I stumbled upon bitcoin in late 2014. I read a tiny article about it online, which peaked my curiosity, and I began researching. When asking my sister (a programmer) if she had ever heard of it, she replied, "Oh yeah, I mined a few, like about 25 or so a couple years ago."
"Wow!" I said. "Do you still have 'em?"
"No, I sold them a long time ago. It's really risky, don't get into it."
For perhaps the first time in my life, I did not listen to my sister. I researched some more until I had a fairly decent understanding of bitcoin. While I was browsing the web for information, I came across the bitcoinwisdom.com site. "What's this?" I thought to myself. "There are other currencies? WTF? What is this Litecoin, and Vericoin, and Blackcoin? What is DRK?" Over the next couple months I would learn more about all of them.
I purchased my first bitcoin....wait, scratch that. I did not purchase my first bitcoin. I purchased my first Dogecoin at a site that made it really easy. I thought, "HAH! I can buy 100,000 of those babies!" I then learned that I could use Shapeshift to get Bitcoin and other cryptos.
My favorite coin was Vericoin. I loved the wallet, thought the idea was great, AND it was cheap. I began checking prices religiously to see what was happening. The following is a transcription of what happened in my head during that time period:
"I got my Vericoin! I got my Vericoin! YES!!!"
"Okay, what do we got? Litecoin going up like crazy. I have to go to shapeshift and change my Vericoin to Litecoin!"
"WTF?? Why is Litecoin going down? And now Vericoin is going up, what the hell? I better sell back the Litecoin and get Vericoin. I should probably also try this thing called Darkcoin and Blackcoin."
"WTF?? Why does the price go down every time I buy a new coin? Okay, forget that, I'm getting rid of that, and I'm just going to hold bitcoin."
"WTF?? I sell my coins, they all go up and bitcoin crashes??? Dammit! DAMMIT!!!"
I know what you're thinking. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I made those mistakes too, and I learned from them. I can trade much better now." Please listen and take my advice: Just....don't. Find a few coins you like, if you must, but do not try to trade unless you are a professional investor or experienced day-trader. You will lose 99% of the time.
If you do buy altcoins, make sure you research, read the whitepaper, etc. and go with your gut. Does it sound reasonable to you? Is it a new idea that no one has thought of? How will it fit into the greater crypto universe? Is it plausible? Does it have a good team of developers? That is called due diligence, people! If you can answer all those questions with 'Yes,' well....then....you should still probably buy and hold bitcoin.