Cryptocurrency, explained properly
38 independent guides and tools covering how blockchains work, how to keep assets safe, how trading and tax actually function, and where the real risks sit. No price predictions, no referral links, nothing to sell you.
Read this first. Crypto assets are highly volatile and largely unregulated. Prices can fall to zero, platforms fail, and transactions cannot be reversed. Nothing on this site is financial advice or a recommendation to buy anything. Never commit money you cannot afford to lose entirely.
Blockchain Basics
How the underlying technology works — blocks, hashes, keys, consensus and the trade-offs that come with removing a central authority.
What Is a Blockchain? A Plain-English Explanation
Strip away the terminology and a blockchain is a ledger kept by thousands of computers at once, where changing an old entry would mean …
Blockchain BasicsHow Bitcoin Actually Works, Step by Step
The best way to understand Bitcoin is to follow one payment through the system and watch what each part of the machinery does to it.…
Blockchain BasicsPublic and Private Keys Explained
Every warning about crypto security traces back to one asymmetry: deriving a public key from a private key is trivial, and reversing it…
Blockchain BasicsWhat Is Ethereum?
Bitcoin is a ledger for one asset. Ethereum is a ledger that can run arbitrary programs, which is a much larger and much messier idea.…
Blockchain BasicsGas Fees Explained, and How to Pay Less
A gas fee is not a payment to a company. It is an auction for space in a block, and understanding the auction is how you stop overpayin…
Blockchain BasicsSmart Contracts Explained
A smart contract is neither smart nor a contract. It is a program that runs exactly as written, which is a much narrower and more dange…
Wallets & Security
Custody, seed phrases, hardware wallets and the scams that separate people from their funds. The most consequential section on this site.
Crypto Wallet Security: A Practical Guide
Most crypto losses are not sophisticated. They are a seed phrase photographed on a phone, a fake support agent, or a signature approved…
Wallets & SecurityHow Crypto Scams Work, and How to Spot Them
Crypto fraud is not usually technically clever. It works by manufacturing urgency, trust or greed faster than your judgement can catch …
Wallets & SecurityHardware Wallets: What They Do and How to Use One
A hardware wallet solves one problem extremely well: it stops a compromised computer from ever seeing your private key.…
Wallets & SecuritySeed Phrases: What They Are and How to Protect One
Twelve ordinary English words are the single most valuable thing most crypto holders own, and most people store them worse than they st…
Wallets & SecurityWhat Is a Crypto Wallet?
A wallet does not hold coins. It holds keys, and the difference matters for every decision you make afterwards.…
Wallets & SecurityTwo-Factor Authentication for Crypto Accounts
SIM swapping has cost crypto holders hundreds of millions, and it defeats SMS two-factor authentication completely.…
Buying & Trading
Exchanges, order types, fees, spreads and the practical mechanics of getting in and out — plus the behavioural traps that cost the most money.
How to Buy Cryptocurrency Safely
The mechanics take twenty minutes. The decisions you make before you start are what determine whether it goes well.…
Buying & TradingUnderstanding Crypto Exchange Fees
A '0.1% fee' exchange can easily cost you 2% on a small trade once the spread, the deposit and the withdrawal are counted.…
Buying & TradingWhy Crypto Is So Volatile
Bitcoin has fallen more than 70% from a peak on at least four separate occasions. That is not a malfunction — it is the normal behaviou…
Buying & TradingCrypto Market Cap: What It Does and Does Not Tell You
Market cap is not money invested, and it is not what the project is worth. It is a multiplication, and a fragile one.…
Buying & TradingCrypto Order Types and When to Use Them
Using a market order in a thin market is one of the most common and most expensive beginner mistakes.…
Buying & TradingHow to Read a Crypto Whitepaper Critically
A whitepaper is a marketing document that borrows the format of a research paper. Reading it as the latter is how people get caught.…
DeFi & Web3
Lending protocols, decentralised exchanges, stablecoins, NFTs and layer 2 networks, with their real risks stated rather than skipped.
What Is DeFi? Decentralised Finance Explained
DeFi rebuilds lending, trading and derivatives as public software. That removes the intermediary and replaces it with code that cannot …
DeFi & Web3Stablecoins: How They Work and How They Fail
A stablecoin is a promise. The interesting question is always who is making it and what stands behind it.…
DeFi & Web3Impermanent Loss Explained
The name is badly chosen. The loss becomes permanent the moment you withdraw, and it is the main reason liquidity provision underperfor…
DeFi & Web3Layer 2 Networks Explained
Layer 2s exist because a blockchain that every participant must verify cannot also process thousands of transactions per second. The fi…
DeFi & Web3NFTs Explained Without the Hype
An NFT is a database entry proving which address controls a unique token. What that token points at, and what rights come with it, is a…
DeFi & Web3Crypto Airdrops: How They Work and What They Cost
Airdrops are marketing, not gifts. Understanding what the project is buying with them explains most of how they work.…
Mining & Consensus
Proof of work, proof of stake, validators, staking and the economics and energy debates around securing a network.
Proof of Work vs Proof of Stake
Both answer the same question — who gets to add the next block, and why should anyone believe them — with completely different economic…
Mining & ConsensusCrypto Staking: How It Works and What It Risks
Staking rewards are payment for a service — securing the network — and like any payment, they come with obligations and risks attached.…
Mining & ConsensusCrypto Mining: How It Works and Whether It Pays
Mining is a competitive industrial business with thin margins, not a way to generate passive income from a spare computer.…
Tax & Regulation
How tax authorities treat digital assets, what record-keeping actually requires, and the regulatory frameworks now taking shape.
Crypto Tax Basics: What Creates a Taxable Event
The single most expensive misconception in crypto tax is that nothing is taxable until you cash out to your bank account.…
Tax & RegulationHow Cryptocurrency Is Regulated
Crypto is not unregulated. It is regulated unevenly, differently in each jurisdiction, and often by rules written for something else.…
Tax & RegulationWhat Happens to Your Crypto When You Die
Assets nobody can access are assets that no longer exist. Crypto is the only common asset class where dying badly can destroy it entire…
Tax & RegulationKYC and AML in Crypto: What Happens to Your Data
Identity verification is a legal requirement rather than a commercial choice, and understanding what it is for explains most of what ex…
Crypto Tools
Free calculators for position sizing, dollar-cost averaging, profit and loss, and the other arithmetic that is easy to get wrong.
Dollar Cost Averaging Calculator
Dollar-cost averaging buys a fixed amount at fixed intervals regardless of price. This models what that produces against a single lump-…
Crypto ToolsCrypto Profit Calculator
Includes both sides of the fees, which is the difference between the profit you think you made and the profit you actually made.…
Crypto ToolsPosition Size Calculator
Position sizing is the one risk control that works regardless of whether you are right about anything else.…
Crypto ToolsImpermanent Loss Calculator
Enter what the prices did and this shows the gap between providing liquidity and simply holding the two assets.…
Crypto ToolsStaking Rewards Calculator
Rewards are paid in the staked asset, so the return in your own currency depends on two things — the yield and the price.…
How this site is different
Most cryptocurrency writing has something to sell: a token, an exchange referral, a course, or a newsletter subscription. That incentive shapes the content, usually by making everything sound more certain and more promising than it is.
InfoCrypto sells nothing. There are no affiliate links, no sponsored posts and no tokens. The site is funded by ordinary display advertising, which means we have no reason to talk you into a position and no reason to talk you out of one.
Three commitments follow from that. We never predict prices, because nobody can and pretending otherwise is how people lose money. We state the risks in the same breath as the mechanics, rather than in a footnote. And we say when something is unknown or contested instead of picking whichever side makes a cleaner story.
Your data stays yours
No accounts, no newsletter wall, no tracking pixels. The calculators run entirely in your browser, so figures you enter about your own holdings are never transmitted anywhere. See our privacy policy for the detail.