BTC

Bitcoin is still the crypto king. It's the more used, the more trusted, the more accepted by merchants, the more mined and so the more secure crypto on the market. Made publicly available in 2010 a bit more than a year after the release of the bitcoin whitepaper by Satoshi Nakamoto this make it the oldest cryptocurrency that is still used. Yes pseudo-cryptocurrencies existed before Bitcoin but none worked, Bitcoin does. With this advantage it occupy a really special place, nobody owns Bitcoin, there is no central entity behind it and despite having no marketing its logo is one of the more popular on planet Earth. Some even says it's the first element made only out of informations, this would put Bitcoin as Element Zero on the periodic table. Pretty intense huh ? That's because thanks to the Satoshi Consensus Bitcoin revolutionize digital information by making it rare and not duplicable !

It has by far the biggest marketcap and number of users called bitcoiners. If you don't are interested into crypto, at least learn Bitcoin ata starting point. Everything else are scams (almost true sadly). Never invest money in things you don't understand !

That's why I will recommand you to have at least a few sats (Satoshi are like Bitcoin's cents, 1BTC = 100'000'000 sats) in your wallet. There will be only 21 Millions BTC in the world so you might want to stack a few. While Bitcoin was created to be digital P2P uncensorable cash, I think it's becomming something more like digital gold.

Bitcoin is decentralized and nobody can control it, however company like MasterCard and AXA are heavily investing in company that are tied to bitcoin developpement like BlockStream.

BE AWARE THAT EVERY TRANSACTIONS ARE PUBLIC ON THE BITCOIN BLOCKCHAIN AND SO IS THE AMOUNT IN YOUR WALLET, ! You can use tool such as Tor, CoinJoin, etc... to mitigate thoses issues but anonymity on Bitcoin today is way more harder than in the early days. The easiest way is to avoid KYC.

Learn more on : Bitcoin official website MULTILANGUAGE Plan B Network (Awesome free courses) Bitcoin QnA Mastering Bitcoin Mastering Lightning Network

XMR

Monero is quite old as it released on 2013, created by the anonymous Thankful_For_Today. It tried to solve a major issue in Bitcoin , the lack of anonymity on base layer. It achieve this by implementing some technologies discussed by Satoshi Nakamoto back in 2010 but that went never implemented in Bitcoin . Ring Signature, RingCT and Stealth Adress are the big ones. It allow you to have subaddresses (starts with an 8) that send your received funds directly in your wallet primary address (starts with a 4).

Unlike Bitcoin and most cryptocurrencies you cannot see the balance by knowing a wallet public key (address) and cannot see the sender, recever and the ammount of any transactions by exploring the blockchain. This have made Monero dethroning Bitcoin on DarkNet Market and other Free Market. It's also the more used "privacy coin".

Monero also implement RandomX, a mining protocol that prevent the use of specific hardware called ASICs to be made and then prevent mining centralization. Therefor you can mine XMR on any CPU (including smartphones which are not profitable LOL). It has a Tail Emission which means that since summer 2022, all blocks mined will genereate 0.6 XMR forever, so there will always be an economic insentive for miners and compensate lost coins over the year. Unlike Bitcoin miners who will have to sustain only on network fees ones that the last Bitcoin will be mined in year ~2142. So Monero technically have an infinite supply but in reality it's not like the others. There will be the same ammount of XMR than BTC around the year 2040. So it's currently rarer.

Learn more on : Monero official website MULTILANGUAGE Moneroj.net Mastering Monero Book

Other privacy coins are (DYOR but Monero looks to be superior to any of these) : Zcash DASH Firo ARR DERO

ETH

Ethereum is an old cryptocurrencie project that was a "game changer" when it released as it allow you to make more complex smart-contract than Bitcoin . It's the second largest cryptocurrency on the market and the more popular for tokens, NFTs, DApps and smart contracts. If you are into "Decentralized" Finance (DeFi) Ethereum is the actual king.

THIS IS ALSO COMPLETLY PUBLIC, SO BE AWARE !!!

There is several projects that claims to be the best ETH Killer such as Cardano , Tron (TRX) , AVALANCHE (who got a contract with Amazon), COSMOS, ALGO, etc... but I do not have any interest in those for now so DYOR if you are interested in. As Ethereum has been the "web3" blockchain of choice for the majority of developpers people are building and using second layer as cheaper alternative to the main chain often at the cost of even greater centralization. See Optimisim, Polygon, etc...

Ethereum official website

To be honest this feels like Ethereum but for Bitcoiners. UTXO based PoW (actually Proof of Less Work) But with smart contract and for scalability uses a unique sharding implementation.

DOGE and the memecoins

Dogecoin is what we call a MemeCoin. I'm not sure if it was the first of its kind but it's the most popular one. It's not really a type of crypto that I want to put my money in as it's just a joke (at least it was in the beggining) but they do exists and are popular. DogeCoin has been kinda co-opted by Elon Musk.

If you want meme coins I suggest you to look into Dogecoin and Wownero $WOW and avoid other like SHIBA INU $SHIB (which is not a crypto but an $ETH shitty token scam) as this is a space full of scams and useless projects that needs ressources such as power and money to be maintained.

Phoenix is one of the oldest Bitcoin mobile wallet has it has been created a decade ago. It supports On-Chain and the Lightning Network (LN) which makes faster (almost instant), cheaper, less power hungry and more private transactions on Bitcoin . It's called a second layer and is really popular in the bitcoin ecosystem.

From my research this is the best easy LN wallet if you want to be in the ethos of Bitcoin.

It only support 12 words seeds (128 bits) so might not work for you but it's a cool open source wallet for both iOS and Android

Consider looking into : ZeusLN if you run your own node.

An open source wallet compatible with many devices.

Another open source mobile wallet for your sats.

iOS wallet for Bitcoiners that runs their nodes.

Crossplatform mobile LN wallet for Bitcoiners that runs their LN nodes.

Best computer wallet for your bitcoins with great integration for most harware wallet and privacy features !

It's an open source, community driven android only Monero wallet. It's feature rich, letting you setting up view only wallets, multiple Monero wallets, subaddresses connecting to your own node or a Tor node. You can scan Bitcoin addresses and Monerujo will automatically convert your XMR to BTC using SideShift AI .

Monero.com is a mobile open source Monero wallet for both iOS and Android . It allows you to store and send Monero securely. Allow you to set up multiple Monero wallets, multiple subaddresses, connecting to your own node or a Tor node. You can exchange your Monero in the app for other cryptos. Integration with CakePay (their GiftCards services) allow you to buy more stuff using Monero (at least spending them).

Probably the best wallet for Ethereum users

The official Ethereum wallet. You can store your ETH (obviously), NFTs (most are on Ethereum 's blockchain), ERC20 tokens etc... This is a great ETH only mobile and web wallet

The private wallet for using Ethereum anonymously ! ** Still in beta**

MetaMask is an Ethereum first wallet that allow you to have multiple account on the same seeds (not all ETH wallet support this so be aware). You can make it work with other Web3 blockchain but you will need extra steps. It's a mobile wallet and web browser extension that is really popular in the Ethereum sphere, however their recent change in their privacy politics create a controversy in the community and many left MetaMask .

This is proably the most underrated mobile wallet. It's free and open source, supports several blockchains, have a really professionnal and clean design, allow you to trade your crypto in the wallet itself, supports NFTs and DApps (even if I do not endorse theses). If you need a mobile wallet for your many AltCoins this is the one I would recommend you the most. It does not support all Web3 blockchains (but they are actively adding new ones) and there is still no Monero support yet.

Like I mentionned earlier in the MetaMask section, this wallet is not compatible with multi-account seeds (for now) as it's not a standard but we could see Unstoppable Wallet adding this feature as many are looking for MetaMask alternatives that are open source.

By the same devs that made Monero.com . Cake is the exact same wallet except that it support Bitcoin , Litecoin , Haven (XHV) and obviously Monero . It has almost the same user interface, allow you to buy crypto with fiat and exchange crypto with others that aren't supported by Cake Wallet like Ethereum . Integration with CakePay their GiftCards services so you can buy more stuff using crypto (at least spending them).

A multi-coins wallet for privacy coins and tokens only !

An open source wallet with tons of blockchains supported ! Not the best UX I have seen but supports a lot of coins and tokens.

Exodus is not open source but is a flashy design non-custodial wallet that have been around for years and support many blockchains (a lot of them), allow you to buy crypto with fiat, supports the Ligthning Network, NFTs, DApps and have a desktop client. I don't really recommend it

Like Phoenix Wallet , Exodus only works with 12 words Bitcoin seeds (128 bits) !

This website have the best map for crypto atm, just select your city, which crypto you wanna buy/sell and hope you have one (or more) nearby ! I won't use the app but rather the WebApp as it is enough for my usecase.

IN BETA

A swiss app that let you buy and sell Bitcoin in P2P with other users using fiat with a pretty clean and modern interace.

Hodl Hodl is a P2P Bitcoin trading platform, that allows users to trade directly with each other and it doesn't hold user’s funds — locking it in multisig escrow instead. This minimizes the possibility of Bitcoin assets theft and reduces trading time.

Vexl is another mobile p2p exchange Unlike Peach Bitcoin or AgoraDesk you will need to know someone who know someone that sells in order to buy so they know you are safe ! This is more resistant to sybill-attack so I'm really excited to sign up once it launches.

More for advanced users than beginners, Bisq is an awesome decentralised exchange (DEX) that allow you to trade fiat and crypto. It's quiet private but as it's built on Bitcoin it suffer from the public ledger problem. However this is the most resiliant DEX ever and built on top of the most decentralised and resiliant blockchain.

With this shadowy-looking plateform you can exchanges many crypto without any KYC required.

If available in your region Mt Pelerin allow you to buy crypto directly to your wallet.

Kraken is another Centralized that is more like Binance and Coinbase as it has a KYC policy. I trust them more than Binance or Crypto.com .

DYOR, policies and crypto availability might vary in your country !

The easiest way for a merchant to accept Bitcoin and Bitcoin only both on-chain and through LN??, both online and in physical store ! The custody is 24h as every night all LN and OnChain funds are send back to your wallet address.

Easy solution for multiple coins like Bitcoin Bitcoin Cash and Monero and a few others

The most sovreign way to do it but requiere a few technical knowledge and a little infrastructure. You can pay someone to set it up for you. Supports Bitcoin , LN & Monero , Litecoin , DASH , Dogecoin and a few more.

Can be integrated to WordPress or Shopify

Payment processor

Also a sovreign way to do it that requiere a few technical knowledge and a little infrastructure. Supports many coins such as Bitcoin , Bitcoin Cash , Monero , Ethereum , Binance Smart Chain, Smart Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin , Polygon, GlobalBoost, Tron (TRX) , Ergon, Groestlcoin and many more tokens !

This Web App allow you to see where you can spend your sats, from cafe to grocery and hostel near you ! Available as a standalone app but the PWA take less space and doesn't depend on the AppStore or PlayStore. Just open the map on your browser (Safari for iOS - Any chromium-based browser for Android)

Look for hostel, flight, etc... that accepts cryptocurrencies !

Use Bitcoin , LN, Ethereum , Litecoin , Dogecoin or DASH to buy gift cards !