I'm happy you're joining the party mate. Now, before you start investing that big amount of money, I would advice you to just read about everything that you can about this world. From the concept of blockchain, passing trough what BTC offers to the currency system, and what do miners, fees, wallets mean. After that you then have some basic notions of what moves the gears of the system.

Then you can start researching on your own, maybe adventuring into Ethereum and start seeing the main differences with the BTC network, mainly the so called smart contracts.

Like everything in life, you must invest in an environment that you grasp the basis so that you can read some news and see how they can impact your investments. As far as alt coins go, I recommend that you start searching for VEN, Monero and NEO for starters. They are (in my opinion) a really good set of coins that you should consider an investment. If you have further questions ( to as where to make exchanges, where to get coins) just let me know and I'll be happy to help you out man.