New Here?
Four steps, in order. Take them at whatever pace suits you.
Most people who find Bitcoin get handed twenty things at once and end up doing none of them. So we put ours in order. Step one before step two, step two before step three. Nothing here is urgent, and nobody is timing you.
One thing that looks backward and is not: the wallet comes before the money. Set up the place your Bitcoin is going to live first, and your very first purchase can go straight there instead of sitting on an exchange while you figure things out. That gap is where most people lose Bitcoin.
You do not have to finish the list before you show up to a meetup. Plenty of folks walk in on step zero and work through this with people sitting next to them, which is honestly the easier way to do it.
The whole reason this community exists is that reading about Bitcoin alone is slower and lonelier than learning it with people who have already made the mistakes. Come sit in. Ask the question you think is too basic. Somebody in the room asked it last year.