Bitcoin for Beginners (2021)

 

- All right, let's talk about crypto.

Now, you've probably heard the word Bitcoin floating around.

You might have seen the price

has been skyrocketing recently.

You might've seen that Tesla has bought $1.5 billion worth

of Bitcoin and is gonna start accepting it as payment.

And you might have heard

of all these weird things called a Dogecoin

which are apparently going to the moon.

As such, this video is my personal guide

to the world of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

It's the introduction that I wish I would have

had when I started investing in crypto about four years ago.

And it's the video that I wanna be able to send

to my friends whenever they ask me,

Hey are you investing in Bitcoin?

Why are you investing in Bitcoin?

How does it work?

Is it safe?

Are you gonna lose your money?

Isn't it illegal?

All of this sort of stuff.

So this video, which is for informational purposes only

and should absolutely not be construed as financial advice.

In the slightest, we're gonna split it up into four parts.

Firstly, I'll talk about what Bitcoin is

and how cryptocurrencies in general work

and why they work and why they're legit.

Secondly, we'll talk about why Bitcoin

and crypto is so controversial

and I'll share my hot takes about that.

Thirdly, we'll talk about,

why I personally do invest in Bitcoin

and crypto and I will share my portfolio allocation

and the reasons behind that.

And fourthly, we'll talk about

how you can get started investing in crypto.

If that's the sort of thing you want to do

with lots and lots of caveats

and cautionary tales along the way.

As always timestamps in the video description,

so you can jump around if you feel like it.

And if you new to the channel, hello, nice to meet you.

My name is Ali, I'm a doctor based in Cambridge in the UK.

And on the channel, we normally explore the tools

and strategies that help us live healthier,

happier more productive lives.

But I have a personal pension for the topic of money

and I think more people should learn

about money and investing and finance

and how it works and be open about that sort of stuff.

So here we are talking about this video.

Anyway, let's get into section number one.

All right, so let's take things back to basics to try

and build up our understanding of Bitcoin

from the ground up.

Now, Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency.

There are hundreds of other cryptocurrencies out there

but Bitcoin is like the original, the OG.

And it's by far the biggest cryptocurrency around,

which makes the question, what is a cryptocurrency?

So here's my definition of a cryptocurrency

based on four central concepts.

A cryptocurrency is a virtual currency based on a ledger

which is decentralized and secured by cryptography.

All right, so firstly, Bitcoin is a virtual currency.

Now what is a currency?

A currency is just a medium of exchange.

It's what replaces the old school bartering system

we used to have, when it would be like,

I will give you this bushel of wheat

in return for the shoe that you have kindly made me

because you are a, I don't know, leather worker.

Obviously, that system of bartering is quite inefficient

because you have to store

a lot of stuff that other people want

and that's just a bit of a pain.

And so we invented currency in the form of coins

usually as a system that everyone recognized

to be able to exchange stuff

without having the physical goods.

So I could sell my bushel of wheat for two copper coins

and then I could save up my copper coins

and I could buy your shoes for 10 copper coins, for example.

Back in the day currency itself

was tied to metals like gold

and silver and copper, which had like different values.

And so the actual metal of the coins

was worth something because everyone agreed

that these metals were somewhat precious

but in modern times, most of our currency takes the form

of paper notes and paper notes

aren't inherently worth anything

because the paper is just worth paper

but currency is worth something

because everyone agrees that it's worth something.

If I take $100 dollars almost anywhere in the world

most people, I mean most places in the world

will recognize that $100 is worth $100

and I'd be able to buy $100 worth of stuff from it.

If hypothetically the whole world were to tomorrow decide

that the U S dollar is a meaningless currency

and they're not gonna accept it for anything at all.

Then the U S dollar would be worthless.

So really when it comes to currency

it doesn't mean anything real.

Currency is kind of just an abstract way

that we've all agreed to value things in a certain way.

So coming back to Bitcoin, Bitcoin is virtual currency.

It is a digital form of currency,

i.e. a digital form of paying for goods and services

and exchanging money over the internet.

Way back in 2009 when Bitcoin was first invented,

most people didn't believe that it would be a viable

form of currency, but over the last decade plus,

as Bitcoin has become more and more popular,

people are starting to say

that maybe Bitcoin could be the currency of the future.

Maybe in the future, maybe a few years,

few decades from now, we'll be paying for goods

and services using Bitcoin over the internet,

rather than by using these old school,

old fashioned centralized banking

and government institutions to exchange U S dollars

and our actual local currencies.

Okay, so that was the currency part of it.

We can think of Bitcoin or crypto as like "Internet Money"

or like "Virtual Money" or "Virtual Currency".

Let's now talk about the ledger system

that holds it all together.

And the thing to understand here

is that Bitcoin is effectively one giant huge spreadsheet.

This spreadsheet is called a ledger and in the spreadsheet

we've got a record of every single Bitcoin transaction

that has ever happened since January, 2009,

when Bitcoin was, was first invented.

And the way that I think of it in my head,

it's like, let's say you're going on holiday

with a group of friends and you don't wanna

kind of keep on splitting the bill

and handing over cash because that's a total nightmare.

Therefore, someone makes a spreadsheet

to keep track of who owes what.

And so line one in the spreadsheet might be

Ali owes Sheen 12 pounds,

line two might be Jake owes Molly, 18 pounds.

And the idea is that as our holiday goes on,

we would keep on adding stuff

to our spreadsheet or a ledger.

And at the end of the holiday, we would all settle up

and then actual money would exchange hands.

Now, assuming you trust your friends, to be honest

this spreadsheet actually works reasonably well.

You can basically treat this whole spreadsheet

as virtual money.

I am giving my friend virtual 10 pounds

in exchange for them paying for dinner.

Other friend is giving me virtual 20 pounds

in exchange for me paying for the boat ride.

Now that's fine for a group of a few people on holiday

but imagine hypothetically, if the whole world were to run

on a similar spreadsheet, where instead

of money ever exchanging hands like physically

it would just be a line item in the spreadsheet.

Now imagine a world in which everyone trusted

the spreadsheet and everyone was being honest

and good and nice and friendly,

and only adding legitimate things

to the spreadsheet that everyone agreed on.

That's basically what Bitcoin is.

It's this giant spreadsheet that keeps track

of absolutely every single transaction

that's ever happened regarding Bitcoin

since the start of Bitcoin.

And so that means that this spreadsheet

has a record of everyone in the world

who has ever bought and sold Bitcoin

and it tells you how much Bitcoin

they've bought and sold, so you can work out

how much Bitcoin each person has in their account.

Now let's say I have two Bitcoins in my account

which is quite a lot of money these days.

And I were to give one Bitcoin

a friend we could add to this spreadsheet.

Ali gives one Bitcoin to Jake.

And because it's all in one spreadsheet

the spreadsheet knows that my Bitcoin account

has now one Bitcoin and Jake's Bitcoin account now

has one Bitcoin in it as well.

Now, fundamentally, this is all Bitcoin really is.

It's just a giant spreadsheet

but it's got some other fancy features

that make it really really clever,

and that make it a potential candidate

for the currency of the future.

See, the problem with our ledger system

is that if it's on a spreadsheet

usually it's one person who's maintaining the spreadsheet.

So let's say I'm on holiday with friends

and everyone trusts me to do this, to be the spreadsheet guy

because I'm a massive nerd.

And therefore, anytime they want to post a transaction

they would say, Hey, Ali,

Catherine has given Lucia 10 pounds

and therefore I will add it to the spreadsheet.

This is fine because my friends trust me

and I'm a massive nerd,

but we don't want a entire system

of financial stuff based on this centralized model

because that's kind of what we have already.

Like every bank financial institution,

government in the world is some sort

of centralized authority that handles money.

And so the us dollar is tied

to the federal reserve and the U S government,

the UK pound is tied to the bank of England

and then it's all somewhat related

to like the international monetary fund.

And then like the government has something to do with it.

But essentially it's a small group of actors

like governments and banks that manage the financial system

for basically every country in the world.

And so the third part of our definition

of a cryptocurrency is that it needs

to be decentralized and the way that Bitcoin

and all these other cryptocurrencies work

is that there is no central person in charge of them.

There is no one person or one company saying, Hey,

I have got the master spreadsheet.

Instead, what happens is that every single person

in the world can have a copy

of that master spreadsheet if they want.

And so with Bitcoin, for example,

there are millions of people around the world

on their computers who each have a copy

of the master spreadsheet.

And each of those computers are running software

that's constantly checking to make sure

that master spreadsheet is legit.

And it's the same as every other copy

of the master spreadsheet on the network.

And that means that if you wanna hack a Bitcoin

it's quite hard to do because there's like millions

of people all around the world

who are helping to maintain it.

And it means that if you want to unduly influence stuff

like if you're a bank or a government

or some other evil person, it's quite hard to do

because again, it's decentralized.

It means that it's being maintained and managed by millions

of people all around the world, from their computers.

And now we get to the final part of our definition

which is that this whole system is built

and secured using cryptography.

So cryptography is a branch of maths and computer science

that's associated whether with like code making

and code breaking and cryptography

is how all of our communications are encrypted.

So for example, when you send a WhatsApp message

there is no way that WhatsApp

or Facebook can read the message

because it's encrypted by cryptography on either end.

And so only the sender and the recipient

can see what the message is.

No one in the middle can see what the messages is,

it's become encrypted, it's just like a bunch

of numbers that no one can interpret.

And the really clever thing about Bitcoin

and these other cryptocurrencies

is that they use cryptography to solve the problem

of trust and to solve the problem of centralization.

The problem of trust is that, you know, when I'm

on holiday with my friends, we all trust each other

and we know that no one's gonna screw anyone over

but in real life, that doesn't necessarily happen.

So your system needs to be secure enough

so as not to rely on trusting individuals.

And secondly, the problem of centralization,

i.e. it can't just be Google owning a Google sheet

that everyone gets a copy of

because Google controls it.

It can't just be Amazon, it can't be the U S government,

it can't be the bank of England.

It needs to be truly decentralized

in a way that everyone maintains and manages the system.

All right, now it's time for a little basic introduction

to the world of cryptography.

This is a little bit complicated.

If you don't want to hear it

you can skip to this timestamp down below

and that will take you to the next section

but essentially it cryptography is really, really cool.

And I am just now kind of dabbling

in the world of cryptography and trying to understand it.

So here are a few concepts and how I've kind of explained it

to myself in my head.

Essentially, a cryptography is based around the use

of one way functions called hash functions.

And the idea behind there is that you can put any message

or anything through a hash function

and it will spit out a totally random combination

of letters and numbers on the other end

in such a way that you can then reverse the function.

And so if we were to take my name and put it

through a hash function called SHA-256

which is the one that Bitcoin uses

but explaining it is a bit too hard.

We'll come out with this random string

of letters and numbers.

And now, if you were to just look

at that random string of letters and numbers

there is no way you can reverse the chain to go back

to what the original message was.

Now, Bitcoin uses these hash functions

to solve both those problems.

It solves the problem of trust

by using digital signatures based around,

secret keys and public keys

in this thing called "Public Key Cryptography".

And essentially it means that you as an individual

can have a secret key,

a password that no one else knows,

but then you have a public key

which is sort of related to your password

which other people do know, but that's fine

because they can never find out your true password.

And as long as you use your true password

to sign your messages, it's 100%,

basically 100% guaranteed that those messages are legit.

So that kind of solves the trust problem.

And we solved the decentralization problem

by using this concept called "Proof of Work"

where all of the different people on the network,

on the Bitcoin network

who are maintaining the system,

are called "Bitcoin Miners"

and what these guys try and do

is they essentially try and solve

a "Hash Puzzle", which just requires

lots and lots and lots of computing power

effectively involves guessing multiple numbers,

multiple, multiple times.

And this is a sort of lottery between everyone

on the network, so that if you are the lucky person,

who's plucked the random number out of thin air

that solves the "Hash Puzzle"

then your spreadsheet kind of gets saved

and then that saved state is permanent,

and then you get rewarded with some Bitcoin

for giving up your computing power

to help kind of maintain the whole thing.

And I'm using a lot of jargon

and this is actually very hard

to break down in like an easy way.

There are two sources I'd recommend

and I would recommend these, if you are actually interested

in learning how cryptography works.

Firstly, it's a video from one

of my favorite YouTube channels, 3Blue1Brown called

"But How Does Bitcoin Work?",

where he explains the basics

of hash functions and cryptography

and like SHA-256 and this sort of stuff.

And secondly, is actually an online course

from Brilliant who are very kindly sponsoring this video.

Now bear with me here.

So Brilliant is an online platform for courses

in math, science and computer science

and their most recent course

is all about cryptocurrencies and cryptography.

And it's got like tons of different bits in it

that really help you understand crypto from the ground up.

And I've been working through this course

on Brilliant for last few weeks,

and it's really helped improve my own understanding

of crypto and in fact, when preparing for this video,

I was just like redoing that course,

cause it's just so good.

And it like really nails it down

from first principles to explain how Bitcoin works

and the way they do it is they sort of create a Bitcoin

from the ground up and kind of explain

all of the maths behind it in a way

that's interactive and engaging and fun.

So if this stuff seems interesting to you,

if you want to understand how public key cryptography works

secret keys, private keys, decentralization,

hash functions, Merkel nodes, this sort of cool stuff.

You should definitely check out

that course over at Brilliant.

If you're one of the first 200 people

to hit the link in the video description

or head over to brilliant.org/Ali

then you will get 20% of the annual premium subscription.

And along with that, you'll get access

to all the other courses on math,

science and computer science as well.

I particularly like the course on Python fundamentals

and advanced Python.

Python is the world's most popular programming language.

So that's what I'm gonna say about the cryptography part

of like what are cryptocurrencies.

Definitely check out the course on Brilliant,

if you want to learn more about it

let's now move on to topic number two.

Why is Bitcoin and crypto so controversial?

So there's broadly four reasons

as to why Bitcoin is controversial.

Number one, the speculation bubble, number two,

the environmental impact, number three security issues

and number four, the threat of illegal activity.

Firstly, a lot of people say

that Bitcoin is a speculative bubble.

The price of Bitcoin is not based.

People say on any intrinsic value behind Bitcoin.

It is in fact based on people

like you and me thinking, Oh my God, Bitcoin's a big deal.

Therefore we buy it and therefore supply

and demand means that the price goes up.

People have been saying this since like 2011

when the price of Bitcoin was absolutely nothing compared

to the like the $50,000 that it is now.

And yes there is an extent to which Bitcoin

is a speculative bubble.

And in fact, when I invest in Bitcoin

I don't really think of it as investing,

I do in fact, think of it as gambling

which I'm gonna talk a little bit more about later.

And people would say that, for example,

when Elon Musk tweets that he's about to buy a Bitcoin

suddenly the price sores really, really, really high

that is not the sign of how a market would respond

to an underlying value increase.

It is in fact how the market would respond to speculation.

Elon Musk is buying Bitcoin

therefore, every one of the world is like,

Oh my God Elon Musk is buying Bitcoin

therefore they buy Bitcoin,

therefore the price goes up.

It's not like Bitcoin has fundamentally changed

because of Elon Musk's tweet.

It's just that people are speculating at it

which is why it's this sort of speculative bubble.

Secondly, Bitcoin is controversial

because of the energy consumption

and alleged environmental impact of the technology.

So because it is kind of decentralized and run by zillions

of computers, zillions of nodes, all around the world

people would say that those nodes use lots and lots

of energy use lots of computing power, therefore lots

of electricity in order to solve the hash puzzles

that the whole Bitcoin system is based around.

Now, the anti Bitcoin people would say that this use

of energy is not very good because it's bad

for the environment and it's causing carbon

to go into the atmosphere, et cetera, et cetera

just to maintain a system.

Whereas the pro Bitcoin people would say,

yeah, that's true but like we need

to use energy to maintain any system

and the actual banking industry uses far more energy

than Bitcoin does or will in the near future.

And they would say that these kinds

of Bitcoin mining farms are in countries

like Iceland and Greenland, where it's very cold

and where there's very like lots of cold air.

And therefore the cooling of it becomes more efficient.

And they would say that China does a lot

of Bitcoin mining and energy is cheap in China.

And then the anti Bitcoin people would say,

yeah, but China still produces a load

of environmentally bad stuff because of their excessive use

of energy in maintaining the Bitcoin network.

Ultimately, I don't know what the answer is,

there are pros and cons.

Everything kind of uses energy.

People say Bitcoin is bad

because it uses more energy than it should.

I don't know, I'm just, you know, don't shoot the messenger.

That is just one of the reasons

as to why people think Bitcoin is a bit controversial.

Thirdly, Bitcoin is controversial

because people are sometimes worried

about security issues.

Now, theoretically, the whole system is

sort of decentralized and trustless and like,

you know, maintained by these millions

of nodes all around the world.

In practice, there are these things called

"Crypto Exchanges", now these are big companies

sort of like the London stock exchange

and the New York stock exchange.

They're an exchange that connects buyers to sellers.

And because a lot of people who have accounts

on these exchanges also use the exchange

to store their Bitcoin.

Like the exchange also stores Bitcoin for you.

Like I have all my Bitcoin and Coinbase.

If Coinbase were to get hacked for whatever reason

then I might lose my Bitcoin.

And in the past kind of decade

there've been quite a few high profile hacking instances

where the exchange has been targeted

and users have lost their crypto.

In practice, this is not something

that I am personally particularly worried about.

If you're worried about it, you can do lots

and lots of other things to secure your Bitcoin

like use a hardware wallet.

There's loads of YouTube videos explaining that

kind of outside the scope of this one.

But security issues is reason number three,

why Bitcoin is controversial.

And reason number four, is the fact that Bitcoin

is sometimes used as a form of payment

for illegal activities.

Like let's say you wanna buy drugs

or you wanna buy bad things on the dark web

or whatever that means.

You can pay in Bitcoin and you can receive Bitcoin

and theoretically, your Bitcoin username

is like a random string of letters and numbers

that is not directly tied to you as an individual.

And therefore Bitcoin is a way that unscrupulous people

across the internet can facilitate payments

without needing to verify their identity with anyone.

In fairness, people can also do illegal things

with us dollars and every other form

of currency in the world.

But people would say like the anti Bitcoin people would say,

Bitcoin is bad because it's fundamentally anonymous.

And therefore, you never know who the actual person is

on the other end, unless you kind of trust them initially.

And therefore, because this even more facilitates

the use of illegal activities, this is therefore bad.

I don't buy that argument personally.

I mean the internet itself can be a good or bad thing

depending on the context in which it's used.

I personally think Bitcoin could be the future

and it is broadly a good thing,

but of course it could be a bad thing depending

on how it's used.

And so that brings us onto section three,

having said all of that about

the potential issues with Bitcoin.

Why do I personally invest in it?

And again, let's break this down into four parts.

Number one is FOMO, number two, gambling,

number three, fun and number four, diversification.

So firstly, I've got to be honest.

The primary reason I invest in crypto

is because I have a fear of missing out.

Like I first heard about Bitcoin in 2011

like everyone else did.

And then I'm thinking damn,

if only had bought Bitcoin in 2011

I'd be a multi-millionaire by now.

And I'd never have to work a day in my life.

And then for me, like every few years

I'd hear about Bitcoin and be like, Oh, it's, you know,

Bitcoin's now $100, but you know

if only I had invested two years ago,

Oh, but I can't possibly get it now

because it's $100 and that's way too expensive.

If I'd gotten at $100, Bitcoin is now worth $50,000

therefore I'd make a lot of money.

But like, you know, it's the sense of fear of missing out

which is why I personally do invest in crypto.

Secondly, crypto feels like a socially acceptable form

of gambling.

I don't really consider it an investment

anyway, I consider it gambling.

And I'm not a fan of gambling normally, but it's like,

it's kind of fun to gamble on Bitcoin.

And in fact, in 2017, the last time Bitcoin

had like a real heyday, I'd put in about 60,000 pounds

of my own money into Bitcoin

and I was plus 40K at one point.

Like my portfolio was worth 100 grand

and I'd only put in 60 grand.

So I'd made 40,000 in the space of a few weeks.

And that was like a very addictive feeling

because it was like within the space of a few weeks,

I've made more money than I would have made

in a whole year as working as a doctor.

Then I subsequently lost lots of money

in the December, 2017 crash,

and I ended up with like negative 35,000

or something like that.

And so that's a bit of a cautionary tale

but ultimately I do consider it a form

of gambling that I'm happy to engage in

with some amount of my money.

Thirdly, it's just kind of fun.

It's fun to be a part of the future,

it's fun to keep up to the news

like with the news about Bitcoin,

it's fun to look at the portfolio occasionally

and be like, Oh, are we up?

Are we down?

How are things going?

And it's fun to feel as if yeah,

to feel like part of this like revolution.

And I genuinely do think that Bitcoin could be the future

of money and I want to be a part of that

and that just feels kind of fun.

And fourthly, if I do think of it as an investment,

it's like I've got some percentage of my portfolio in crypto

and that theoretically helps me diversify my portfolio

which is otherwise mostly in stocks and shares.

And the way I think of it is that like

this is not generally true, but like assuming crypto

is not correlated with the broader U S stock market.

It means that if I invest in crypto,

if I gamble my money on crypto, cryptocurrencies,

it means that I hedge (chuckles)

kind of the risk of stock market going down

and losing money in that kind of way.

Not really legit because I do consider it gambling

and just like a bit of fun

but I'm throwing that in there to make this a list of four.

So what is my strategy

for investing slash gambling in crypto?

Well, these days I have about 20%

of my overall investment portfolio

in crypto in a combination of Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Mostly Ethereum because I actually bought loads

of Ethereum like four years ago and just held onto it.

So I think my allocation is about 80% Ethereum, 20% Bitcoin.

20% of my overall portfolio in crypto

is quite a high number.

Someone like Graham Stephan, who is far more pro

at personal finance than I am, and also has far more money

than I do has like one to 2% of his portfolio in crypto

as he talks about on his YouTube channel.

I have 20% of mine in crypto

and that's quite a high allocation.

Like the main thing with crypto

is that you only want to put in money

that you can 100% afford to lose

because it's quite a high risk speculative investment.

I don't think of it as an investment.

I think of it as gambling.

So it's like I'm gambling

with 20% of my overall investment portfolio.

That for me is a number that I'm happy with.

Like, I am happy with, like if tomorrow I lost that 20%.

I wouldn't care in the slightest.

I like to think it wouldn't affect

my mental wellbeing at all.

And I know this because when I lost 35,000 pounds in 2017,

which at the time was like half my net worth (chuckles)

it didn't affect me at all.

So I've kind of been through that losing large amounts

of money and realizing, okay, this is not too bad.

Therefore I've sort of put my arbitrary risk profile

that I'm happy with to be 20% of my portfolios in crypto.

The other 80% of my portfolio is in stocks and shares.

And that's sort of fairly standard, but 20% crypto,

80% stocks and stocks and shares.

This is probably a bit too high.

If I were talking to a friend,

again, not financial advice and you're not my friend.

So I'm not giving you financial advice purely

for entertainment and informational purposes only.

But if I were talking to a friend and they were like,

Hey I wanna put some money in crypto,

I'd probably say that 20% is probably a bit high.

Like you probably don't want to run the risk

of losing 20% of your money overnight.

If Bitcoin goes to zero, you might want it

to start with maybe 2% or 3% or 5%.

You know, something that you're a little bit more

comfortable with than a 20%.

So if you do want to get started,

firstly, you wanna understand the underlying technology.

So do that because over at Brilliant, you know

who are sponsoring this video,

that cryptography course that helps you understand

the underlying technology

and helps you understand why this works

and why I personally think it's legit.

Secondly, there are two things you need

you need a wallet to store your cryptocurrency

and you need an exchange where you can buy

and sell cryptocurrencies.

Now most big exchanges will also let you store currency

on the platform.

So I use Coinbase for everything.

Please don't try and hack my Coinbase account

but I use Coinbase for everything.

And so I have my Bitcoin

and Ethereum stored in Coinbase itself.

And I also use Coinbase as the exchange to buy and sell.

Coinbase is one of the biggest ones in the world.

There are a few others, you can always Google

like best crypto exchange USA

or best crypto exchange Pakistan or best crypto exchange UK.

I personally use Coinbase it's available in the UK.

It's very nice and easy, no affiliation with them

no affiliate links or anything like that.

But Coinbase, if you're watching this reach out

if you want to sponsor a video (mumbles).

In practice, you do wanna secure your account.

So obviously on my Coinbase account

I have two factor authentication enabled.

And if you really care about security, you can invest

in something like a physical wallets (chuckles),

which is like a hardware wallet

that stores your Bitcoin offline,

again, beyond the scope of this video,

to explain how that works.

But that is like a much more secure way

of storing your Bitcoin rather than having it stored

on the internet in an exchange like Coinbase.

So that was my beginner's introduction to crypto.

This has been a far longer video than I thought it would be.

If you're serious about investing

I recommend you don't start with crypto.

I recommend instead you start

with stocks and shares and that video over

there is my half an hour long introduction

to how to invest in stocks and shares for beginners.

I still have 80% plus of my portfolio

in stocks and shares and only 20% of it in crypto

that's a really high number.

For most friends, if I was talking to

and not giving financial advice,

I would recommend 95% stocks and shares and like 5% crypto.

So definitely check that video out.