[Don Vito Corleone]

Since my first time in this subforum I have seen many new people asking for help on how to start looking into a certain coin to see if it is legit or not/worth it. In this thread, I will try to explain as well as I can where you can start finding quality information about cryptocurrencies. This thread is divided into three sections; the first one is an introduction covering general information, the second one covering how to gather information about a coin, the third one covering how to continue learning. I am sure that I have not covered everything that could be covered so if you have some quality suggestions, please post below!

So first of all, I'm not going to give any opinions on certain areas, I will try to just list and describe where you have to look if you are seeking information. Always keep in mind that when a heavy duty claim is made it could be false and make sure to check that claim from multiple news sources. Let us start with the general crypto scene, below you will find a list of sites that post many articles on topics such as crypto regulation and crypto adoption. These are good news sources to follow and get a look at how the "regular" world is looking at crypto and what major changes are coming up or are happening at the moment. The writers and the sites, in general, have their own opinions and they let them loose from time to time. Just keep that in mind and double check on different sites if you're doubting a certain article. This is a good habit in general. I will not suggest you any YouTubers as I have found that this varies heavily from person to person, in the last section you'll see how you can try to start finding some you might like.

Good sources for general crypto news:

https://news.bitcoin.com
https://www.icoalert.com
https://cointelegraph.com
https://www.coindesk.com
https://www.ccn.com (This is not CNN, this is CCN.)
http://bitcoinist.com (Shorter articles in comparison to other sites.)
https://bitcoinmagazine.com
https://coincenter.org (Political crypto website.)
(Please keep in mind the next couple of links are Redddit links, we all now how reddit can be and by listing them I do not suggest that all the content is HQ.)
https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency
https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoMarkets
https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrencies

Here are other useful websites where you can find articles, on these sites users themselves generate the content. Just search around and make yourself comfortable with using them. Again keep in mind that people can have strong opinions on these sites, so just keep a clear mind and look at everything you read objectively:

https://steemit.com (Articles written by users.)
https://www.tradingview.com (Charts made by users.)

There are two types of ways you can look at a coin, one being fundamental analysis and the other one being technical analysis. When you are taking a first look at a coin it is probably best to start with fundamental analysis. Usually, the first place you are going to want to look at is Coin Market Cap. Take a look at the image below, the area marked with a red square is where you can type the name of the coin you are researching. I will take Bitcoin as an example for the convenience.

In the screenshot below you can see the page of BTC, it is basically the same for every coin. The first red area marked with a 1 is where you can find very useful links, such as a link to the coin's website and the explorer. The website is useful for us since that is the place where we'll get our information of their team, their roadmap and their whitepaper wherein their technology is described. There should be a tab for every part respectively, so after checking out their team's page make sure to google some of those people and see what they have achieved so far. Check their roadmap and see whether they have accomplished what they said they would have accomplished when the roadmap was created. If they did not then that could be something to keep in mind, also check what they want to achieve and whether they have a realistic view. If you like it to this point you can continue and read their whitepaper, this is usually a PDF file with a lot of information about the coin and its technology. Check the page of contents in that PDF file and look for important subjects you want to read about. Read those pages and thus far you should have a good overview of what the coin is and what they have to offer. The explorer link in the red area is important since this is the website where you can paste your transaction ID after a transaction to see how many confirmations it got. You can also paste an address in the explorer to find information about an address.

The second marked red are is where you can see the price of the coin with the percentage increase or decrease next to it. The third marked red area contains the chart of the coin, the tabs above the chart are clickable and this is where you can set the timeline for the chart (how far you want to look back in history). You can also click on "Markets" and see on which exchanges the coin is traded on. So to buy this coin you would have to get an account on one of those exchanges (Bittrex, Binance, Kucoin, etc.) and send BTC or ETH (recommended) to your account and exchange the BTC or ETH for the coin you want to buy. I would also suggest to check out the "Social" tab where you can find links to the coins Reddit page, twitter, etc. The last thing you can do that is highly suggested is google your coin and read news articles on a couple websites if there are any, else read what people other people are saying on social media, Reddit, etc. Here is great Wikipedia page I would recommend anyone to read about different trading styles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_analysis

Anyway, here is the screenshot we talked about in the text above:

So now, based on all this information, you should already know whether the coin is legit or not. This is especially of huge value for long-term investments as you want to put your money into a coin that has a bright future ahead of it. If you have read the Wikipedia page I have linked above then you already have an idea on technical analysis (TA from now on) in comparison to fundamental analysis. TA focuses on the chart of a coin, usually, this is done on a website designed to perform TA where you can create an account on, some exchanges also have those tools built in which basically just as good when for most people. If you are a beginner I would suggest to take it easy and perform fundamental analysis on some coins that have caught your attention. It is hard to trade on a short-term level based on fundamental analysis usually, this is where technical analysis comes in handy. TA is also very handy to look at good buy in points, so to look at whether it is a good time currently to buy the coin or whether there is a chance that the coin will dip in price (so you can buy it in the dip). Now, it is hard to teach TA in a thread as it would take too many pages and time, so in the next section, we will talk about how you can walk on your own in this crypto realm.

I have explained to you how you can start doing your fundamental analysis and I have explained what TA involves, this is not the end. If you want to improve your knowledge and decision making it is obviously important to keep learning new things all the time. This is where social media, for example, can come in handy. Following the popular coins and exchanges, popular traders and informative accounts will keep your feed interesting. YouTube can also be very useful for discovering new coins (remember YouTubers can also just promote a coin because they are getting paid to do so). Pick your favorite news website out of the list in the first section and keep reading them to stay up to date on what is going on in the crypto world. Forums are also very useful, this one, for example, is in my opinion pretty fun to be in. Yes, it can be negative sometimes but there are some quality discussions going on and from time to time some good TAs get posted. If you are eager to learn TA, I would suggest checking out Tradingview and looking at how people use certain tools. You'll need a lot of practice to get the hang of it so take it step by step. Before you start investing in or trading a coin just make sure you have done your fundamental analysis on it and that you have been "practicing" for some time. For fundamental analysis, you should take a look at some of the more successful coins and check what their whitepapers and roadmaps consist of for example. The more time you put into reading, watching, googling, researching and practicing the better you will become in investing and trading. The crypto world is too big to list all the things you need to know in one thread, however, I feel like this thread should definitely get you started with your first steps. Keep in mind that Google is your best friend and that you can find the answers to nearly all your questions by just simply googling it. This is how we will conclude this thread if you have any suggestions on adding more content to it make sure to post below, also make sure to post any questions you might have.

Shout out to Sigma and all my Security fellas for allowing me to use the Security theme to make this thread better looking. We have launched the first edition of our magazine called Authenticate, if you have not checked it out yet you can do so by clicking HERE.

[JohnG0tti]

OP thread thanks a lot keep up the good work !

[Amp]

Thank you for posting this.

[Don Vito Corleone]

Thank you guys. I already have some ideas for the next one.

[SIM-3795472]

Thank you Thomas!

Really appreciate it.

[Immy4you]

thanks mate nice work share
put 100% efforts for write good tutorial

[Gizmo]

Great information! Thanks for taking the effort to post this.

[Kill Joy]

Additionally https://www.icoalert.com/ They have well-written reports and interviews. I also have a guideline for doing your own DD on assets if that is of interest.

[shreder]

I've been trying my best with TA usually learning it then trying to putting it to use and practicing helps a lot.

[SIM-3795472]

Additionally https://www.icoalert.com/ They have well-written reports and interviews. I also have a guideline for doing your own DD on assets if that is of interest.

Thank you for sharing that website. Also, letting you know I'm interested in your guideline.

[Don Vito Corleone]

Additionally https://www.icoalert.com/ They have well-written reports and interviews. I also have a guideline for doing your own DD on assets if that is of interest.

I've added it to the list thank you KJ. Also thanks for the nice replies everybody, keep the suggestions coming.

[iNaruto]

Thanks a lot ! i really appreciate your effort. Thanks Again :)