#StartInvestingInCrypto

“Crypto”, “What is Crypto?”, “Crypto Exchange” are keywords that are becoming increasingly popular on search engine bars. 

Crypto, also known as Cryptocurrency (or Virtual Currency), is a form of electronic money launched and issued by Blockchain projects. Crypto is used similarly to a means of transaction like real money in real life, but these transactions take place on the Blockchain platform.

By using Blockchain technology's database encryption systems, information about Crypto transactions will always be kept secure and cannot be changed or deleted under any influence.

In particular, anyone or any organization has the ability to create this type of money. However, the value of a Crypto coin will still be evaluated based on whether the user community accepts and uses it widely or not.

Basic classification for Crypto, we have: Bitcoin and Altcoin.

Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency to appear in Crypto history, created by Satoshi Nakamoto, with the aim of eliminating centralized financial intermediaries, bringing the financial economy to a new decentralized turning point. central.

Altcoin (Alternative coin) was created after Bicoin, which are isotopes, projects, platforms built on the blockchain, with the same functions as Bitcoin. However, due to the rapid development and improvement, many altcoins have been born with outstanding features such as technology altcoins, DAO, Defi, Memecoin,... each altcoin will have a separate function. .

So how to own Bitcoin as well as Altcoins?

To own Bitcoin / Altcoin you need to trade them on crypto exchanges. You can use fiat or USDT (obtained by buying/selling through p2p market) to buy Bitcoin/Altcoin. You should choose a reputable crypto exchange to protect your personal interests in trading: ensuring personal information, money transparency, protecting your account from hackers,...

Currently, there are many famous and reputable crypto exchanges in the world such as: Coinbase, Upbit, Gate.io, Cooperative (formerly Huobi), Kraken, Binance,... Above all, you can Choose Binance - the largest & most reputable crypto exchange in the world.

Since the crypto industry was born, there have been many hacks, ddos, phishing,... attacks from hackers targeting famous crypto exchanges, typically:

- July 2, 2014: Hackers raid Mt.Gox and steal 744,408 BTC from Mt. Gox and the company's 100,000 BTC, leading to the Mt. Gox declared bankruptcy. Total damages amounted to: $661,348,000.

- July 29, 2014: Cryptsy exchange became the target of a hack in July 2014, with approximately 13,000 BTC ($7.5 million at the time), and approximately 300,000 LTC (~$2.08 million) stolen. Total damage: $9,580,000

- January 4, 2015: several in-use Bitstamp Wallets were compromised, resulting in the loss of less than 19,000 BTC... This is a small portion of Bitstamp's total Bitcoin reserves, the majority of assets are held in the wallet system Offline refrigeration is very safe. Hacked amount: $5,100,000.

- May 9, 2016: Gatecoin exchange lost more than 185,000 ETH and 250 BTC, equivalent to about $2.14 million USD at that time. Gatecoin exchange said they were first hacked on May 9, and continued 3 days later. Hacked amount: $2,140,000.

- August 2, 2016: Nearly 120,000 BTC worth about $72 million was stolen from the Bitfinex exchange in Hong Kong, causing turmoil in the global Bitcoin community. This is the second major attack from this exchange. Hacked amount: $72,000,000.

- April 26, 2017: Korean exchange Yapizon became the next victim of hackers. In a Saturday announcement on social networks, staff confirmed that hackers stole 3,831 BTC, equivalent to 37.08% of the exchange's total assets. Hacked amount: $4,850,000.

- January 26, 2018: Early Friday morning in Tokyo, hackers attacked the Coincheck Inc exchange and successfully stole nearly $500,000,000 in hacked cryptocurrency. This is considered the largest attack in cryptocurrency history, with the exchange losing more than $500 million (from NEM coins).

- February 8, 2018: On Friday, BitGrail posted a notice to users that hackers had obtained 17,000,000 tokens in Nano (XRB), the coin formerly known as RaiBlocks. Hacked amount: $17,000,000.

- June 19, 2018: An estimated 35 billion Korean won (about $31 million) in cryptocurrency was stolen by hackers from the famous exchange Bithumb. Hacked amount: $31,000,000.

- July 9, 2018: Bancor, a cryptocurrency company launching a decentralized exchange service, had about $23.5 million stolen from users' funds by hackers. Hacked amount: $23,500,000.

- September 14, 2018: A Japanese cryptocurrency exchange was hacked, and 6.7 billion yen (about $60 million), including 5,966 BTC, was taken. Hacked amount: $60,000,000.

- February 15, 2019: The exchange announced on Twitter that it had suffered a security attack and suffered significant losses. Tweets from Whale Alert claim that about 19,391 ETH (worth about $2.44 million) and about 48 million CENNZ tokens (about $1.18 million) were transferred from Cryptopia to an anonymous wallet on June 13. first. Hacked amount: $3,620,000.

- March 25, 2019: Over $100 million was stolen, CoinBene had to maintain the entire system, and a month later had to face many questions about the attack. Hacked amount: $100,00,000.

- May 7, 2019: Binance, currently the number 1 exchange, was successfully withdrawn by hackers 7,000 Bitcoin (worth about $40 million) through one transaction in a "large-scale security attack". . Hackers have used many different attack techniques including phishing and viruses to capture large amounts of user data. Hacked amount: $40,000,000.

- July 12, 2019: Bitpoint, an exchange in Japan, was hacked and 3.5 billion yen (equivalent to $32 million) was taken from their hot wallet, of which 2.5 billion yen was from people's assets. use. Hacked amount: $32,000,000.

In general, there is no famous exchange that is not being targeted by hackers. However, after hacker attacks, only Binance was able to survive and grow stronger to this day. The Binance team has continuously improved network, application, and multi-layer security features to enhance user safety.

On April 29, 2024, the Binance on-chain investigation team assisted the Financial Information and Investigation Department (FIOD) in arresting a 26-year-old suspect, seizing cryptocurrency, real estate and cars. luxury class worth more than 11.4 million euros (12.2 million USD). The event marks the first arrest in the ZKasino scam, where investors lost at least $33 million in digital assets.

Until now, Binance is still a perfect choice, with the most security and reputation among crypto exchanges in the world.

WHICH COIN DO YOU CHOOSE TO INVEST?

In the investment portfolios of traders and giant financial companies in the crypto world such as Wall Street, Grayscale Investment, BlackRock, you will see that Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc. are indispensable in their storage wallets. .

In addition, investment funds such as: Alameda Research, Binance Labs, Coinbase Ventures, AU21 Capital, Blockchain Capital also have similar investment portfolios.

BITCOIN

This year can be called the year that marks a new turning point for Bitcoin when news broke that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officially approved the first Bitcoin ETF SPOT after 11 years of delay in the early morning of November 11. January 2024 (VN).

Approved ETFs include: Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, Bitwise Bitcoin ETF, Hashdex Bitcoin ETF, iShares Bitcoin Trust, Valkyrie Bitcoin Fund, ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF, VanEck Bitcoin Trust, WisdomTree Bitcoin Fund, Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund and Franklin Bitcoin ETF.

In addition, there is also the Bitcoin Halving event taking place at 07:09 (VN) on May 10, 2024, the Bitcoin price is constantly growing strongly. 

At the time of writing - June 4, 2024, Bitcoin price has reached $71,000 and is likely to increase further in the future. 

Therefore, for long-term investment, Bitcoin is indispensable in your investment portfolio.

ETHEREUM (ETH)

Similarly, it is the same with Ethereum. 

At 20:55 PM (VN) March 13, 2024, the Dencun upgrade - a combination of Deneb (updated in Consensus) and Cancun (updated in Execution) on the Ethereum network - was officially activated. Deployment at epoch 269568, exactly as scheduled.

Dencun introduced a concept called “proto-danksharding,” designed to improve the scale of transaction processing, while also reducing gas fees. It also lays the foundation for other future upgrades such as danksharding, promising to completely change the face of Ethereum.

Besides, on May 23, the SEC approved 19b-4 filings for 8 Ethereum Spot ETFs. However, it will take a few more weeks to months for issuers to update their S-1 filings and continue to wait for SEC approval before they can begin trading. According to experts, this event will make the whole market take on a new green color, ETH may reach the old peak of $4,800.

Ethereum is indispensable in your long-term investment portfolio!

In addition to Bitcoin (BTC) & Ethereum (ETH), you can refer to topcoins such as Arbitrum (ARB), Solana (SOL), Toncoin (TON), Chainlink (LINK), BNB COIN (BNB),...

ARBITRATOR (ARB)

Arbitrum is a blockchain scaling platform built on the Ethereum platform. It is designed to solve the problem of scalability and high transaction costs on Ethereum by using Layer 2 technology. 

Arbitrum is a set of Layer 2 scaling solutions that address congestion issues on Ethereum. In particular, Layer 2 is a technology or system that runs on Layer 1, they inherit security from Layer 1, and are capable of processing more transactions, reducing costs and increasing transaction confirmation speed. faster than Layer 1.

In early 2024, Arbitrum One's total value locked (TVL) witnessed a significant increase of 15.89%, reaching the milestone of $10.36 billion, becoming the first Layer 2 (L2) network surpassed the 10 billion USD TVL mark.

Arbitrum currently holds a diverse portfolio of assets with 30.9% in Ethereum (ETH), 23.68% in native governance token ARB, 29.66% stablecoins and the remaining 15.76% spread across multiple assets other.

With an extremely diverse ecosystem, ARB is gradually dominating the crypto market. We can mention some pieces of the Arbitrum ecosystem: DEX, Lending & Borrowing Protocol, Derivatives, Yield Farming/Aggregator, Stablecoin, NFT & NFT Marketplace, Bridge, Arbitrum Name Service,...

At the time of writing, ARB is trading at $1.12.

SOLANA (SUN)

Solana is a monoblock blockchain platform known for its speed and performance. This is the world's first web-scale blockchain. The SOL token is the native cryptocurrency of the platform and is used to pay transaction fees.

Solana is partnering with OpenAI to integrate its GPT language model into the blockchain. This partnership aims to bring the power of GPT to the decentralized finance (DeFi) space, allowing developers to build DeFi applications that can process natural language input. With this development, Solana and OpenAI seek to enhance the accessibility and functionality of DeFi applications on the Solana blockchain.

Solana when launched was considered “Ethereum Killer” and is performing strongly. As of June 2024, Solana's TVL reached $4.927 billion compared to $66.143 billion for Ethereum based on Defillama. Solana's TVL ranks in the top 5 largest TVL in the market.

The top 5 projects with the highest TVL in Solana's ecosystem as of June 2024 are Jito (1.847 billion USD), Marinade Finance (1.421 billion USD), Kamino (1.3 billion USD), Sanctum ( 1.36 billion USD) and Raydium (917.96 million USD).

In addition, a number of emerging memecoin and gamefi projects on Solana such as SFARM, ANALOS, WIF, BONK... are attracting a lot of attention from the Solana community.

At the time of writing, SOL is trading at $173.88.

TONCOIN (TON)

The Open Network (TON) is a decentralized layer 1 blockchain project, built to create a distributed network with fast and scalable transaction processing capabilities, as well as support for applications. Complex with smart contracts.

Toncoin (TON) is the native token (native cryptocurrency) of The Open Network, used for network activities, transactions, games or purchasing TON collectibles. 

When compared to Ethereum 2.0 and Solana, TON confidently outperforms these two networks in processing and settling transactions. 

The TON (The Open Network) project is developing an ecosystem that includes products such as: 

  • TON Blockchain

  • TON Services: TON DNS, TON Storage, TON Proxy, TON Sites, TON Payments, TON Wallet.

  • TON Cross-chain Bridge

Currently, TON is hitting the game market hard, typically NOT - a tap-to-earn game that is bustling in the market, attracting many investors to participate, NOT's current capitalization has reached more than 2.2 billion USD. 

At the time of writing, TON is trading at a price of $7.46.

CHAINLINK (LINK)

Chainlink (LINK) is a decentralized blockchain oracle project built on Ethereum with the goal of providing secure and reliable data for smart contracts. The platform uses a network of data providers (node ​​operators) called Oracles to collect data from the real world and put it on the blockchain.

The Chainlink project is already being used by many major blockchains in the fields of decentralized finance (DeFi), insurance, supply chain management, and more. Thanks to its ability to provide secure and reliable data, Chainlink is considered an important solution for accelerating the development of real-world blockchain applications.

The Chainlink ecosystem is a vast network of projects, tools, and services built on the Chainlink platform. The ecosystem includes many components such as: Chainlink Low-latency Oracle Solution, Chainlink DAO, Chainlink Automation, Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), Crosschain by Chainlink, Chainlink Goerli ETH, Chainlink fee for running oracle,...

Currently, there are more than 1,000 blockchain projects using Chainlink. Some famous projects using Chainlink include: Aave, Pancakeswap, Yearn Finance, Band Protocol, etc.

Chainlink is increasingly trusted by financial institutions around the world and invited to cooperate because of its high safety and security. Chainlink's recent events:

  • Circle Partners with Chainlink to Increase Stablecoin Usage

  • Chainlink completes blockchain pilot project with major US financial institutions

  • Chainlink's CCIP protocol currently supports 9 blockchains.

At the time of writing, LINK is trading at $17.88.

BNB COIN (BNB)

Binance is the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange (by trading volume), launched in July 2017, with the goal of providing a simple and accessible trading platform for everyone, regardless of professional level or experience.

Binance currently offers more than 1376 trading pairs on its platform, which can handle 1.4 million transactions per second, making it one of the exchanges with the largest trading volume and liquidity.

BNB is a cryptocurrency belonging to the Binance ecosystem, continuously growing at a rapid pace that surpasses other cryptocurrencies of the same type. Today, BNB is not only a coin used on the Binance exchange but also an important part of the entire DeFi ecosystem.

The Binance ecosystem includes 16 key products, creating a unique Binance Universe.

BNB is primarily used as a utility token on the Binance platform, offering significant discounts on fees for various trading options. BNB's role in the ecosystem:

  • Reduced transaction fees

  • BNB Vault and Binance Launchpool

  • Binance Launchpad

  • Binance Pay

  • Wow Binance

  • Staking and Earning yield

When holding BNB, you can participate in the exchange's promotions to increase your assets.

See more: 6 simple ways to make money from Binance

At the time of writing, BNB is trading at a price of $700.8.

Personally, BNB is an altcoin worth holding long-term in your investment portfolio. BNB is an exchange coin that brings many benefits to investors. Holding BNB not only increases in economic value over time but also receives other profit incentives from Binance. One asset generates two or three profits, right!?

WHICH WALLET DO YOU USUALLY STORE CRYPTOCURRENCY IN?

Storing crypto coins/tokens is not simple. You need to find yourself a crypto wallet based on the following criteria: safety, reputation, fast access speed, high security,...

There are 2 popular types of crypto wallets, hot wallets and cold wallets:

HOT WALLET

A hot wallet is a cryptocurrency wallet that is connected to the internet. This means it can be accessed and used to send or receive cryptocurrency at any time. Hot wallets are often used for trading and other activities that require quick access to funds. However, they are also more vulnerable than cold wallets because they are always connected to the internet.

Top popular hot wallets today: Trust Wallet, Coinbase Wallet, Electrum, Mycelium, Blockchain,...

COLD WALLET

A cold wallet is a cryptocurrency wallet that is not connected to the internet. This means it cannot be accessed or used to send or receive cryptocurrency without first being connected to the internet. Cold wallets are often used to store large amounts of cryptocurrency because they are considered more secure than hot wallets.

Top popular cold wallets today: Trezor Wallet, BCVault, Ledger,...

Each type of wallet has a different advantage/disadvantage. However, to serve the needs of continuous onchain transactions, it is recommended that you use a hot wallet because of its convenience and speed.

Binance Wallet is an optimal choice, safe, reputable, fast access speed, high security, fully meeting the criteria of a crypto wallet. Released by the most prestigious exchange in the world, you will feel more secure when using Binance Wallet, without having to worry about hackers or technical errors while using the wallet.

Currently, Binance Wallet has the following formats: