Join Coinbase

[Aaron]

Join Coinbase - it is a very secure, honest and reliable exchange in the United States. You can join for free and verify the method you want to use to purchase coins. Join here: Coinbase

After the verification, you can purchase Bitcoin, Litecoin or Etherium. This is the best place for a beginner to start.

After you have your coins in Coinbase, you can always send them to a local wallet you keep on your computer.

[tswift]

I agree, I was an early crypto adopter and have done a lot of business with Coinbase over the years. For a beginner it's the easiest way to get started, at least in the US. If you're just now joining the crypto bandwagon, PLEASE take some time, do some research and educate yourself how cryptocurrency really works. Everyone is piling in right now because of the stunning price gains, but this always happens in the late stages of an unsustainable bubble. I've been around bitcoin long enough that this is my fourth boom/bust bubble, and the bust is most certainly coming, and probably soon. I recommend buying into crypto, but for the right reasons and not just because the price is going up. If it plunges by 50% overnight you will feel very bad if you were the last guy in who bought right at the top. Never invest more than you can afford to lose.

Today is bitcoin's day to get all the news headlines, but I would strongly recommend you understand its limitations. Bitcoin has suffered for the last three years from a capacity problem and right now has a major backlog. It's fun to watch the price go up, but just try actually moving any coins anywhere! I believe the days of classic/legacy/core bitcoin are numbered in spite of the stunning price action, and many long-time hodlers including myself have decided to exit this crazy train for greener and saner pastures with more long-term potential. For me, this is bitcoin cash (BCH). It is everything that made bitcoin great, except that it has hugely more capacity and actually works quickly and cheaply the way bitcoin used to.

Other coins are getting popular too, some with actual reason. Note: Ethereum has no coin cap limit (unlike bitcoin) and new ether will be issued perpetually. Also, Ethereum is beginning to hit its own capacity problems and fees are starting to rise. Before the Bitcoin Cash split, I really thought Dash might take the crown for the coin-of-choice going forward, and there are some significant things to like about it. However, it has some issues too (including a significant premine and a shady past). Ultimately everyone MUST DO THEIR OWN DUE DILIGENCE before deciding what to go with.

For me and my money, I don't believe anything else will be able to compete with Bitcoin Cash in the near future. Coinbase doesn't support it today but has announced that they will in the near future, likewise for other exchanges. But whatever you do, I would urge you not to ignore the cryptocurrency phenomenon. It is as revolutionary in its own way as overunity, and has the capacity to bring financial freedom like nothing else in history ever has.

[Aaron]

Coinbase

tswift,

Many good points - never invest more than you can stomach to lose.

I had some Litecoin mining rigs back in 2014 and can see the complexity in mining if we're not doing it early enough for the average person. Of course there are other coins, but mining is not for the beginner unless they're just using a simple CPU or GPU miner like: http://www.energeticforum.com/minerg...minergate.html

@all, with some Bitcoin, it can be traded for other coins that are easier to sell so keep that in mind.

Early on, I had to go to Coinbase also for the reason that many of the exchanges made it almost impossible to do business with if you're in the USA. A lot of the banks/card companies blocked these transactions, etc. and Coinbase was in the early stages of getting some traction.

[Aaron]

Ripple XRP coming to Coinbase

Ripple (XRP) is coming to Coinbase, which will make it easy for most people. Many banks including JBC (Japanese Banking Consortium) are partnering up with Ripple for international transfers since it is instantaneous and it costs less. This also legitimizes cryptocoins for many who never believed it would amount to anything.