Safety Tips for Investing in Cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrencies are a relatively novel invention and as with anything new that comes out we need to relearn safety and how to keep ourselves out of harm’s way and avoid scammers or anything similar that could separate us from our hard-earned funds, in this case, cryptocurrency. Safety can sometimes get complicated when it comes to technology so we’ll be doing our best to cover the most important ones while simplifying them enough so that you can figure them out even with minimal knowledge of how cryptocurrencies work. Safety is of the utmost importance so let’s dive straight into it.

Passwords and private keys

One of the main things you need to do is keep your passwords and private keys safe. Unless the circumstances are extreme there are very few reasons to ever give your passwords or private keys to someone else. Even if you trust that they won’t use them maliciously there is no guarantee that they themselves won’t be scammed down the line, losing your key/password even though they had no plan to give it up or any malicious intent at all. 

Making sure that your passwords are strong and hard to guess is also important. You should avoid using easily guessable sequences of numbers or letters. This prevents people from using brute force (systematic guessing with a program) to get your password. Another thing you should avoid is using any private info in your password that’s related to you as then they could figure it out and use it to guess your passwords. Examples would be birthdays or anniversaries, or even names of loved ones.

A good crypto wallet goes a long way

You can view your crypto wallet as a sort of vault that holds all of your currency. It’s important that you invest in your vault to make sure that it can protect your valuables and that you can have some peace of mind knowing that it’s extremely secure. There are various online wallets available with varying qualities, but we personally recommend getting either a desktop or hardware wallet depending on how serious you intend on being with crypto trading.

If you aren’t trading large amounts then a desktop wallet should suffice. As the name implies it sits on your PC and the cryptocurrency is stored there, this means that someone would need to gain access not only to your password and private key but also to the device itself. A more secure version of this is a hardware wallet, which you can imagine as a hard drive containing your currency. It’s easier to keep out of harm’s way as it can be kept offline and safe from most thieves. But you shouldn’t lose it.

Use two-factor authentication

Most exchanges and many other apps allow the option of two-factor authentication. In essence, this means that after inputting your password correctly you also need to input a code that is constantly changing and can only be viewed from your mobile device. This makes it so that nobody can take your cryptocurrency or affect it in any way if they haven’t also obtained your phone, meaning you can rest easy as long as you have it nearby.

Read up on the latest news

One of the most powerful things you can have against scammers and thieves is knowledge. If you’re informed of all the latest news and what scams are popular in recent times then the chance that you will be fooled by someone is far lower. Knowledge truly is power so make sure that you read up on everything from regular IT to altcoin news as any information related to cryptocurrencies that you read up on and learn will help not only with your safety but trading in general too.

It’s also pretty hard to be a successful trader if you aren’t well-informed so you have many reasons to read up on everything that’s going on and very few not to so checking in on what’s happening in the world, both in general and crypto-wise is incredibly important and we highly recommend it.

Conclusion

While keeping yourself and your cryptocurrencies safe may seem difficult to do given how new all of this is, these tips should be a good starting point and make sure that you’re at least safe from the most basic of thieves and scammers.