I'd suggest you initially experiment with an amount you're willing to part with for an indefinite period of time. You can use that as your testing ground until you have a stronger grasp clearer goal in mind regarding what you want to get out of investing in cryptos (and how you plan to do it). If there's an ideal, quantifiable range or amount to invest, I think it would vary greatly depending on the individual, and can change based on several factors. Some might include how risk-averse an individual is, how much insight or trading experience they have, their amount of income, savings, expendable funds available, etc.

The ideal initial amount is 0 (zero), you earn some coins in airdrops, giveaways or doing some simple tasks online and then you build your portfolio from there.

That's how you really learn to navigate in bitcoinland.

If you have enough money to invest, money your can afford to lose, then just buy bitcoin every month, sit on it, and in a few years you'll have a nice sum of money.

Is it really possible for newbies to earn any significant amount of coins through airdrops or giveaways? I mean actual Bitcoin, not some obscure ICO that gives away a few of their tokens.

I tried some faucets and stuff myself when I first started, but quickly found out that they weren't worth the effort and I just bought some coins for a couple of hundred dollars after a few days.

I've never lost any, so it can't be too hard for a newbie to learn about Bitcoin after making a small investment.

Though this was before the fees were so high, so I guess you could make some mistakes with that now.

It seems to me that if you have no experience in investing then the best option for you would be training on a demo account. You should always remember that in order for someone to earn money on the stock exchange someone has to lose them.

Of course it is, just keep accumulating and don't expect to retire after a month or a year, but after 2 or 3 years, those accumulated coins will be worth quite an amount of money, of course it requires to learn how to trade, don't keep shitcoins forever, but some are good projects and value will increase a lot.

Yes we have many coins in the market, but not all coins are good to invest. To compare good coins, we have a lot of shitcoins. These shit coins will operate by some group of people these people will always try to cheat new investors. So don't look the price of the coin. Check the project and invest after 2 or 3 years you will get good returns.

There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want. 

I can see a lot of people have given great advices. While most of them are nice, some are really good and even i gained knowledge in reading through the replies. But if i were you, i would consider the fact that i am just starting out. And being a beginner, I should learn first the things about at least the most famous coins at this time, then ask advices(which is you already did). After knowing a good amount of knowledge about how things work, i would invest first in my security, like buying an extra device or pc or a vault to store my important details considering i am looking into investing huge amounts of money and time. And gen everything is set, i start investing small and try to get the feel of things that are going on. And when i get used to it, i would increase investments time after time, while trying to learn some more then learn and learn and learn. Knowledge is the most important thing in the crypto world. Well, luck seems to be needed too, so better have them both. So yeah, that's pretty much it. I hope this helps you mate! Good luck. Cheers.

Thanks for the response. What are airdrops? and what examples of giveaways and where to source them?

The Golden rule is, DO NOT invest more than what you can afford to lose. Bitcoin is still a high risk investment and you should always keep that in mind, when you decide on how much you want to invest. I started slowly and invested a small amount. Then within 2 weeks I doubled my initial investment and I was so chuffed with that, I invested more.

Since I have started, I quadrupled my total initial investment with the profits I made and I am trading with profits now. I see this as a risk free Bitcoin portfolio now, because I already extracted my initial investment. ^smile^