It is very impossible for a person to continue trading without understanding the slightest bit about it and to understand it, of course, you must first learn it and try slowly by using a little money that we can afford when we fail at the beginning of trying because there are many things that we must learn to be able to trade by making profits.
When the learning process is ongoing, of course we must have strong patience because we can experience some failures when we first try it and if we no longer correct our mistakes, of course we have experienced failures, but for those who can correct the mistakes they made, of course they will be able to achieve what they want from trading.
Why start trading with real money when you are in the learning process? One doesn't need to risk any money before they feel they are ready to face the challenges of the market. It's not as easy as you make it sound, and I know you are saying that one should start trading to have hands-on experience but that isn't necessary at the initial stage.
A person should make their knowledge very strong at first before they jump into the market and start making trades. When you have strong fundamental knowledge about cryptocurrencies, the market, different trading practices, and markets, you will have fewer difficulties when you start using all those things and it makes it easier for you to mitigate risks and stay within your limits when you start making real trades.
The only time to know how equiped and ready you are to trade is definitely not through demo trading even though it's the recommended starting point for every newbie trader to acquaint themself with how trading looking like. But in the real life trading what unfolds tends to be very different from the experiences with demo trading. It's likened to the experience of training for way and actually having to fight in the battle field, it's a two different experience altogether.
A lot of traders had quit trading within the shortest period because the results they were experiencing with demo isn't what is obtainable in real live trading, that's why it's necessary that as you learn about trading you also follow it up with real risk of what you can afford which will be helpful in building your strategy, emotions and risk ratio.