for investment, just let go and focus on Bitcoin because, it will give you enough insight on what to expect when you start trading on altcoins. Before you use a wallet for holding of Bitcoin first make proper research about the wallet than after downloading it write down your seed phrase, uninstall the application, install again and put in your seed phrase to confirm if it's correct or not, and that will give you a clue on how to recover your wallet should in case your device got stolen or affect due to natural disasters. Also ensure to keep your seed phrase in a water proof safe so that you'll be free from emergencies like natural disasters (flood).

I have seen scam stories and worst experience relating to phishing links, airdrop, and with the mindset of earning free money, this is more popular in the crypto space if I'm not mistaken and such mistakes victims are to blamed. It's best to avoid unnecessary stress and focus more on Prioritizing privacy, sometimes people usually say airdrops can be beneficial with the one that went viral on X, I still don't believe all this false information, information like this will always go viral because people searching for free money are just too much.

The biggest mistakes I made and I wouldn't make anymore if I can walk backwards through the time are;

• Buying during the bull run: when I newly joined the industry, I bought at the climax of 2021 bull run and the market crashed on me[/quote]
  

• Converting my BTC to stable coin because of volatility and fear of investing what I am not able to lose. All those are craps, if you meet BTC at low, go in huge and smile years later

What you need to avoid is the influence of other people with your decision making. Whether you wanna buy or sell, it should be you that must have the last decision. It's okay to gather and survey people what they're up to when you have something in your mind that you aren't sure of. That's a normal thing to canvas people and ask for their opinion about what you are unsure of or with a topic or thing that you haven't understand clearly. But even with that, never ever let someone influence you just because they've said something good or bad with that. Always verify the answers and opinion of people or contemplate before you follow those guides that have been given to you especially on this market that's all about investing and your money.

This is very useful information, much appreciated

Invest wisely to see if you are good in that investment before you can increase your investment in the future because, there are some newbies who will not exercise patience to learn from their mentor before investing that huge amount of money that will make them to feel the world has come to an end when they lost because they didn't invest what they can afford to lose.

The day you share your details to your friends on social media, be rest and sure that they will surely have access to your money some day, but if you can be able to keep your details well without sharing them with your family or Friends, nobody will touch your money for any reason.

 Do not allow your emotions, to control you to make very quick decisions without exactly correct research or careful study, because of many times required to FOMO or FUD.
Do not trade beyond the normal,or with a lot of capital greatly reduce resources and rise up the risk of very important losses.
Not wanting to do proper research on cryptocurrencies and project before investing in other for you to understand the fundamentals and possible risk.
Do not be impatience, wanting immediate and not able to see things the way they really are.
Do not put all your investments into one single cryptocurrency or asset for is a big mistake.
Do not forget your password or seed phrase.
Do not put a wrong wallet address.
Do not use strategy that is hard to understand.
Do not ignore security, ignoring them means no implementation of strong security measures for your Bitcoin holdings.
Do not avoid knowledge,by reading gives you more ideas about Bitcoin and crypto investment and cryptocurrency at large .
Do not allow your emotions to control you when trading by being fearful or greedy. 

I wouldn't recommend to trade with borrowed money, too. If your trade gamble doesn't play out well, you're in trouble.
Be also careful with leverage trading. You should very well know what you're doing and should do it only with money you can afford to loose completely.



You should always try to investigate or understand where the money comes from for advertises profits of crypto coin/token offers. If it sounds too good, it's usually some sort of scam.



Kinda agree with this, but I'd be fine if someone only wants to invest in Bitcoin. Anyway, don't put all your eggs into one single basket.



More precisely I'd say: do not try to rely only on your human memory. Human memory is a tricky beast. You will forget things that are only in your bio memory. To verify you didn't forget or remember something correctly, you'd need a reliable and safe physical copy anyway.

Document wallet creation time/date/purpose/derivation path(s), wallet encryption passphrases, mnemonic recovery words and optional mnemonic passphrases only offline on physical media like paper and/or metal. No exceptions, period!
Do not make digital copies of those things on online devices, period!



Always carefully verify all output addresses of a transaction before you sign and broadcast it! Never omit this step also with a hardware wallet. A hardware wallet is basically worthless without an independent own display that must not be under any control of the connected computer or mobile device. Checking all transaction details on a hardware wallet's own display is your last line of defense against a potentially infected online device that "speaks" to your hardware wallet.

I recommend to use a decent hardware wallet (stay away from Ledger crap) and/or keep private keys on an airgapped device (watch-only hot wallet in conjunction with an airgapped cold wallet).



Try to do your crypto coin/token/wallet stuff on a dedicated device that is NOT used for your daily internet shit (Linux recommended, avoid main malware target OS like Windows).