The Ultimate Cryptocurrency Beginner’s Guide for Australians
By Trader Fibonacci Fiddsy on The Capital
*** UPDATED FOR 2023 — ALWAYS BEING WORKED ON — please be advised that some of the pictures are old (2018/19) and deliberately not updated as it shows relevance despite their age, if anything, they actually add more credibility to what is said in this guide! ***
Around June 2017, I took the plunge and jumped into the wild world of Cryptocurrency but the same question plagued me then as it undoubtedly does many others currently — “Where the hell do I start!?”
The question sounds simple enough but like many others, I ‘Googled’ and found an overload of information and choices, littered with Ads — further adding to my confusion. It was near impossible to separate the real and valuable information from the ill-informed. Eventually, I found a friend who was heavily involved in Blockchain technology and Cryptocurrency, who was able to guide me in the right direction early on.
Fast forward to 2023 and I have found myself on a crazy journey that’s seen me jump into the ‘cryptosphere’ with two feet, both emotionally and financially! I’ve seen unbelievable 1000% plus unrealised gains in 2017 followed by a brutal market crash, a bear market that lasted for a couple of years and have now seen BTC push to new all time highs (ATHs) in late 2021 followed by yet another market cycle dump and bear market!
Like many other’s who were there for the wild ride in 2017, I got to watch those gains evaporate due to greed and a serious lack of risk management. Since then I have spent the time and money learning and refining my trading abilities allowing me to get to a point where I had traded full-time as a sole income for nine months but decided the life as a successful swing trader was far less pressure on myself and my family. And all the while, I have been helping many friends, colleagues and complete strangers on their first trip down ‘the rabbit hole’ by spamming them with long detailed messages at all hours of the night — possibly confusing them beyond repair. However many believed the information invaluable and suggested I should post a polished guide (with a few fewer explicit words!) to help newcomers, and perhaps even some seasoned Crypto Pro’s.
In this guide — while I won’t focus on the difference between Bitcoin and Blockchain, how it works and all those excellent questions — I’ll cover a wide range of topics ranging from where to buy cryptocurrency, which exchanges I recommend and why, safeguarding your crypto assets, where to find good paid and free content, wallets, portfolio balance, the basic’s of trading and more! Many of these lessons I have learned the hard way, so hopefully, I can save you time and prevent some of the painful mistakes I made, setting you in a better direction!
On a side note — These are my personal opinions formed from my own experiences, this is not financial advice nor have I been paid to “shill” or endorse any of the services or platforms that I will mention in this guide. Quite simply, I use these platforms, have found value in everything mentioned and think others may find the information valuable as well. I’ve posted links to every service mentioned, including referral links below as well as some donation address’ should anyone wish to donate. Donations are much appreciated and will ensure the time will be spent keeping this guide up to date and extra articles and content added in the future — referrals will give discounts.
SO — probably the two/three most important things first up…
Many people straight up ask me;
“ Is Bitcoin worth investing in” “ What should I buy? ” “ What’s a good coin to invest in other than Bitcoin? ” “ Which coin is the next bitcoin? ” “ Should I go 100% Alt coins? ” “ What coin will be the next to do 1000x gains? ”
I generally avoid some of those questions like the plague but…
NO NO NO! Don’t be scared off by Bitcoins higher cost, Bitcoin is the king!
Firstly — I usually suggest beginners start with the BIG 2 (Bitcoin & Ethereum). As a very rough template for your portfolio, I recommend around 70% BTC, 30% ETH to start with. These are about as ‘blue-chip’ and as safe as you can possibly get.
At some point — usually when BTC is starting to move into whats called a bull cycle, you will want to diversify your portfolio and get more exposure to other high cap Alt coins and even some low cap Alt coins, the FOMO (fear of missing out) will take hold when some of those coins start having crazy parabolic gains. Even so, you should still have at a minimum 70–80% of your portfolio in the BIG 2 (BTC and ETH), 10–15% to high cap alt coins, 5% to low cap alts coins and 10% trading account IF you are interested in actively trading. I mostly recommend the ‘blue-chip’ cryptocurrencies to start as they have constantly held their value and position in the top 5 coins over the years.
So for a more diversified example — 60% Bitcoin (this would include your 10% for trading should you look at actively trading), 20% Ethereum, 15% on a small selection top 20 alt coins (including LTC — also considered a long standing ‘blue-chip’, NEO, XMR, EOS, IOTA, Etc.) and remaining 5% spread over a handful of high risk lower cap alt coins.
Regardless of how much money you invest, that should be a rough template.
Obviously, you can play around with the percentages of the top 2 but I personally would NEVER go less than 50% BTC and that has been my advice to anyone who has ever asked.
It’s generally where a lot of newcomers to space make their first mistake of going all-in on cheap alt coins thinking it will be the next bitcoin and become filthy rich. XRP (Ripple) is the perfect example of this psychology. Newcomers see a top 5 coin for cents on the dollar and figure they can either buy 0.08 of a bitcoin for — lets say — $2000usd or 8000 Xrp coins for the same amount of USD. They fail to realise market cap, circulating supply, BTC dominance and many other factors that contribute to price. The goal should be for percentage gains not how many coins you can buy and own — This is know as ‘Unit Bias’ where owning more of something gives the false sense that you have more value.
The chances of that alt coin ‘mooning’ and becoming the next big thing like BTC are very slim to none. Diversifying your portfolio is important and while Alt coins can see larger gains in bull markets (a market where the price is increasing), they can also lose 90%+ of their value in a bear market (a market where the price is decreasing). This ultimately is why I suggest the big 2 because BTC in a bear market will hold its value against USD better then ALT coins and will in fact GAIN value against Alts — while in a bull market — BTC will front run the charge before Alts, this means you will be able to shift profits into Alt coins later. The true aim of the game is about stacking/accumulating as many Sats as possible (Satoshi’s — One hundred millionth of a BTC or 0.00000001 BTC).
I should note that Market Cap is just a simple calculation of price x circulating supply. It is an important metric to learn and you will hear a lot about it during your journey. For example, if Bitcoin’s price (price is an average market price over various exchanges) is say — 50k USD per coin and its circulating supply is 18.8 million coins circulating then its market cap would be 50 thousand x 18.8 million which gives a market cap of 940 million.
Max supply — the maximum supply there will ever be
Total Supply — the current total of coins or tokens mined/minted in existence (including locked coins/tokens)
Circulating supply — the amount of coins mined or minted that are able to be traded on the market
Market Cap — Circulating Supply x Price = Market Cap
Where this calculation has its flaw is that a coins circulating supply isn’t directly related to how many coins are available on exchanges. Bitcoin may have a circulating supply of over 18.8 million coins but only a fraction of those coins might be liquid on exchanges. Low supply and high demand on exchanges is what drives price and market cap as mentioned above is just a simple calculation/formula.
It can however be a helpful tool in considering a coins potential. Next time someone says ‘Y hype coin’ is going to $50, look at that coins circulating supply and x it by that estimated $50 (or whatever the price may be). If its going to give that coin a higher market cap then BTC then its highly unlikely that the price will ever hit $50. Obviously there is a lot more factors to consider like liquidity on exchanges, token/coin burns and renumeration to name a few but it can give an indication of how likely or unlikely certain prices might be.
Secondly — don’t invest all your funds at once! The key to this is called DOLLAR COST AVERAGING!
Essentially the idea is to spread your capital over a period of time to get an average entry price — so let’s say you have 10k to invest, you should dollar-cost average that 10k into the market over an extended time frame.
For example - invest that 10k in 2k increments over a period of 5 weeks, even longer if you want but keep in mind the market moves up and down a lot faster than traditional markets.
Seriously, I can’t stress this part enough. No matter how many times I have suggested DCA as the best form of entry into the market for newcomers, everyone still seems to go in big instead! Even if you can only ‘micro invest’ small amounts into BTC, there are huge gains to be had. If you do not believe me — go to https://www.bitcoindollarcostaverage.com/ and see for yourself or see the picture below!
Crypto is a highly volatile market which means it can sometimes swing 10–20% in a day. You don’t want to invest that 10k at once and see your crypto investment drop 20% the next day, instantly losing 2k of your initial 10k investment.
If you dollar cost average you minimise that risk — you may not catch the bottom but you shouldn't be buying at the top either!
There are a few services I will mention further down that can help you dollar cost average into the market, a lot of exchanges now also offer recurring buys.
The only time it’s not worth dollar-cost averaging is if you have an understanding of technical analysis and can use your knowledge of the market to get your best entry. That knowledge comes from learning and experience gained over time! Whilst some people have ‘gone big’ and made large profits, my guess is there’s an equal (most likely larger) amount of people who have gone big near the top and either sold at a loss or have been feeling investment pain since December 2017 (the previous high of bitcoins price) until new all time highs were made in December 2020 and on wards.
Regardless if you are planning to invest and/or trade, as much as the cryptosphere may say otherwise, HODL’ing is not a viable investment strategy. HAVE A PLAN — take profits because while HODL’ing in a bull market might be viable, HODL’ing in a bear market is suicide. Set targets — Invest and trade with a plan. You won’t go broke taking profit and many — myself included — have learned this lesson the hard way. If your plan is to buy Bitcoin and check on it in 5 years time, there’s nothing wrong with that and in fact, for the vast majority of people, it is probably your best option. But buying something without a plan and hodling the asset with sheer hope of recovery or make a massive profit while its price falls off a cliff, is a fast way to lose your capital.
Thirdly — If you want to trade, spend time and money learning. If you are going to invest your hard-earned capital into a market, the best investment will be knowledge of the market and the skills to navigate through it. As a very generalised rule; any service offering guaranteed returns and is combined with referral payouts IS A SCAM and should be avoided! Don’t be lazy, take the time and effort! The end result will be worth it. The Crytpo space is littered with scams & scammers and extra care should be taken at all times.
Check out my article on the dirty truth about Crypto Influencers:
There’s some really good books and free content on YouTube. I highly suggest a book called ‘trading in the zone’ if you are interested in trading, with an audio version free on YouTube. There are countless other great books (mostly based off Forex trading) and endless YouTube ‘How To’ video guides. Seriously, if you don’t understand something, there’s usually a good chance someone has made a video explaining it.
WHICH CRYPTO TRADING COURSES AND WHY?
If the time comes and you decide you want to give trading a crack, I highly recommend the Market Mastery courses run by Kyle and Roman. They offer a very comprehensive and in depth course covering a wide range of content and tools to start and/or refine your abilities to navigate your way through the market. Their course is by far the best Cryptocurrency trading course I have done. They have also recently released an updated version ‘Market Mastery 2.0’ which is no doubt a step up from their previous version. They also have a YouTube channel’s and pump out some excellent free content. Kyle and Roman on top of that also run some Facebook groups and each have paid private Discord channels/communities of other traders and like minded people — these services are to take your education to the next level.
Another excellent course is The Chart Guys courses. These courses are broken down into modules but the modules are broken down into even shorter learning videos which can make learning easier to digest especially for time poor people as it makes it easy to walk away and continue where you left off without the overload of information. The course is still set around the basics in a very beginner-friendly style. You will learn more about common indicators, patterns and the foundations of trading (trends, support lines, etc). Dan also does hours of free content on YouTube so be sure to check that out as well.
Now, I haven’t actually done this course yet but have recently signed up so I can do a thorough review because I know some heavy hitters that have done and recommend this course as possibly the best trading course out there. Krown’s Trading ~ Krown’s Crypto Cave has been personally recommended to me by some professionals and hedge fund managers. It’s a fair stab more expensive than the others mentioned but by all accounts, If you have the spare cash and the price tag doesn’t scare you off — this might be your one stop shop for learning to trade.
I’ll be sure to update more details once I have finished this course.
In my original guide I also mentioned Trader Cobb’s courses. Craig was one of the first Aussie cryptocurrency courses shilled on a lot of Facebook groups. I contemplated removing his courses completely from this guide because I found it extremely basic and priced quite high for the content you receive, especially when comparing to Market Mastery and The Chart Guys superior courses HOWEVER — He has built up a following and his style may very well suit some newcomers as his courses are purely based around teaching a handful of strategies while the other courses are about teaching you the skills you need to build your own trading strategies. For this reason I decided to leave it in even tho I do not recommend it because you’ll pay a premium for the very basics of trading and a few basic rule based strategies — most of which you’ll be able to find for free if you spend long enough looking. He does offer some free content which may help you make up your mind if you think this may be the path you would like to go down.
Where To Learn More And Increase Knowledge!
Be warned, you may have to sift through a lot of posts and articles of people shilling whatever they have invested in but there are good places to get information and learning resources (and hopefully this helps you get there!). Also take care on which Crypto Influencers you follow, as they are just as likely to ‘shill’ a project in their own self-interest — always DYOR (Do Your Own Research) before investing in something.
There is really only one place you should go for the most comprehensive crypto content. And that place is collectiveshift. This should almost be everyone’s foundation for their Crypto building blocks regardless if you are new to this space or a seasoned pro (tho definitely a must have for beginners until you find your feet). The sheer amount of quality content is mind blowing from educational resources to daily update reports, research reports and analysis and possibly the best community I have been involved in. Being an early member in 2017 to this private group, it definitely helped shaped my crypto journey. It really is a ‘one stop shop’ for everything cryptocurrency related. It isn’t the cheapest subscription on the market but if you can afford a couple months worth, you should be able to milk enough starters content to start you down the rabbit hole. On a side not, as part of being a member — there’s also some excellent deals and discounts for various services, even to some of the services I mention in this guide.
As mentioned earlier, Kyle who does the Market Mastery trading courses also have their own discord communities. Buying their trading course also gives 1 month free access to his community. He also helps run one of the best Facebook groups out there— Crypto Paradox.
Kyle merged another well known Aussie trader’s community — Trader Troy aka Roman’s private discord community — BearBull — Into his Crypto Collective Community.
Kyle’s discord group — can be accessed from The Market Mastery website alternatively you can join his Facebook group — Crypto Collective-Market Mastery.
Crypto Australia is the largest Australian Facebook group run by Paul Smart. Be Warned tho, as with any and all large groups, there’s a lot of b*ullshit and miss information to sift through and a fair chunk of trolls, shilling and arguments BUT don’t let that spoil your experience, bring some popcorn and enjoy as there’s plenty of good content posted by many long standing contributors. Just be careful on taking financial and tax advice off complete strangers off Facebook.
Paul Litherland runs a Facebook page called Bitcoin / Crypto Beginners Guide for Aussies/NZers and also has a free discord group. Its a very friendly community with many members who are willing to help with advice and knowledge for newcomers, the most helpful and none toxic public crypto page for newcomers. Is also a very well managed group and Paul is a true gentleman in the space!
The Crypto Mastermind with Trader Travis does an excellent Defi Mastery course that is well worth the investment and also has a Facebook page where he share charts and his market insights.
Other noteworthy or large Facebook groups of note in random order; Crypto Traders, The Crypto Den, Crypto Warriors, Crypto Coin Trader (possibly the largest group), Cryptocurrency, Cryptocurrency Investing and many many more.
Security And Safe Guarding Your Crypto
Before I get into where to buy from (brokers) and which exchanges to use (trading)...
There are some really important safety steps that should be taken. I find that this is an aspect that gets overlooked far too often and maybe one of THE most important steps when starting off.
Crypto is full of scammers and hackers and some people have lost millions due to unsafe practices.
There’s a saying in the cryptosphere ‘NOT YOUR KEY’S, NOT YOUR CRYPTO!’ You are your own bank — brokers and exchanges can only be trusted to a certain extent. Your funds are safest in a wallet which YOU control.
NEVER EVER EVER SHARE YOUR PRIVATE KEYS WITH ANYONE!
#1 Open up a new email address — I’d suggest using Protonmail.
This email address will be purely for anything crypto-related so use it whenever you sign up to a broker or exchange.
Do not use the email for anything else.
Personally I have multiple emails attached to different exchanges, brokers and services to give added protection should an email address become compromised.
#2 Make a strong password containing upper case, lower case, numbers, and a symbol.
Never have your account name and password auto-saved to auto-fill. Ever.
You also shouldn’t use the same password for everything.
Password management is important and there are programs and apps that can do this for you.
I do things a little old school and have dozens of variations of a specific key password, can make my own management a bit of a task but I do have backups stored in a safe location should I even forget.
#3 Download Google Authenticator. It’s a 2FA (2 form authentication) which will give you a new code every 30 seconds on your phone or tablet etc. Whenever you sign into an exchange or broker, it will ask for the code after you have initially logged in — it won’t let you proceed (or anyone else) without the code.
*** VERY IMPORTANT ***
Once you set up an account with a broker or exchange, you should then add your 2FA via their platform. They will give you a written code with a QR code that you can scan with Google Authenticator — PRINT THIS PAGE OUT!! — and then store this print out somewhere private and safe. Scanning this code and entering it when asked will activate 2FA, and will then clear the backup codes forever unless printed, copied or saved. For obvious reasons, it's not the best idea to keep a copy on your computer. Same goes for all exchanges and brokers you sign up to. That way if you ever break your phone or tablet, you can just reload Google Authenticator onto another device and re-enter/scan those codes onto the new device. If you don’t have it backed up, it can take days to weeks before exchanges and brokers will allow you to have access to your account and usually it will only be unlocked by sending large amounts of proof of identity. Then they can and in most cases, will manually remove your 2FA code re-granting you access to your account/funds…
Obviously, store these codes somewhere safe.
I personally have a fire/water resistant/proof safe at home I keep all this in.
I will also be getting a bank safety deposit box to keep spares and instructions for my wife should anything ever happen to me as a backup.
4# It’s very important you bookmark and even add shortcuts to the broker/exchange sites on your homepage or in a file on your phone/computer.
One of the most common scams that I see and hear often are sites being created almost identical to the proper exchanges with only a very slight variation to the web address. Traders and investors will simply type in a web address which directs them to the fake site (or click an email link), where they proceed with their login and password. Scammers now have the means to login to the proper exchange and steal funds! Quite an easy mistake to make. Obviously, THIS is the idea behind having Google Authenticator - It puts a to stop to that.
Those are your basic steps and honestly almost makes you bulletproof, but there’s plenty more you can do to protect yourself.
More Advanced Security Measures...
Every time you log in to an account or trade, do it through a VPN. Not essential but it gives you an added layer of protection. If you are connecting to a public WiFi, it’s a must.
Express VPN and Nord VPN are very highly rated and reliable VPNs but feel free to do your own research as there are many out there. I personally prefer Express VPN due to its faster speeds. Nord VPN is usually cheaper but both also allows you to pay in Bitcoin! 30 day free referral using Express VPN Link.
Brave Browser should become your main default internet browser. It’s fast, secure, open-source and blocks Ads & trackers. Plus you can earn BAT tokens as a reward for looking at Ads. Google chrome is still a decent choice.
If you are looking at investing over a couple thousand dollars, I’d highly suggest investing in what’s called a hardware wallet.
I have both a ledger nano S and ledger nano X and highly recommend them both. Trezor is also a very popular multi-coin hardware wallet. Ledger did have a data hack and emails, address’ and names of clients who had signed up to their marketing campaign had their info sold then later leaked online by hackers. Ledger despite this breach is still a perfectly safe hardware wallet and this data breach in no way affects the integrity of the device itself but has caused people to fall to scams from fake ledger emails directing them to fake ledger sites asking for private seed phrase codes. Unfortunately many people have fallen victim to these scams.
However, combine the hardware wallet with the ledger live desktop app and your funds are SAFU (Very safe)!
Hardware wallets require you to physically confirm a transaction so there’s no way someone can hack you and send/steal your funds.
I have two links for discounts to buy Ledger nano s/x as well as other hardware wallets. One — CoinStop — offers a small discount on all types and brands of hardware wallets and is an Australian based authorised seller — use the link and type in FIDDSY in the discount code section. The other is a discount to Ledger in France which you need to use the link then when in checkout put in the coupon code FRIEND-QVD6Z78 for a 20% off discount. The Ledger discount is substantially larger however is only for Ledger and not other hardware wallets.
If you are investing larger sums.
Get a new laptop.
It doesn’t need to be anything fancy.
Use it purely for crypto and implement all the safety procedures I have just outlined. ** No visiting questionable adult sites or torrent downloads on it! **
If you opt for a new laptop/desktop computer, the OS (operating system) can make the world of difference in how secure your device is.
A windows system is the least safe but easiest to use.
A mac system is a middle ground.
A Linux system (which I run) is the safest but hardest to use.
If you decide to get a custom laptop and splash a little cash, I went with and recommend a Metabox laptop with Linux or windows as OS (operating system), the former if not very tech savvy. It will have enough GPU power to run multiple monitors as shown further below. Obviously there’s plenty of alternative ways to ‘bulletproof’ yourself but you will be ahead of most with what I have just outlined.
CRYPTOCURRENCY MINING
What is it? How does it work? Is it worth it? I’ll try my best to break this down as its not the easiest questions to answer without confusing you beyond repair even tho I am personally mining and even own a small mining operation/business. The idea of passively earning crypto 24/7 is definitely an attractive idea but how profitable is it?
What is it and how does it work? Many Blockchains run of a proof of work system (PoW) which requires members of the network (miners) to compete against each other for validating transactions and mining new tokens. Miners are rewarded in Bitcoin or whatever currency they are ‘mining’.
Generally speaking, to do this requires very specialised and powerful hardware which runs a specific algorithm to solve the equations. These are very power hungry machines which are built to run a singular algorithm however some blockchains can be mined using the power of graphics cards to solve different equations. Either way, a lot of electrical power is required and used with heat and noise being a common byproduct.
To put this into perspective, a small L3+ Litecoin miner uses a similar amount of energy a day that a microwave would running on high for 24 hours with the added bonus of being about as noisy as a hairdryer or loud vacuum.. 24/7.. Now these are old and outdated machines, newer ones are even more power hungry and loud but far far more powerful and efficient in mining.
So is it worth it? Short answer is no.
Longer answer is while it can be profitable, in the vast majority of cases — it isn't worth it. Miners and graphics cards are not cheap. Graphics cards can range in price from hundreds to thousands of dollars, while miners can range from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. To ROI (return on investment) on the hardware alone can take well over a year and that is without considering running cost and maintenance. In Australia, power is expensive so almost every single miner available (except a handful of expensive miners) on the market would be mining at a loss with how today’s power prices are. So in reality, if you have the funds required to buy and setup a mining operation, you are in fact better off just buying Bitcoin or whatever asset outright, especially while Bitcoin and the whole cryptocurrency market is currently down and being able to sell in the next bull run for many times more than what your bought it at.
So when is it profitable? Well, you need a unique situation or multiple situations to line up..
#1 The most obvious is access to cheap or even free power. I know what you are thinking.. SOLAR! Well, yes and no. Solar has the ability to obtain cheap or even free power but to utilise it you need batteries and a large amount of solar panels/space. Most places in Aus get around 6–8 hours of optimal sunlight per day which leaves 66%–75% of a 24hr day outside of optimal ‘production’. Mining purely during this optimal period, you would almost never ROI or spin a profit. Unfortunately even if you had a huge amount of solar, you need batteries to store the excess power but batteries are not cost effective and are extremely expensive so once again.. Not worth it. Solar is a great way to decrease your bill especially if you can combined with wholesale or commercial power supply. As an added bonus, adding excess power back to the grid can also offset some of the costs. If you happen to already have batteries installed and plenty of excess power spare — then you are in a good position.
#2 Access to a reputable wholesaler for hardware. The cheaper you can get the hardware, the quicker you can ROI. You can save thousands of dollars per unit finding the right seller. With an extended bear market, miners are starting to come down in price due to the profitability being.. rubbish..
#3 Immersion cooling. You cut the noise down to almost silent operation but more importantly, its a far more effective cooling system. Superior cooling lets you overclock your miners meaning you can push them harder and earn more. Plus, immersion cooling also removes a lot of maintenance as your units are kept dust free.
#4 A business loan. If you have the capital available on hand then it makes zero sense to get into mining when you can just buy the Bitcoin at a lower price and sell it at a higher price. However, if you do not have the capital and you are able to tick off some of the unique positions I mentioned above, then a loan is a viable option. If you can get a loan with a decent interest rate over an extended period of time, then you can build a position by selling enough to cover your outgoings and banking any excess mined Cryptocurrency to sell during the next bull market.
There are other options to mining like Staking (PoS / Proof of Stake) to earn a percentage-rate reward over time or even mining coins like HNT which works differently to traditional miners. HNT (Helium Network) is a giant LongFi network — think of people putting small cell towers on their roof to create a giant decentralised network — where the ‘miners’ are actually more like WiFi routers and you get rewards for being part of the network. The hardware is relatively cheap and the running costs use about the same amount of power as a light bulb, unfortunate the profitability has taken a huge nose dive due to market conditions as well as some bad decision making from the developers that have had less than desirable outcomes for the project and coin.
As far as traditional mining goes, just keep DCA into BTC and build a position for the next bull run.
Now for the bit, you probably want to hear!
Getting money into crypto via brokers.
Best Australian Brokers In My Opinion (not in any particular order).
Coinspot
Independent reserve
Btc markets
Coinjar
Swyftx
Caleb & Brown
Localbitcoins
I recommend signing up with all of them. Each has their Pro’s and Con’s but all are great platforms.
Further down in the best trading exchanges for traders section, I Mention Binance as one of the best exchanges that has the lowest fee’s, tightest spreads and best selection of coins. In fact these Australian Exchanges and Brokers actually use these large international exchanges as LIQUIDITY PROVIDERS. This means that they are ‘piggy backing’ off these exchanges and putting on their fee/margin on top so generally speaking, these type of exchanges are the cheapest and most efficient way to get AUD (binance had zero fee AUD deposits but that promotion may have ended by the time you read this!) into the market however most people do find these bigger exchanges far FAR to confusing.
A handy tool for a quick look at Ask (buy), Bid (sell) and Spread (difference between the ask and bid price) is this awesome website. This does not account for fee’s however so please read the breakdown of each below this.
https://cheapcryptoaustralia.com/
Coinspot is probably the most beginner-friendly and easiest to use platform, their fee’s are high but they have a really good selection of alt coins to invest in.
The downside is that there are cheaper fee’s on other platforms and their spread can be sub-par (if not terrible), which means you will pay more for the coins then what their actual value is.
It isn’t much of an issue if you stick with the platform — so buy and sell through them only or send funds there to sell if the arbitrage is good.
If you are planning on sending funds off their platform, I’d suggest using someone else. As I said above, they do have a very easy and friendly platform with a huge selection of alt coins (something around 180?) so it makes it a good ‘one-stop-shop’ place. DO NOT TRADE on Coinspot, its an excellent fiat in and fiat out platform but fee’s and spread will kill your balance if you attempted to actively trade on a regular basis.
I have and still use Coinspot but it is more of a buy and hold platform. Use link directly below for $10 of free BTC once you make your first deposit.
Swyftx I would consider possibly the best all round Aussie exchange. I’ve started using more recently myself, its a good platform with very competitive fee’s at .6% and a good spread, they also have an excellent selection of over 200 coins but most importantly there’s a couple more advanced order types/options. So far so good and I have been and plan to use it more in the future. Their customer service is also above and beyond. The only downfall is deposits of AUD get converted to USD which can get a bit confusing for newcomers but it does mean spreads are tighter which saves in the long run. Unlike Coinspot and Digital Surge, you won’t out grow this platform as fast. It’s a great place for retail trading without leverage while staying away from some of the more advanced and confusing major international exchanges. In saying that, Swyftx is a great gateway platform to those larger exchanges should you wish to branch out into more advanced trading.
Definitely, see Swyftx as a great alternative to Coinspot and even a superior platform. Relatively new Australian broker/exchange but with an excellent reputation so far! Referral below.
Independent Reserve, BTC Markets, and CoinJar are a little more long-standing and reputably advanced brokers.
I highly recommend Independent Reserve. It has less coin options but usually has the best spreads with VERY low fee’s plus larger daily/weekly deposit and withdrawal amounts. It is and has been my “go-to” brokerage since getting into cryptocurrency and still is my preferred fiat on ramp.
Still the best on the ramp in my opinion and my main entry and exit platform. I do generally send purchases of BTC, ETH and LTC to other international exchanges to trade so this platform is perfect for my use case.
BTC markets are similar but with smaller deposit’s and withdrawals, and has a few more altcoin options. Overall a really good broker with decent volume.
Coinjar I have an account with but have not actually deposited through them.
The rather ‘cool’ thing they do differently is you can order an eftpos card via them and load it with crypto to spend on every day items.
Conversion rate is probably is not the best but it’s a good way to spend profits.
Use this link and get verified to get 500 free CoinJar Reward Points, these points can be used on various services, subscriptions, discounts, gift cards and more!
Localbitcoins is like a Gumtree for Bitcoin — person to person cash/money for Bitcoin.
Caleb and brown are for large purchases — I think their bare minimum was 10k however I believe they have recently dropped this minimum to 2k. They can do very large transactions into the million+ dollars almost instantly.
Another option I didn’t mention above is Coinbase.
You can also link your debit/credit card to Coinbase to do instant purchases but you unfortunately can’t withdraw AUD from the platform (USD/EUD only). Which means you would need to send your crypto funds to one of the brokers I mentioned or a 3rd party business to sell/spend your crypto like livingroomofsatoshi (LRoS).
I used to use these LRoS regularly to pay bills, but find these days its a very quick process to send and sell assets on exchanges and deposit back directly to bank accounts.
However — Coinbase does have quite a good reward system called Coinbase Rewards which in short rewards you with various coins for watching short videos and filling out a survey at the end on those coins. While they have decreased some of these rewards you can still earn over $30 USD worth of various coins plus if using the link below, after buying or depositing over $100 worth, you get an additional $10 worth of BTC.
If you are cash poor, using rewards and referral links are an excellent way to increase your exposure with minimal capital outlay. link below for Coinbase.
https://www.coinbase.com/join/fiddes_r
There are also two more services that you can invest in crypto with very little effort. Getpaidinbitcoin for weekly investing (perfect for dollar-cost averaging into the market) and Bamboo — a micro investing application.
Getpaidinbitcoin You nominate a specific amount of your take home pay after tax to be wired by your payroll to the service. As an example — Use your nominated amount (let's say $100 a week) of your pay to be converted into BTC ($100 worth of BTC). It’s a great set and forget service which gives you exposure to dollar cost averaging into the market. The purchased BTC then gets sent directly to a wallet of your choice where you can use your funds as digital money for purchases, or to build up your portfolio.
I should mention, a lot of brokers and exchanges now offer recurring purchase orders which also allow you to dollar cost average into the market however I still use Getpaidinbitcoin every week as I love that it comes out of my primary wage before hitting my bank account.
Another platform that focuses’ on micro-investing (which is still in early release and the app is only for IOS currently) is Bamboo.
Bamboo is linked to your bank account and does round up purchases weekly.
So let’s say you buy some breakfast and coffee for $46 — it will automatically round it off to $50 and do that for all your purchases throughout the week. It will then round up the ‘loose change’ once a week to invest into crypto automatically.
It’s still in its early stages but could be a great alternative way to get into the market. I’ll be waiting for the Android version to be released which shouldn’t take to long if the team keep making headway. However - it is a simple Fiat in and Fiat out service so you don’t actually own the cryptocurrency. You do get to choose where it gets invested and can re-balance your portfolio free of charge at any point.
Wallets!!
Once you have purchased your crypto — you have three options, leave on the broker's account (not advised), send to an exchange to trade (including trading for alt coins the broker may not have) and/or send to your wallet(s).
It’s not advised to leave large sums on brokers or exchanges because sometimes they get hacked and funds were stolen OR they go broke and run off with your funds. The best option is always to put any funds your not actively trading into wallets.
This happened with Mt. Gox way back in 2014 and more recently with FTX in late 2022. NOT YOUR KEYS, NOT YOUR CRYPTO!
Now not to confuse you but your cryptocurrency isn’t actually stored in/on your wallet. Your crypto is actually on the blockchain and your wallet acts as a medium/interface where your private key is — the private key gives you a proof of ownership. Lose your keys and your crypto is lost. A public key is your personal wallet address for receiving or sending transactions, a private key is your ownership. Always keep a copy of your private key or backup phrase somewhere safe.
The most common wallets are Hot wallets and hardware wallets.
As mentioned further above, Hardware wallets require you to physically confirm transactions via your device. Your private keys are stored on that device. The device comes with a 12–24-word seed phrase that links via cryptography to your private key so if you lose or break your device, you can reload onto a new device. Never lose your word seed phrase! Always make sure you purchase your hardware wallet from an authorized dealer.
I recommend Ledger nano X, Ledger Nano S, Trezor T, Trezor One and KeepKey — link to authorised Australian dealer Coinstop above in this guide for a discount or direct link and discount from Ledger for around 20%
Hot wallets refer to any cryptocurrency wallet that is connected to the internet. These are not as safe as hardware wallets but are by far the most common wallets and include IOS, Android and Desktop wallets. They are fast and easy to set up but largely rely on you and your devices security. Without going into every wallet, listed below are some of the most well known and my personal favorite wallets. Most of these are multi-wallets (supports multiple coins), but I have included some on chain/coin specific wallets.
EXODUS — Is easy to use multi-coin desktop wallet which has an excellent, beautiful, clean and crisp interface. Probably the most popular desktop wallet from what most reviews say and from the few polls I have conducted. It also has a mobile App.
MEW — myetherwallet is for Ethereum and all ETH based tokens which are arguably the majority of tokens. You can also use a ledger hardware wallet via the MEW interface.
Ledger Live — Whilst not specifically a hot wallet, it is a desktop application/interface for your Ledger Hardware wallet.
JAXX Liberty, Trust Wallet, Coinomi and Mycelium are all well known, highly rated and common mobile wallets, some of those also do a desktop version.
Electrum is a highly rated and used Bitcoin Desktop wallet.
Ledger live with Ledger Hardware wallet is my main wallet, Mew and Exodus.
TRADING AND TECHNICAL ANALYSIS BASICS
Originally I decided to completely leave this section out of this guide and have slowly been working on a larger more detailed trading guide but over the years I’ve noticed that even tho I have always recommended the dollar cost average method to everyone who first dips their toes into this market — I came to the shock realisation that most ignored that part of advice and jumped into the market with both feet out of pure FOMO.
Make no mistake, trading is a zero sum game. As a trader, it is my goal to turn your capital into my capital. This isn’t some happy utopia where everyone gets rich. There is someone on the other side of every trade betting the opposite to you. Why are they selling? Why are you buying? Why are they buying? Why are you selling? Who are you trading against? Make no mistake, trading is a ruthless game! There are professionals, institutional buyers, experienced traders and people a lot smarter and experienced than you on the other side of that screen who treat retail investors and new traders like cannon fodder. We all love the people who can’t wait and FOMO into this market thinking they will be the next Jordan Belfort (The wolf of wall street) because it means fresh easy money and we get richer — we turn your capital into our capital and we won’t lose a wink of sleep over it. Your loss is our gain.
BUT if you are going to ignore my dollar cost average advice then I may as well teach you a few of the pure basics so you can at least have a entry level understanding.
Make no mistake — you are not Jordan Belfort and nor is trading easy money. Majority of traders liquidate accounts or lose money and it takes years of practice to master any job and trading is no different for the vast majority of people. There will always be an exception to the rule but just like gamblers, you very rarely hear of traders losses. I’ve had 75 ETH liquidated in a single trade before. I’ve lost multiple Bitcoins over the initial years trading but I continued to learn and refine my strategies and master my entries and exits. I can now confidently say — I’m a successful trader.
First and foremost, you need to forget everything you see in Hollywood movies. Trading is about protecting capital followed by building wealth from that capital. You do this by learning RISK MANAGEMENT. Risk management will teach you how to protect your capital, how big your position sizes should be, how much leverage to use and where your stop loss should be. And although I just said its possibly THE most important thing to learn, I’m actually not going to cover it because this isn't a trading guide!
Orders — A Quick Explanation.
Market order — Buying/Selling at the current market price.
Limit order — Buying/Selling at a specific set price.
Stop Loss — Order trigger’s a market sell at a specific price.
Stop Limit — Also known as a ‘trigger order’ — At a specific price trigger’s a sell limit order.
Trailing Stop — A stop-loss order that trails your order with a specific gap you set.
OCO — ‘One Cancels the Other’ lets you place two orders at once and whichever trigger’s first will clear the other.
Identifying where we are in the market and the flow of money !
Before I cover some Basic TA (technical analysis), it’s important to realise where we are in the market cycle. Basically the majority of market cycles run the same boom and bust blue print. Realising where you are in this cycle is important to maximise your returns.
THE WALL ST CHEAT SHEET
This Wall ST Cheat Sheet gives the perfect psychology of the market. As the famous investor Warren Buffett said ‘be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful’. As an investor your ultimate goal should be to buy low and sell high, if you can identify what stage you are in, you should be able to streamline your trading/investing plan for maximum financial gain & profit. How does one gauge these area’s in the market you ask? Sentiment and charts. Using sentiment — during the Euphoria stage, BTC/Crypto will be getting a lot of media attention, people will be posting rocket emoji’s and talking about moon and lambo’s, early retirement and posting wild price predictions. And when you get large amounts of the average Joe’s off the street telling everyone what to buy like he’s the new Crypto King of trading and investing, who’s also giving other newcomers tips on what to buy.. It’s probably getting close to the time to take some profits. Similarly, the opposite is true when in the depression stage. ‘Bitcoin is dead!’ ‘Bitcoin is going to zero!’ ‘Bitcoin is a scam and a ponzi!’ — Facebook groups will be quiet, hardly anyone will be posting or talking about it. This doesn’t give any guarantee of where you are but it can give an understanding of where you are buying or selling and maybe even why if you look deep enough into your emotions that has caused you to enter or bail out of the market.
Now I wouldn’t rely on sentiment alone. Far FAR from it. You need to look at a chart, even if it looks like hieroglyphics to you — you should still be able to identity these depression and euphoria stages based off the wall street cheat sheet above. The euphoria stage can quite clearly be seen here on the weekly BTC/USD chart (each candle represents one week of price action — green means price closed higher than it opened and red means price closed lower than it opened). Price went parabolic from around October onward and is seen increasing rapidly on a sharp incline from around 4k USD to just under 20k USD — a price increase of around 460% — until December where we then see huge sell offs, rapid price decline followed by a steady decrease and finally a long period of price consolidation.
The depression stage can be identified by a long period of time where price has consolidated at very low levels compared to the peak highs. You can see this ‘zone’ at the end of 2018 into early 2019. Price stayed in this zone for months trading in a very tight range. It’s always easy to look at a chart’s history and figure out in hindsight at what times certain phases happened but picking the top and bottom based off real time price action is extremely hard. In 2017 people were calling 100k to 1 million dollars a Bitcoin. In 2018 Bitcoins price found strong support at 6k USD (I will cover support and resistance further down) and the vast majority of people were calling the bottom at 6k USD. When price broke through that support and crashed down to 3K USD, many were calling for another final drop to 1–2k USD but 3k was the bottom. The thing is, in real-time, it’s very hard to pick and the majority of people were wrong but there were signs both from sentiment and on the chart. Make no mistake, we are currently parabolic at the time of writing and posting this chart but that doesn’t necessarily mean we are near the top. There’s no knowing just how high or far price can be pumped during these parabolic runs, especially when the media and masses start piling in hoping to get rich quick and for awhile they will, they will get euphoric and they will eventually get rekt.
THE MARKET MONEY FLOW CHEAT SHEET!
Looking at capitalising off Bitcoins bull run and chasing after gains from alt coins? Well then, memorise this cheat sheet! This money flow works on the over all market but also happens on a more ‘micro’ level. As you can see, Fiat money gets deposited to buy Bitcoin, Bitcoins price will increase. Traders and investors will then shift profit into large cap alts (your ‘blue chip’ top 20 coins) to chase percentage gains. Those large cap alts will increase so profit moves again to mid caps then to low caps. Profit then filters back into fiat and Bitcoin.
In 2017 and currently, Bitcoin price has increased by a large amount. Alts will usually then play catch up and money will then flow into high caps. You’ll often hear this period called and known as ALT Season. Generally when alt season happens, you will see higher percentage gains then Bitcoin. In fact many of top alt coins had 1000%+ (10x) gains, mid caps and low caps went beyond crazy and some even went 100x their price! This alt season doesn't last long however. Profit shifts back into fiat currency and Bitcoin. This period is pure FOMO will crash and crash hard and many investors get felt holding bags of worthless coins! When the 2017 bull run came to its end, money mostly left the market, alt prices got slaughtered and many never and will never recover. Bitcoin — while still being a safe haven during the bear market also wasn't immune to this drop, It lost roughly 84% of its value against the USD but many alt coins lost over 97% of their value. This is why I generally suggest new investors stick with BTC and ETH. They are both still high risk assets in a high risk market but when you look at pump and dump volatility of smaller alts — you could consider them blue chips and about as safe as one can get in this market.
While the money flow cycle works on the over all market cycle, It is also a very effective tool for traders because this money flow also happens on a more micro scale. The overall market is constantly having this same cycle play out over and over again on small time frames. Understanding this and using basic Technical Analysis is how you can start to maximise your entries and exits.
THE BASICS OF TRADING!
This is also where TA (technical analysis) comes into the traders tool kit — and as a trader, while your end goal is the same as the investor (buy low — sell high), your journey will be different. More importantly the process is about building wealth by chasing regular percentage gains and compounding your profits no matter where you are in the market cycle. The key basic lessons for this is identifying the trend and identifying key levels of support & resistance and basic candle sticks. At it’s most simplistic core, trading is buying at support and selling at resistance.
TREND
Firstly, you will need to identity if we are in a bull market — an uptrend (price increasing) or a bear market — downtrend (price decreasing).
An Uptrend is a series of higher highs (HH) in price and higher lows (HL) in price.
A downtrend is the polar opposite — a series of lower lows (LL) in price and lower highs (LH) in price.
The reason this is an important first step is because statistically, there’s a higher percentage chance that the trend will continue which means you should be looking to buy/long in an uptrend and short (explained further down) in a downtrend. It’s a rather universal saying in trading that ‘trend is friend’ which basically means trade the same direction as the trend. The best time frames to consult on trend are the higher time frames — the daily time frame and up. The higher the time frame, the more information/price action each candle has — the larger the information, the more accurate the trend will be and don’t be afraid to consult multiple time frames. The more time frames in agreement, the stronger the trend will be.
Support and resistance
There are many different aspects of support and resistance ranging from psychological levels, trend lines, horizontal lines, moving averages and Fibonacci levels. I will give examples of them all. In short — during an up trend — resistance is a level price will reject off and sell volume will suppress price and outweigh the buying momentum. The more rejections at this level, the stronger the resistance will be. Support in an uptrend is also a level where buyers will step in and suppress price and beat selling volume. Visa-versa in a down trend. Importantly — when resistance is broken, it often flips and becomes support. The same can be said for support. When support is broken, it often flips into resistance. Ideally you want to enter a trade at support and take profit (TP) at resistance. If you can successfully do this with proper risk management, you have taken your first steps into the world of trading.
Psychological support and resistance
While pretty much all support and resistance areas are psychological levels. More often than not tho, psychological levels refer to BIG ROUND NUMBERS and/or previous market highs and/or lows.
In this chart, you can see three very clear psychological big round numbers in play. $40000 USD is the latest level price has rejected from and is the latest resistance to form. When an asset pushes new all time highs, these psychological levels become some of the key area’s you as a trader or investor should be looking at taking some profit. $20000 USD is also an excellent example as not only is it a big round number but was also the high of the 2017 bull run. As you can see — on this current bull run, BTC found resistance at and around the 20k mark for three weeks before breaking that resistance and pushing new highs. $10000 USD is the perfect example of support flipping to resistance — resistance flipping to support multiple times.
Horizontal Support and Resistance
In this chart, while there are multiple levels I can use, I’ll stick with the 10k and also add the 6k for a cleaner, clearer and less messy chart.
If you look closely, you can see that quite often once resistance is broken, price will retest that level to see if it becomes support. Traders like myself will often look at these resistance/support areas for a retest to get an entry into a trade. Similarly, you can flip short at resistance and make money when the price drops. Pullbacks into support are often your bread and butter when trading the trend.
Trend Lines
Point A to point B create a trend. If price hits the trend line again then point C confirms the trend. As a general rule, the more times the trend is tested — the higher the chance the trend will break. This rule is also true for horizontal support and resistance as well.
Fibonacci Retracement
Now I don’t call myself FibonacciFiddsy for no reason. Fibonacci trades are generally some of my best and most profitable trades. If you haven't gone down the Fibonacci rabbit hole, be careful because you may just have your mind blown. Don’t ask me how and why they work.. They just do! You can always go on that journey yourself! Fibonacci levels, more specifically the .618 level is a strong level of support and resistance. In a down trend you draw your Fib level from the highest price point to the lowest price point of a move.
In an up trend you would draw your Fib from the low price point of that move to the high price point of that move. What I love about Fibs is that it works on all time frames. You can also layer multiple Fib retracements for even stronger support (fibs layered from multiple runs). These are excellent for bounce plays when there is a fast pullback as you can have these orders pre planned.
Moving Averages
As the name implies, moving average is quite simply the average of X amount of candles charted in a line. The most commonly used are the 200, 100, 50, 20 and 10 daily moving averages. These moving averages can act as support and resistance. There is also EMA (exponential moving average) which takes more weight in the more recent candles. Both are effective and often come down to personal preference.
Putting these tools together
Once you start to combine all these different types of support and resistance, you will start to notice patterns and shapes. Levels and zones where multiple support and/or resistances over lap. Shapes and patterns often have a high strike rate of success. Multiple areas of support all concentrated in the same area gives an powerful zone to buy from just as an area with a lot of concentrated resistance makes for a good area to take profit or flip short. Drawing in these lines will help you identify these shapes and patterns.
A couple of Quick candle and pattern cheat sheets!
These cheat sheets mixed with the basics of trading and TA should give you at least a little understanding on what you are looking at. Hopefully they inspire you to take your education further or at the very least stop you from FOMO’ing in at the wrong time.
Right — lastly… Exchanges.
You should sign up to at least these exchanges!
Some of these exchanges excel in spot buying, margin trading or both.
I’ll start with my three favourite and most used exchanges. Between the three, I have almost all my needs as a trader met.
Bitfinex — is an easy to use exchange and trading platform that I believe has the best UI (user interface) of all the exchanges with lots of advanced order options, 3.3x to 10x cross leverage, ability to open sub accounts, a large selection of alt coins with leverage and decent volume.
It’s my favourite platform for trading BTC & alts with leverage and also one of the best for trading because of the amount of order options one has available. Bitfinex used to have a strict 10k USD entry to unlock trading but this was removed opening the doors to more people and traders. It’s a long standing cryptocurrency exchange and I trust it as much as I trust any exchange in this space.
Binance — the largest crypto exchange and the largest amount of real volume (or at least one of the largest) and has a very large selection of alt coins — bigger volume generally means better prices and less slippage on trading.
Binance has also added margin trading and futures trading in recent times. It has truly become a Juggernaut in the crypto world and has been sucking up the vast market share. It is and possibly has replaced BitMEX as the go to traders exchange. This is still my ‘go to’ exchange for spot trading and specifically spot trading alts.
Other exchanges — also worth having accounts for access to coins and tokens that may not be available on other exchanges.
Bittrex — a solid exchange that has been around for a long time, has a good volume and good selection of coins. Between Binance and Bittrex you will have a lot of alt coins covered.
Kucoin — is a smaller exchange, has a less volume of coins but usually adds a lot of new coins/tokens. If it’s a good coin they will eventually get listed on a major exchange but usually start on exchanges like Kucoin first, which means if you do your research you can sometimes buy a coin/token on there before it goes to a major exchange. If it makes it onto a major exchange you will see massive gains as the price will usually have a large increase.
BitMEX (Binance’s competitor as the largest bitcoin volume exchange) is for advanced traders that can leverage up to 100x.
The platform itself needs a massive upgrade and options for alts are limited.
I would suggest avoiding it until you a fair chunk of experience. I have and sometimes do use it but very VERY rarely these days due to the platform struggling at times. My personal opinion is anything over 10x is just gambling. There a better options that BitMEX these days but I’d be crazy not to include this exchange.
PrimeXBT is a new exchange that also offers 100x leverage and will be interesting to see if it can compete with any of the big boys. By all accounts its solid and easy to use platform. I have created an account with them but have only just done my first deposit to PrimeXBT. I am personally impressed with what I have seen on their platform and would definitely say it’s more ‘user-friendly’ than BitMEX. Time will tell with this exchange, and I will update in the future regarding this platform!
I also have accounts with Okex, Houbi Pro, Kraken and Poloniex. All are good platforms and very similar but I rare use — leverage offered on these exchanges is around 5x.
You can use all of them as a normal exchange to spot trade coins/tokens without leverage but really there is not much point if you have the other exchanges I mentioned. No harm in signing up with them all, its always good practice to spread your trading funds over a few accounts and there may be opportunities to take advantage of arbitrage.
Leverage And Margin Trading
As for leverage/margin trading. Try to avoid doing it until you have some experience because its a quick way to get REKT.
If this option is used correctly you can make a lot of money. A very simple explanation of the option would be — MARGIN is the process of borrowing funds to trade and LEVERAGE is the amount of funds you can borrow.
Leverage works by borrowing funds off your capital and using your capital as security.
Example — Let’s say I have 1 bitcoin that’s worth 10k USD on Bitfinex.
I can leverage that 1 BTC at a max of x5 - so I can make a trade with that 1 BTC to 5BTC or 50k USD.
If It goes up, you net the profit when you sell, if it goes down... you lose x5 plus you still need to pay back the borrowed funds. If your trade/account gets low enough, your account gets wiped (liquidated).
Higher risk / higher reward. If you're going to start trading with margin, use a dummy/demo account and start with small amounts.
The other good thing about leverage/margin is you can short the market.
Going LONG means you buy expecting it to go up and make money when it goes up, but you can also bet the market will go down (SHORT) so you make money when the markets going down by betting against the asset.
Some exchanges allow up to 100x leverage which is insane in crypto however when used right can be a handy tool in the tool kit of a trader!
There are some really handy mobile applications and websites that are worth having, whether its for tracking your portfolio, charting or for accounting/tax purposes.
Australian Crypto Tax Calculator is exactly what the title says, Cointracking can be a real hassle to setup for the guys from Asutralian Crypto Tax Calculator have tried to streamline this service to make it even easier to work out your tax obligations.
CoinTracking - Bitcoin & Digital Currency Portfolio/Tax Reporting. In short, you can track your portfolio, can upload your trade history and CoinTracking will work out your profit/loss history for tax purposes.
Delta and Blockfolio are two of the most common mobile apps for tracking your portfolio balance. Sometimes they do bug out and may show the wrong amounts.
Coinmarketcap, Livecoinwatch, and Altcoinindex are three fantastic sites worth bookmarking.
Coinmarketcap shows current average coin price across exchanges, volume, circulating supply and market cap including ranking among many other options.
Livecoinwatch is an alternative to Coinmarketcap but allows you some awesome options of watchlists and custom portfolio tracking.
Athcoinindex is similar yet again but focuses’ on the all-time high (ATH) prices, how long since ATH and what percentage from ATH the coin currently is.
For tracking Bitcoin, Ethereum and other transactions.
A Must Have For Charting — TRADINGVIEW
Tradingview is THE GO TO charting platform for traders. They have a range of options from free to paid subscriptions. The free version is very adequate but does have limited options on indicators. Personally, I recommend the Pro or Pro+ for the extra options and indicators if you are planning to regularly trade or day trade. They do have a premium subscription as well but I found the Pro+ more than service all my needs!
This link will give you a $30 USD discount for any paid subscriptions within Tradingview. However, the best time to sign up to Tradingview is during Black Friday sales and cyber Monday sales. You will get a very large discount on the paid versions. Alternatively if you get the trial, eventually they will offer a decent discount at the end of the trial period.
Hopefully, you have gained some good hints, tips, and pointers to help you on your journey. Originally I had written well over 15,000 words but decided to simplify my guide. Instead, I will do updates and add links to separate reviews/articles at the bottom of each service, exchange, and section rather than having over an hour plus read! Please be careful out there and never invest more than you can afford to lose! Its also very important to add, (I will do a large article on trading further down the track) that people often get lost in the Hollywood romantic side to trading, or are just in it to get rich quick but as with any job, It takes a long time to get skilled at it and a lot of very expensive mistakes. Most traders lose a lot more than they make so take your time, learn and watch the market first. Feel free to share this article around so our community can grow in size and knowledge! Hope you enjoyed the read and good luck!
SIGNUP LINKS AND REFERRALS
Some of these links are direct to the standard signup pages, however, most are referrals. Coinspot and Coinbase are offering $10 and $14 worth of BTC for both parties. Who doesn’t love free BTC? Use the links below to take advantage of free BTC and other discounts where applicable.
Coinstop link gives a $10 discount to a purchase of a Hardware Wallet.
Referrals to exchanges and brokers offer trading fee discounts so feel free to click the links for cheaper trading fee’s — some of the discounts are as high as 20% !
BITCOIN - 1FoZaCPCVfqi9cKmrgkawfQAezbwyvFMw5
ETHEREUM - 0x2530626E434BAfCDC9C716c967830b0808B6945d
LITECOIN - LPcYJyG7FyQpWynSK5Ni7yp477en6fMbzV
Contact email: NeilFiddes@protonmail.com
