Question for the brehs who been in the crypto game for a while. For a newbie at this point would you recommend investing in an exchange (i.e coinbase) or directly into crypto (i.e BTC, ETH) ?
I would say choose the one that you are most comfortable with. I only say that because crypto prices and stocks like COIN for coinbase move together. BTC is down? Then COIN is down too usually. AFAIK COIN stock wasn't publicly traded yet during the previous bear market however, so the problem is if this is the start of a Crypto bear market, we dont know if COIN will drop more than BTC/ETH or the other way around. Honestly if I were you and completely new, but wanted to open a position, I would spend take whatever capital I have allocated for crypto investments and split half on COIN stock and the other half into the direct Crypto holdings themselves.
This would give you some hedge on both sides in case the price of COIN and BTC/ETH ever fall out of sync with each other. As well as giving you time to obtain a self custody wallet of some kind, and learn how to use it so the crypto you own directly isn't at risk to an exchange getting hacked. There's no such worry with Stocks usually because they are insured.