Total Noob here.

From what I can glean off of the limited info on buying/trading info out there, and maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places, but it seems I will need about 20 different exchanges with 20 different passwords and 20 different wallets with 20 different passwords to buy/trade the coins I want. Is this accurate?

Why so many hoops to jump through? Why not one, or a couple of exchanges that have every coin out there? Is it for security? Or because it's DeFi?
Some of the exchanges don't even tell you what coins they carry until you go through a 10 step verification process, only to find out they don't deal the coin you want, or do not allow U.S. citizens to trade.
I want to understand and become more involved in the Alt coin market, but man it's frustrating. I'm using coinbase and it's horrible for Alts.
Any help out there for the noob would be very much appreciated.
Thanks! 

As we all have seen ripple has been quite strong these past few days and with all that it has done over the past months compared to most other currencies and the launch of xrapid is actually starting to show in its price.
There is so much talk about ripple taking over bitcoin and being 10$ what are your thoughts on this?

I'm looking for a good portfolio tracker which supports most defi tokens and all major cryptocurrencies. Suggest one and reason why it is best suited for you.

If I don't see any potential value in holding that coin anymore, I would just dump and turn those funds toward something else. Usually new bounty projects doesn't much potential anyway so nearly auto dump for me.

The Cartesi team has kept to the promise of bounty distribution after first 30 days of listing. The distribution which is going to be in three batches have started with the first released to hunters personal wallet. This is the first of its kind after 2017/18 as scam has taken over bounty hunting since then.

The token , Cartesi didn't have its first listing in any other exchange but to the envy of them all , BINANCE. And no wonder more valued exchanges have chased cartesi to be listed with them. Now, within one month of listing in binance, cartesi has been listed in about 6/7 more exchanges. Of course they say if it is good, it will be sort after.

Nice one to you Bubbalex. I don't think the forum has had such project going straight to binance in the past 3 years at least.

DeFi is really very promising..  many think that the HYPE that is happening to DeFi will not last long but if we look closely, the DeFi project has attracted attention for a long time.  Chainlink, Aave and Ox are DeFi projects that are growing high this year.  I highly recommend that you take the DeFi project into consideration for your investment plans..

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance, EOS, some of the cryptos I mentioned are my personal favorite projects. especially some of them have given me high profits when the bullish market came in 2017. Even now I am still holding it while waiting for the bullish market to come again.

Instead of planning to invest on cheap projects why don't you go for Launchpads ok binance exchange, bitmax or gate.io? You will quickly make your ROI and also I believe that if a coin has good utility it will have better demand and with high demand comes better value

Yes, our governments can't control the bitcoin but they can make it illegal in our countries so that we can't use it no more.

I watched your wallet address on the TronLink app and did not find any transactions and it is clear that they forgot to send you the payments, Do not worry if you contact with the Bounty manager or the project team via Telegram, they will solve your problem and send you your payments. But you must retrieve your account that contains your wallet address on the TronLink application through the Private key, Keystore, or Mnemonic.

If you visit some crypto forum you will see so many upcoming cryptocurrency projects coming into the industry but sometimes I begin to wonder what is their purpose of bringing in New crypto project knowing well that some of them have wrong motion of the project they are bringing, I have participated in so many of them last year but I have not hear from them again some are abandoned on the proccess with a lot of promises they come with just to gain your interest. What do you think?

Ethereum is becoming extremely popular nowadays with the rise of "De-Fi" apps and stablecoins. Most people are just into it in order to make a lot of money in the shortest time possible. Since they're newcomers into crypto, they can easily make mistakes when sending coins from one address to another. Now, imagine if you check your wallet and it has 1 ETH sent to you by a mysterious address. At current rates, that would be an average of $400 (USD) in your pocket.

What will you do if someone accidentally or mistakenly sent you 1 ETH? Will you donate it to a charity? Will you send it back to its original owner? If it were me, I'd return it back to its original owner as long as he/she is able to provide a signed message with the address' private key proving the coin's ownership. But since crypto is widely unregulated, anyone can do as they please.

Thoughts?

I have thought that one key advantage crypto (bitcoin, litecoin, Dash, monero etc.) has over gold is that its supply level is fixed and transparent, but can this or features make crypto more valuable than gold?

Cryptocurrencies can be kept online or offline. If the cryptos are kept on the exchange platforms or other online platforms, it can be lost due to hacks.

So it is important to choose the best wallets that are safe and secure. Please help me in choosing the safest cryptocurrency wallets

With your skills you can earn. You can earn without any hard work. For that you need to be a crypto investor. You have to keep in mind that you will benefit if you invest in a coin or token by constantly monitoring the market. No experience is required for this. You just have to understand the market signal. Again you can invest in exchanger on any new token.
I want to be a good investor.
Do you want to be a good investor? Do you agree with me?

If you only choose coins in top 10-20 then I think it's not too big risk that we will face. Indeed, investing in Crypto is a very high risk if you choose Hype coins, which have a pump and dump. Some beginners like hype coins, because they think it will be easy to get profit.

I think you recived the coin in your wallet but it's not showing. I would suggest you to download the token pocket app and import your wallet there with private key. I saw that on their telegram group many participate solved the problem using token pocket wallet.