I disagree with this although there are some scam, it's not true that they don't know bitcointalk, in fact, all the legitimate ico and coins were advertised here, maybe they pretend that they don't know the forum because they know that people here are checking their project if it's legit or not, and they might be discovered their scheme, there are lots of campaign and announcement here, and as far as I know this forum is well known.

Issue newbies or beginners are:

first Don't know where to start, as newbies you are overwhelmed by the information given by people
Scammed since you are newbies you don't know if it's legit or not, and you become one of the victims.
No strategy when investing, due to FOMO newbies don't spend their funds intelligently they just go with the flow

all of this I experience when I started as newbies

failure makes us strong. teach us lessons in life, all the hardship and trouble we face gives us the courage to move forward, along the way we learn new things, applying those things that we learn during our hardship lay the foundation in everyone's success, the mentality to not giving up even in hard times, will surely result to success in life, so remember no matter how hard things go our way we should never give up, and keep fighting because at the end of the battle is the victory for those who never give up.

I think the best way is if someone sent you a message, which is out of nowhere asking for payment or money, the best way is to block them, we can't stop people from sending us a personal message but from my experience, if someone pops up in my telegram Facebook, Gmail, and I don't know him personally if it's about money or investment, its automatic block, the best way is ignoring because if you entertain them they will think you are interested and its the start of the scam, we can't stop them, but we can prevent them making us a victim, presence if mind blocked them and nothing will happen,

Someone must step up, James harden can't take it on his own, if no one will help him, he might break a lot of records in scoring but the team might suffer losses every time, also see him gain weight, although same performance, but needs teammates to perform every day consistently, they are a playoff team, but the west is loaded so it will be very hard for them.

for me, it is consider gambling because you are using money and at the same time you lose money when you bought something and its value goes down,
putting money on a stock, is consider betting, and betting is considered gambling right?
as long as you put your money into something, that has a chance to gain profit or loses its gambling.

Open source means that software that anyone can modify or build from it and even check, while the other one is that only the team started  or create
 the software can update the software if you are looking for an example: Linux and Microsoft, you see Linux has different flavors, from fedora Ubuntu Linux,
while Microsoft is windows.
At the same time, Linux is secured than windows

I have checked the site there is nowhere to be found, not even a secure site at all,
https://ph.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?checkAvail=1&tmskey=tmskey%3D123&domain=iexhit.com
here is the information about the site, it just creat this year, hardly hear about the site at all
I'm just curious why are you trying to trade on that site where you know in the first place that it's not known to the public
the site is no ssl not secure, i suggest you try poloniex or binance i have been trading for a long time
I hope this time you'll learn that it is important to trade to a known site just forget the fee's, they a bit high but at least you know you are safe.

why would they do that or maybe you have done something wrong? have you verified your account or complete the KYC
maybe you need to check the requirements, I have long login to Binance maybe like 3 years, and check my coins all of them are fine
some transactions in the exchange are restricted if you have not completed the requirements, for example, KYC, if you don't
complete or finish filling it up, you will have a limit in transfer, at the same time, have you check your balance, there is a minimum in transfer.

That was a big sum of money, "inconsistencies" what do they mean by this? did they explain why they are just giving also less half of the amount in your account? I think maybe you should ask them calmly what has happened, I mean that is not a small amount, they should pay you back in full since you have done any transaction since then, any news about this?

sometimes its usually not safe but since we don't know if the team just create an account and don't want to pay a campaign manager for less cost, they are the one making the campaign management, check for the project's whitepaper sometimes those campaigns might be legit, it's not always with the campaign managers rank, that matters sometimes its what they have to offer to the community that is important and what it does or make in cryptocurrency or blockchain.

it depends in where you are comfortable with, both of them have pros and cons I think hardware wallet is better since computers are not safe this day and prone to virus, what if your computer has been attacked by ransomware or malware, hardware wallet you can bring it anywhere without hassle just don't lose it, unlike the software it will stay in just one computer.

Correct me if I'm wrong but what op is saying is a person with a programming background in the development of the project, and you can tell if a person is just pretending to be a developer, I can tell because I'm working with a group of developers, that is why I can tell if he's just a fake or not, but its true that they can build through a smart contract, but you can see or judge it on how it turns out.

I feel bad for ripple, with lots of testing and companies trying to use it, every year they are taking hit from both sides, and now it's getting serious, and its the toughest fight from all the lawsuit they have a deal in the past, with that price also been affected from .6 USD it's gone down to half, I'm not a holder of the coin but, things are not going their way here is the current price now: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/xrp/
not a good way to end the year.

why would you even try to do trading with an unknown exchange?
so it's the trading bonus you are after? when I do enter an exchange I'm not after a trading bonus or reward
I'm looking if the company has any records of scam, how they handle the exchange, I started trading and there are
only a few exchanges I use
poloniex and binance are my top exchange though I don't have coins there now they are still the top 2 for me
don't put your money at risk just because of a small bonus, getting to a legitimate exchange is the real bonus or reward you can have
because they will take care of your money.

Beware of the hype news, sometimes you see a lot of news or like post regarding how good the project is, those are not the only thing that is important in an ico or project, for me here are what matters:

Product
Members of the project team
Roadmap
Community

Mostly new investors that I see try to look at how large the telegram group, how they post on social media platforms
here are those i think should be considered before investing, checking those things might result in a good output or profit.

wow, lots of new members are coming to the forum, welcome to bitcointalk, please familiarized the rules and regulation of the forum, don't spam create an informative post, don't be rude to others, participate in the discussion, ask if you don't know we are here to help, what are the things you want to know? you can post a topic if you have to verify or need to understand

Forums are made to exchange information, and conversation/discussion of a certain topic as a topic goes on, there is information that is being shared that will help the creator of the topic and the reader, at the same time if people come to the forum they are able to look for a certain question or create a topic asking what to do, people can give the link of the topic or if the topic is not created or discuss, members, are able to share their experience on a certain topic, giving information to each member or sharing that is why other are posting or creating a topic,

it's a digital currency, what you need is a wallet, in exchange you can have a wallet although as everyone says not your keys not your money, it is where you can use your money for trading.
Also, check if your country doesn't ban cryptocurrency you might go to jail in some countries I think.
if you want to buy using bitcoin you can check these company also where they accept bitcoin
https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/who-accepts-bitcoin/
price is volatile means it can change from time to time, don't transact with people who you don't know, avoid being a scam, don't invest on 100% investment return its a false advertisement good luck.

What do you want to learn is it how to trade? mining? or how to use or where to use cryptocurrency?
Here are some articles which you can read about crypto :
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/what-is-cryptocurrency/
https://www.genesis-mining.com/how-cryptocurrency-works
https://www.bitdegree.org/crypto/tutorials/how-to-mine-cryptocurrency - mining cryptocurrency
https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/ - exchanges where you can trade

You can read some of these articles, on the internet, I hope this helps, don't hesitate to ask a question we are here to help
Welcome to the forum.