Crypto is a form of barter and a form of investment. This is not dissimilar from lots of other things around, pork bellies are sold as food, traded between people for other goods, and are part of an investment strategy.
All crypto is based off something similar. Whomever creates the crypto determines how much will exist (this can change in the future if they want in many cases). Then they set the rules for how new ones will be created (proof of work vs proof of stake). Then they release it to the world. If enough people like the coin then at some point it will get listed on an exchange. That is crucial for a coin that wants to make it to the big time.
Not all coins are useful for anything other than trading. Ones like Cardano, Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Ethereum are accepted by some companies for payment of real goods since they are established, but there are a lot of people who will accept many more for their goods.
A Crypto wallet is an electronic file, like a database, that contains your crypto coins. If you lose it or forget how to get into yours (ie password), the coins are gone until it is found or the password is remembered. There are probably a few billion dollars in Bitcoin sitting in trash dumps that can never be recovered at this point.
When you send someone money, they will give you their wallet address. You would go to whatever you use to send and receive coins and enter their address and how much of what type to send. You will be charged a percentage. The coin moves only when so many other wallets have verified that you wanted that money to go to that wallet. Every transaction is logged in multiple places and verified prior to actually happening. That has created a lot of problems as things like Bitcoin sometimes took 30-45 minutes to validate transactions, kind of hard to work with when you are selling someone something in person and have to make them hang around until it validates.
I have money in crypto and it is way too volatile for me to think it is a good investment for large sums. Right now taxation is almost nil on it, but it is coming soon. And once that happens things will change. Another thing to remember is that some of these are flat out scams. age and listing on exchanges such as Coinbase or Binance are a good indicator of which are not flat out scams.
You want good long-term choices, then go Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Cardano. Even BNB(Binance Coin) is probably a good choice because it is used by the Binance market to pay fees on transactions, meaning it has circulation and real use. You want something to play with and maybe make or lose money? Dogecoin is really cheap (14 cents at the moment) but probably will rise to around 30-40 cents in the next year. Cardano is around $1.02 right now and probably will hit $2-2.50 this year. Markets are in a crash right now, per the usual start of year junk, so it may drop before it comes back up.
Link to the Top 100 coins at the moment
Today's Top 100 Crypto Coins Prices And Data | CoinMarketCap
