---
title: 'How to Invest in Crypto as a COMPLETE Beginner 2026 Guide'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=8CF-fxIA4a8'
video_id: '8CF-fxIA4a8'
date: 2026-06-30
duration_sec: 1244
---

# How to Invest in Crypto as a COMPLETE Beginner 2026 Guide

> Source: [How to Invest in Crypto as a COMPLETE Beginner 2026 Guide](https://youtube.com/watch?v=8CF-fxIA4a8)

## Summary

The video explains that successful investing, particularly in crypto, hinges not on short-term trading or timing the market but on consistent, long-term accumulation of assets with strong compound growth rates. The creator argues that Bitcoin's historical performance demonstrates that a simple strategy of dollar-cost averaging can dramatically outweigh any gains from active trading.

### Key Points

- **Investing takes time, not single trades** [00:51] — No single trade can eclipse the portfolio growth achieved by consistent investing over 15-20 years due to the power of compounding on a larger capital base.
- **Focus on CAGR, not daily price** [01:28] — Investors use Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR), like Bitcoin's ~50% over 4 years. Daily price movements are irrelevant compared to this long-term metric.
- **Bitcoin outperforms other asset classes** [02:17] — Over the last decade, Bitcoin has been the top-performing asset 9 out of 10 years. A simple weekly investment of $100 consistently outperforms active trading.
- **Bitcoin vs Altcoins: Simpler is better** [03:56] — Since the 2021 bull market high, Bitcoin has massively outperformed the total altcoin market. Investing in a single, strong asset is simpler and often more effective than diversifying into hundreds of altcoins.
- **Understand market cap vs. price and token inflation** [06:14] — Price is not the true value. A coin's market cap (price × circulating supply) can hit new highs even if the price lags, due to token inflation (new coins diluting value). Example: Solana's price is below its ATH but its market cap is at an ATH.
- **Invest in asset classes, not individual assets** [09:03] — Treat crypto like an asset class with a risk/return profile. Compare it to bonds (2-3%), S&P 500 (13%), or NASDAQ (18%). Choose asset classes based on your age and risk tolerance.
- **Projecting future returns with AI tools** [12:13] — Use a tool like ChatGPT or Grok to calculate the outcome of a DCA strategy. Example: $100/week at 25% CAGR for 12 years yields ~$207k, demonstrating 'retirement done' in 12 years.
- **Tax strategy: borrow, don't sell** [16:58] — Wealthy investors avoid triggering capital gains tax by borrowing against their assets instead of selling them. If the asset's CAGR is higher than the loan's interest rate, this is a net positive strategy.

### Conclusion

The core path to life-changing wealth through crypto is not about finding the next 100x coin or perfecting trade entries, but about identifying assets with proven longevity and high CAGR, then consistently buying them for a decade or more.

## Transcript

if you're brand new to investing and
looking at crypto because that's what
everyone's talking about right now and
trading I just want to go back to basics
and give you the absolute fundamental
very simple things that you can do to
just completely change your life over
time Bitcoin and crypto have the growth
and all you need to do is just
understand that be consistent and it
will change your life and I'll show you
how to actually figure out what are the
compounded returns how to think about
that within your own uh strategy and
what you can invest right so let's look
at how this actually works so again I'll
leave links to all of this down below as
well these charts and everything uh and
more information so you can see that
this is the Bitcoin chart and this is
what everyone looks at all the time and
they get obsessed with daily price
movements and everything like that this
is not how investors trade or think
about things the one thing that uh
newcomers never uh grasp initially is
investing takes time right everything
takes time there is no amount of money
that you can make in one trade with one
purchase and one sale that will eclipse
what you can make over time right you
have to be consistent it's not about
buying once it's about buying multiple
times and so you have to identify assets
that have longevity and growth in them
over longer periods of time because
there's nothing you can do this week
There's no trade that you can make that
can Eclipse someone else who's been
investing consistently for 15 20 years
they just have a much bigger portfolio
small percentage movements for them in
nominal dollar amounts or fat currency
amounts can be massive right and you
just cannot Eclipse that with one trade
no matter how good you are and how how
good the trade was so what investors use
is something called kagr or ARR annual
rate of return or compound annual growth
rate it's pretty much the same thing you
take a period in time right usually four
years 6 years 8 years something like
that this is a fouryear Kar for Bitcoin
and ethereum so what we're saying is
what's the growth rate that I can expect
so over the last four years you can see
that Bitcoin and ether have annualized
at around 40 to 50% and people get
absolutely caught up with a day-to-day
Trading price and the movements and
everything it's just so irrelevant it's
completely irrelevant the what is the
4-year kagar 50% a year so 50% a year is
the compound annual growth rate of your
investment if you just buy buy buy once
a week something like that and so this
is the uh table of investment returns
this is a fiveyear kagar this is from
Fidelity and you can see that over the
last decade uh Bitcoin has been at the
top 9 out of 10 years and this thing is
massively volatile right it's gone up
it's gone down every sideways everything
else but the comp pound annual growth
rate so you invest $100 a week $200 a
week $50 a week whatever it is again and
again and again you're the best
performing Trader in the whole market
and all you've done is just put some of
your wages to buying it every week
that's it it's as simple as that so the
real thing investing is identifying
assets that have uh decent growth rates
not just that longevity right all coins
that go up really high 100000% up in a
bull market and then crash back down
that's not investing okay Trading that's
different but investing is identifying
assets that have that sweet spot of
growth and Longevity so Bitcoin has it
you can see ethereum has had it as well
definitely a very good performer so it's
not about the daily traded price it's
about the compound annual growth rate
and longevity of the asset it's the
number one thing in investing finding
that sweet spot and right now I think
Bitcoin and EA but I'm not trying to
convince you about these assets
particularly I just want to give you the
tools to do it yourself compound annual
growth rate I'll leave these links below
as well so you can go and look at this
and try and compare it around different
assets
um so that you know exactly you know
where your sweet spot is now I want to
quickly touch on bitcoin versus altcoins
because a lot of people say you know
what should my portfolio look like
should I buy some Bitcoin should I buy
some altcoins you know what should I do
you know a lot of people have you know a
kind of anchor asset that thing in the
middle that's the biggest thing and then
they have you know some kind of
satellite assets around it where you
know they like the project or something
else and they put smaller amounts in um
I just want to you know show you the
performance of Bitcoin versus altcoins
because it kind of doesn't matter right
it's an arbitrary difference here right
there's a thing and it has a growth
profile a volatility profile right and
then a longevity profile it's those
three things you need to focus on so
over the last year Bitcoin and Orange
versus total 3 which is the entire
cryptocurrency market cap except for
Bitcoin uh and ethereum so this purple
line pink line has basically every
single coin except for Bitcoin eth and
stable coins um and the value of that
has not outperformed Bitcoin over the
last year right and so you have to look
at Bitcoin the longevity of Bitcoin over
time the complexity of buying every
single coin in crypto versus just buying
one coin right it hasn't outperformed so
what you can see here is you know
essentially it doesn't matter what
you're invested in it just matters the
performance and the volatility so
bitcoin's outperformed then we take this
from the lows of the previous bare
market right the very lowest price that
Bitcoin got to and Bitcoin has massively
outperform the rest of the market right
so looking at this it's not about
Bitcoin or being a Bitcoin Maxi or
anything else it's just simple logic and
simple uh facts Bitcoin is outperformed
it's a simple investment it's easier to
make than indexing the whole entire
Market you can't even do that it's
outperformed by a huge amount therefore
that is the stronger asset and you
should probably invest in it this is
since the high of the last bull market
right where Bitcoin got up to 69,000
altcoins were going crazy since then uh
Bitcoin has massively outperformed in
fact the entire altcoin Market is
actually down right so if you bought all
the altcoins You' actually lost money
versus Bitcoin uh which has gained uh a
lot of momentum this is even further
back pretty much at the lows of the of
two cycles ago uh the altcoin market has
outperformed Bitcoin by 30% right so
what you would have to have done is
invested in every single coin in crypto
to outperform bitcoin by 30% uh which
again is an amazing performance
considering that the amount of coins has
increased significantly right you're
you're you're looking at one coin in
Bitcoin versus every single other coin
and hundreds of coins thousands of coins
that didn't even exist back here so
they've just been adding adding adding
new coins all the time versus BTC the
other thing to be aware of also when
looking at valuations is market cap
versus
price the price of a token right this is
not the total value of that of that
thing right the price of the token has
to be multiplied by the amount of tokens
in circulation and that gives you the
market cap which is the total value of
circulating coins and what happens in
cryptand is that there's inflation in
these assets right so they start off
let's say they have a billion coins or
10 billion coins whatever it is they'll
have 10% of them circulating initially
right so if you've got a million coins
you have 100,000 of them circulating
initially over time that 100,000 coins
gross so every year there might be 5%
10% 15% inflation which means that
100,000 coins grows in size so have more
and more coins coming into the market
over time now as people buy the coins
right what they're doing is basically
putting money into the market and buying
new coin issuance and that can grow the
market cap but the price may not grow
and if the market cap grows it doesn't
matter for you because you have a coin
at a price so what I mean by this is we
look at salana I'm just picking this one
hour I could be anyone but it's a good
example here we'll go over to Max here
this is the price of salana you can see
that had this huge price up movement
here to a basically an all-time high we
come down and we move up now we are
let's say near an all-time high right
now actually we're just underneath it so
from a price
perspective uh the price of salana is
not above its previous all-time high but
salana has had a massive amount of token
inflation during this time which means
people are buying the token but there
are loads more tokens coming onto the
market to dilute the value of those uh
the tokens existing so you look at
market cap which is the true valuation
and this is at an insane all-time high
right so this shows us that has there
has been a massive amount of token
inflation into the market and people are
buying new coins and putting money into
the market right but the price is
getting crushed uh versus um you know if
there weren't isn't isn't any inflation
so when you look back here what we can
say is well how much of this
outperformance over two cycles is token
inflation and new tokens that didn't
exist before and with all of that it's
only outperformed by 32% so again what I
would suggest is just looking at the
data and and logically from from a
logical perspective you know Bitcoin
seems very very strong right and so if
you're looking at crypto and you're
looking at these assets then you just
have to look at these strong assets that
seem to outperform I'm not trying to
convince you to invest in Bitcoin or
anything else I just want to get you
thinking as to what the real valuation
of something is the real value over the
long term longevity and price and
volatility that is going to influence
what you actually invest in over the
long term when investing you really want
to be looking at asset classes and not
just individual assets especially if
you're a beginner looking at individual
assets is going to make take you down a
rabbit hole and it's just going to take
you away from the very Basics which is
there are a handful of asset classes
they have uh return profiles and that's
pretty much it so down here at the
bottom these are all the kind of top
asset classes that anyone would have a
choice from down here at the bottom you
have bonds okay these are really dismal
right if you want to invest in us
treasuries or you know whatever very
very dismal returns right 2% 3%
Commodities have actually lost value I
mean obviously because they're
Commodities right the actual word
commodity means something that's
basically worthless and no one wants so
why would it go up in value so there we
go right these are dismal As you move up
you get a little bit more exotic you
have real estate investment trusts here
basically broad real estate exposure
going up at around 7% uh you have high
yield bonds convertible bonds these are
kind of more exotic Securities trying to
get a little bit more return um you know
5 to 8% as we move up we have the S&P
500 which is really the Benchmark
worldwide for investing right which is
500 best companies in the States you can
see that's annualizing around 133% a
year if you look at the NASDAQ which is
you know just as popular you've only got
100 uh companies here focused in
technology they're 18% annualized and
then you get get up to bitcoin 150%
annualized right and so you know if you
put alt coins in this list it's going to
be around 100 150% as well right so
they've done very well but with a lot
more risk and volatility some coins do
really well some coins don't which means
if you're investing in all coins you
probably have to diversify and get a
basket of 10 15 20 of them or you know
something like that which becomes
complex and so maybe just Bitcoin is the
answer but again it's not about the
asset it's just about asset classes what
growth they have and how you want to
gain exposure right so they they have
different risk profiles as well right
Bitcoin is really really volatile
compared to these and so it's volatile
and that means well it's growing with
volatility so you face big draw downs
and big ball markets as well but
annualized you're actually making more
right if you don't want that volatility
then you have to go down to something
that's less volatile so you're looking
at NASDAQ or S&P you're you're going to
make less returns there because they're
less volatile they're more mature right
and so yes Bitcoin is more volatile but
it's also gaining more over time so it
matters about the asset class exposure
just think how much do you want in each
of those buckets right how much risk you
want to take you know are you a young
person well if you're young then you can
stomach volatility right because you can
work and you can make it back and
everything so you don't care if you have
to invest for 4 8 12 15 years if you're
70 years old maybe Bitcoin isn't for you
so with investing it's not about trying
to make money and trying to make returns
it's just these are the asset classes
there's volatility there you can choose
which one is right for you at the time
that you're investing are you young you
middle-aged old that's going to affect
what you invest in but I just want to
get this over it's not about individual
coins or anything like that just gain
exposure to assets that have growth and
volatility profiles that are appropriate
for you investors have many different
types of calculations that they can use
to work out what an investment will be
worth in the future and again all we
have to do is take the compound annual
growth rate of the asset right we can
plug this into many different types of
calculations I used to do this manually
but you can go to you know AI you can go
to chat gbt Gro or whatever you can put
this in here um the downside here is
that I often see them making slight
mistakes actually so um I don't know if
this is exactly correct but it's just
illustr
what you can do is you go to Gro or
whatever and you say you know I want to
invest x amount per week and I'm
investing in an asset that has this
growth profile so you can you can tell
grock you know Bitcoin has a kagr of 25%
now currently it's 40 to 40 to 50% but
let's just knock it down and say the
kagar is 25% a year so if I invest $100
per week the kagar is 25% a year and I
do that for 12 years what's the outcome
right so $100 a week so the total
investment here would be over 12 years I
think this is I asked it yeah 25% kagar
$100 a week for 12 years what's the
return on invested
Capital return on investing Capital
annual rate of return compound annual
growth rate right you can use these so
the return on investing capital is
essentially we invested 62,400 and after
12 years the total investment is worth
uh total portfolio size is 206,000 920
so it's
$144,000 uh return if we assume this
compound annual growth three over time
right so you can work this out that's
that's just makes things well easy and I
understand there is no way that as a
Trader if you've got a couple of grand
to put in and you want to trade you want
to make some money there's just no way
you're can outperform that right you may
make some good trades and some bad
trades but you literally don't have to
do anything it's literally 10 seconds a
week to make a $100 trade on coinbase or
binance whatever and that's it right so
that is basically 12 years that's your
retirement finished so in 12 years time
your retirement I'm not saying you can
retire but I'm saying that retirement
bag finished because in 12 years time
that's still going to be annualizing at
25 20 18 177% whatever retirement bag
done your entire life changes now you
have strength you have time you can quit
your job and go and get the job you
actually like on less money because your
retirement's done you don't care you can
pay the bills now it's irrelevant you
can quit your job to start your own
business because you have time you have
strength that's investing so there is
nothing you can do there's not one
single trade you can make if you have
$26,000 has a portfolio in BTC and it
goes up 20% in a year that's a $40,000
income in your Investment Portfolio
there is no trade you can make over a
short period of time that can Eclipse
that right so is about time and
investing in assets to have that growth
over time is massive outperformance
right so it really is important to get
longevity in your assets to understand
what's going to keep having growth over
time and investing in that because this
is this is important 12 years can change
your entire life now I want to touch on
Market timing and dollar cost averaging
so for most people we work and we ear a
wage and therefore we ear a wage once a
month or once a week whatever we have
hopefully some cash left over that we
can invest that's dollar cost averaging
right because you just buy consistently
over time and you grow your portfolio
it's not that dollar cost averaging is a
better strategy it's just the one that
most of us are forced into because we
don't earn our entire life's wages at
once when we're 20 years old right so we
dollar across average and we grow our
portfolio and you want to grow it as
large as possible Right think about the
assets that you can invest in for 25
years cuz you can invest in them over
and over and over and over and your
portfolio grows and grows and by the
time you're old you don't need massive
returns because you've got a big savings
amount right in any case dollar cost
averaging is what most of us are going
to do because we don't have any other
choice we earn our wages every week or
every month dollar cost averaging right
you can see it's not the best strategy
right the best strategy is to buy the
thing at the lowest price that goes up
the most but as in you know as investors
really you just need to be consistent
with savings right now you can invest in
early opportunities or anything like
that but the reality is early
opportunities 99% fail anyway right you
may have one that makes up everything
else but we're not VC funds right we're
not Venture capitalists we don't have
the capital to go ahead and do that so
we need to actually just play the the
the game right which is playing the odds
playing the percentages in any case
dollar cost averaging okay it's there or
thereabouts perfect timing is where you
time the market absolutely perfectly on
this and that and the other but it
doesn't actually outperform that much so
don't bother right play the percentages
and you're going to make make mistakes
if you try and do this as well bad
timing so if you try and time the market
and you don't figure it out you're going
to underperform dollar cost averaging
anyway so dollar cost averaging is away
what is dollar cost averaging it's
essentially when you just buy each and
every week or each and every month and
you just put the money in over time and
it's going to grow your portfolio the
main thing right is to grow the biggest
portfolio you can so that when
percentage growth happens you have that
percentage growth on the most amount of
dollars and so that means you have to
choose assets that going to be around a
long time the other thing that no one
ever talks about with investing or
trading or any crypto videos is tax and
the way that you use assets to benefit
yourself right investing and and is not
about making money it's about growing
your asset base so that you have
strength and options in the future so if
you sell crypto in most countries in the
world this is this is a taxable gain
right because they're assets and so when
you make a profit on an asset you have
to pay capital gains tax on it tax is
charged on the capital gain meaning
let's say you trade a billion dollars of
something so you buy a billion dollars
and you sell a billion dollars but you
make a $1,000 profit well you're only
charged on that ,000 profit so you're
charged on the capital gain but around
the world I mean the UK you can see it's
24% here in the US apparently it's not
to 20% maybe different I'm not sure how
it works in the US in the Euro Zone
18% so you're getting you know a 20%
worst trade immediately on the profit
that you make now that may be fine right
you may have made lots of of gains so
you know who cares you want you want to
buy a house you want to do this pay off
some debt I get that but all in all you
know taxable gains aren't great and the
longer that you hold something the more
that it compounds the more gains that
you'll have and then you start to have
to think do you want to do you want to
pay that now what do wealthy people do
wealthy people essentially have as much
assets as possible they don't sell their
assets if they can what they do is they
borrow against them so maybe you want to
borrow against the asset because you've
got a big portfolio and you want to buy
a car well you don't sell the portfolio
to buy the car right you take take a
loan to buy the car and your income pays
it off over time right because as long
as the Blended interest on the car
payment right let's say you get a 12%
car loan but Bitcoin is going up at 40%
a year as long as you can pay as long as
you have an income to pay then it's
actually going to be way better for you
to take the loan and pay off the loan
and wait for the Bitcoin to outperform
it right so you can do that for Nasdaq
or anything else if your Blended
interest rate is lower than the uh kagar
the annualized rate of return of the
asset then you can take that over time
and wait and literally the growth of the
asset will outperform the debt and the
depreciation of the car you can do all
these calculations so these are the
things that you can think about when you
have an an asset base and it is these
are the big decisions in your life right
again there's nothing you can do to
trade and make money that is going to
outperform so you know taking debt to
buy a car paying that off over 12 years
right and letting the Bitcoin outperform
right now you're basically leveraging up
your income stream right now I'm not
saying leverage it up I'm not saying
take leverage to buy BTC but these are
the things that you can think about uh
that make a big difference to your
overall portfolio and that's what
wealthy people do I'm not saying do it
I'm not saying take leverage you can
work that out for yourself if you don't
want to take leverage then just sell the
assets take the hit on the capital games
and and buy the asset but you can do the
calculations doing the right thing and
making the right decisions over time can
make a really big impact over the long
term you look at Warren Buffett like a
crazy stat that the vast majority of his
wealth was made you know in the last 10
15 years of his life because he just
compounded and you get larger and larger
and larger and the nominal dollar amount
on that is huge right so that's what
rich people do they do not sell their
assets they do not pay tax if they can
help it they borrow against it or they
have an income stream that they pay and
if you can work do work to pay uh income
streams off into debt and let the assets
actually outperform because they can
demonetize the debt that you have if you
need some more specific and Technical
guides on how to actually go ahead and
trade cryptocurrency like how to buy how
to sell how to read charts how to
analyze kagr and other types of metrics
I've got a bunch of videos I'll leave
them all down in the description below
where you can get much more specific and
Technical I'll leave some deposit and
trading bonus links to the exchanges I
use as well to buy crypto down in the
description I'm James is mg cheers for
watching and I'll see you in the next
one