Online Cryptocurrencies.
One way to hedge your bets against regular currency is to convert some of it to an online cryptocurrency such as BitCoin. Over the past few years one Bitcoin has gone from being worth less than a dollar to $1000, back down to $200 and then slowly climbing up to $700. The online currency is volatile and can be fast moving. Most people consider this sort of thing to be speculating instead of investing due to its high volatility and lack of knowledge about its driving force.
To "invest" (and I use that term loosely) in a cryptocurrency what you are going to need is a "wallet" for that currency which will reside on your computer or online. If it is on your computer and you lose that wallet then you have lost all of your cryptocurrency and cannot get it back so make very good backups of your hard disk. If your wallet is online and somebody hacks your account then you cannot recover that money and will lose it.
Once you set up your wallet is has to synchronise with the main "blockchain" to bring it up to date with the system. Once it has done this you can get an address from the wallet, this is one of your addresses and can be used to receive the cryptocurrency from others. Next you will have to open an account on an "exchange" so that you can convert money to cryptocurrency and vice versa. Each exchange has its own way of handling new users and there may be some burden of proof before you can deposit money with the exchange.
The next step is to fund the exchange with real money and then convert that money over to cryptocurrency by selling your money and buying the cryptocurrency of your choice. From there you can give it your cryptocurrency address and it will transfer your newly acquired bitcoin (or whatever coin you chose) to the wallet on your computer (or online). That is it. If you want then you can keep some of the money at the exchange and see if you can make a living by exchanging currencies.
You can have more than one type of cryptocurrency so you may want to put some of your money into each one just in case one of them dies. If a coin dies then it will get de-listed from exchanges and you will not be able to convert it into anything else.
Another way to get cryptocurrency is to use your computer to "mine" it. Unfortunately as time goes on you require faster and faster hardware in order to mine less and less coins. The whole mining thing is too complex to discuss here but unless you have some serious computer hardware it is never going to be worthwhile mining these coins. However if you want to give it a go then take a look at a website called MinerGate, it has an easy to use mining system.
One of the things to watch out for are websites offering high percentage returns for investing your bitcoin with them. Almost all of them are scams or ponzi schemes. Just remember, if it looks too good to be true then it probably is. There is nothing special about bitcoin that would allow you to get greater returns than if you invested cash.
Another new thing is what is called an "ICO" or "Initial Coin Offering". Basically, you can trade Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for their special cryptocurrency which they promise will be available on exchanges to exchange back to Bitcoin once their company goes public and the value of the coin goes up. Do you see a problem here? You are trading a good and solid cryptocurrency that you can exchange for cash and in return you are getting a new cryptocurrency that may end up not going anywhere. I am not going to condemn all of them because some of them are genuine attempts to raise money but there are a lot of scams out there that will take your bitcoin and give you useless tokens in return. If you are going to invest in one of these ICO's then do your research.
Online Multi Crypto Wallet - www.cryptonator.com
Convert Cash to Crypto and Back Again - www.coinbase.com
Convert Cash to Crypto and Back Again - www.coinbase.com
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LiteCoin - M8esFXU7wUsKHY1A9V9B84ohvsmVN76tZD
Bitcoin - 1Du3cArBUoqeUq9rH4wf751Sgmf93L1qPh
Bitcoin Cash - qqh24cgm33vwj23m8r7xapnzvgxktna6aq7mqmvyr3
Ethereum - 0x6bec9780ac6140c6482660d374752E670DE919e6
Etherium Classic - 0xBBDf2914146bF2017bcabc5964b48CB530092853
USD Coin - 0xf679698c0C7d7c0874ABF4F8961d6e59Dd150747
Dash - XemJNijztWskj68cdt9kw3scTRSzeKTEiW
Zcash - t1fA9bRjdoQgMCErHfVEi4zuEJ6gwN7qWtm
LiteCoin - M8esFXU7wUsKHY1A9V9B84ohvsmVN76tZD
Bitcoin - 1Du3cArBUoqeUq9rH4wf751Sgmf93L1qPh
Bitcoin Cash - qqh24cgm33vwj23m8r7xapnzvgxktna6aq7mqmvyr3
Ethereum - 0x6bec9780ac6140c6482660d374752E670DE919e6
Etherium Classic - 0xBBDf2914146bF2017bcabc5964b48CB530092853
USD Coin - 0xf679698c0C7d7c0874ABF4F8961d6e59Dd150747
Dash - XemJNijztWskj68cdt9kw3scTRSzeKTEiW
Zcash - t1fA9bRjdoQgMCErHfVEi4zuEJ6gwN7qWtm