Things I Wish I Did Earlier When Investing In Crypto

Hi everyone! Today marks the anniversary of my first ever crypto transaction! My first purchase was of Ethereum, and since then it has been nothing else but a learning journey.

There were a lot of things I learnt later than what I wished, so here are a few of the things I wish I did earlier when investing in crypto:

• Keeping track of transactions: when I first bought crypto, I invested X amount of fiat without keeping track of how much I have put into it. Later, I discovered the portfolio trackers. Some good examples are the Delta App and the CoinMarketCap portfolio tool. I rather input the transaction manually after making them, as I don't really like giving API keys to 3rd parties.
• Opening a Vault for Moons: easily the worst mistake I have ever done. I never knew the existence of moons until they, well, mooned. I always use my PC or laptop for Reddit and never seen the Vault menu, and when I found out about I felt so stupid as I was quite active in this sub when I first started. Open your Vault!! It is literally free crypto for your posts - please focus on quality!
• Having Native Wallets: this isn't a mistake, but more of a "help the ecosystem" kind of thing. What I must recommend though is to keep all your assets away from exchanges. A system failure, hacking attack or just bankruptcy can be the end of your funds, so keep your coins in an external wallet. I started with Exodus Wallet, as it has the most assets and allows staking for interest rewards. With time, I migrated to native wallets (wallets made for a single network in particular) and around 80% of my assets are secured with a Ledger Nano X (hardware wallet, not hackable!).
• Don't stick to one exchange: not all exchanges have all the coins you will want. Not all exchanges have the same features and most importantly, not all have the same fees. what exchanges do I recommend? I personally use Crypto.com and Kraken. Of course, each one to their own and geographical restrictions may apply to some exchanges.
• Don't do stupid things that can cause you headaches: what I mean with this is, do not add 5 bank accounts to your fiat withdrawal addresses, don't deposit fiat from 4 different banks in 3 different countries, 2 credit cards and 4 debit cards. Focus on 1 and 1. One card. One bank account. Work yourself around that and it will help you massively. I have seen so many issues with people with locked accounts due to having to verify details etc. that can just be solved by this. I never had a single issue using Revolut as my bank account and the virtual card as my means of payment if i use this. Also, all bank deposits are allowed to exchanges from them (EU Customer). KYC! Just do it. The government knows all about you anyways, so don't worry. You are happy to give your bank details, name, surname, card number away but not a selfie of yourself? The big exchanges have great privacy and security measures, don't worry!
• Find Rewards. There are A LOT OF THEM!: Crypto is a baby. A volatile baby, but a baby nonetheless. Everything is new! DeFi projects can offer 100%+ APY by staking your coins, projects with PoS networks offer some really good interest by just hodling their coin and a lot of platforms offer interest in stablecoins and other tokens. Personally, I use one of the VISA Cards that CDC offer. It earns me cashback, free services and lets be honest, looks cool af!
• Lastly but most importantly, ENJOY: Don't look at the chart every day and worry. Yes I look at my portfolio every day but just to see if it is a good moment to buy or not. I never worry. If you are a day trader, then yes. A hodler, then hodl. You are here for the long run. Enjoy the experience, the learning and the communities (apart from r/bitcoin - that's a cult).

Hopefully this helps newbies a bit more, and makes it easier to start up! Have a great year everyone.