Ethereum Guide?

[PhreakZero]

Hello guys, i wanna start into the cryptocurrency world, i dont know much about this, ive read a little bit
I want to mine/invest this coin, is there any guide/first steps guide for begginers? 
Where can i buy it? , 
Thanks 
 

[AugOwnz]

If you wanna buy ethereum coins you can do that at poloniex or btc-e (and many more exchanges). Mining them is only profitable if your power costs are low, recommended cards are rx470/480s or gtx 1070s. You need a wallet to store ETH and a miner (what miner depends on if you're using amd or nvidia cards). You can search around on whats the best miner for the brand that you decide getting, I haven't mined eth yet (mining Zcash currently) so I can't really go into a detailed guide. Some other person might know alot more than me.

[Chris Barry]

I currently mine Ethereum and I can help with this. First off as AugOwnz said you are going to need a wallet to store your coins. This is necessary as is protects against a coin exchange getting hacked as they are very high value targets for hackers. I currently used the Jaxx Wallet and have had quite a bit of luck with it; however, you really should do your own research on what wallet to use based on which one fits your use case the best. 

 

I'm not going to go into the profitability of mining because that is for you to decide and discover but I will say that having a power cost of below at least $0.15 per Kwh is almost a necessity. Now, for a miner you really have two main options you can Pool mine or you can Solo Mine. The difference here is that pool mining is your putting your mining power together with alot of other miners in order to get more frequent although smaller payments and you will pay a small fee of usually one to two percent for that. Or you can solo mine this is when you mine by your self and you only get rewards when your miner finds a block which can be very inconsistent although the pay out is alot larger when you do find a block. From what i've read is that solo mining and pool mining pay about the same. I personally pool mine as it is alot easier in my opinion to set up and maintain.

 

With Ethereum mining you really only have two main options in mining software Genoil and Claymore. I started with Claymore because it was the first one I saw when setting up my first mining rig. I like it as it works well and the current versions allow dual mining between Ethereum and an array of different currencies. Dual mining is just mining two different algorithms at the same time without affecting performance. This is nice as it gives you just a little more return from your cards per day.

 

For buying and selling Ethereum as a BEGINNER i recommend using Coinbase but I would soon move to something like Poloniex. I only recommend Coinbase as it is easy to use although it does have high fees and long wait times. Along with them being known to flag accounts with no notice at all. Once you get used to using crypto currencies then you should more to a more complex exchange. Also remember to never store your coins in an exchange for too long: always keep them in your wallet and make sure you wright down your security key so you will never lose your coins.