I will not try to talk the jargon and attempt to pretend like I know anything.
That being said, guys like me that have virtually zero clue about the vast landscape of cryptocurrency are the ones making most of the mistakes and bad investment choices.
What I am looking for is a dumbed down real discussion that lays out the pitfalls. What are the real warning signs.
Alt coins. What are the dead giveaways that an alt coin is a scam coin or a pump and dump scheme.
Positive hype is everywhere and I could not care less about someone's enthusiastic blather. I would much rather know about the failures. The scams. How to look at coins armed with the basic knowledge of warning signs.

I am currently looking at and referring to a specific: OneCoin at www.onecoin.eu
As a newbie, I am drawn in by the ability to make money out of the gate due to the MLM structure.
MLM's inherently have a dark side built in however. I want to gain knowledge pertaining to coin when an alt coin is trying to get started and uses MLM tactics to gain members/investors.

What is the downside of pre-mining? OneCoin has just started their closed source mining on Jan 20 and has already mined 550,000 of their own coins. They claim that this mining internal of their own network is only a way to make it "fair" for the network. They plan to mine the majority of their own coins prior to going public and are still not in an exchange.

Bottom line question: What is the best way for newbies to cut their teeth in cryptocurrency?