I am new, need guidelines..

Hey all. I'm wanting to try to get to know more about crypto and how to make money with it. I am getting lots of conflicting information and I need some sort of good guide about what it's all about. Is it possible to make money with this? Do I have to mine it? Are they like stocks? I know it's a virtual currency but it's... Different. I wanna take the time to educate myself properly.