From what i have learned so far, the first thing i need is a bitcoin wallet. I then purchase bitcoins there and transfer them to a bitcoin trading platform. If i want to pause my trading and just hold my bitcoin, i just transfer them back to my wallet. Is that correct, or am i missing something here?
Yes that is what you need but there are many things you have to concern like which trading platform you gonna use, which web wallet you will be using and mainly you have to do deep research on altcoins to find out which altcoin is best for trading/investment.
Don't bag hold shit/dead coins, only trade alts that have huge daily trading volume.