Crypto, in plain English

Getting into crypto is easy. Not losing it is the part nobody teaches you.

This is the setup I walk every beginner through — a wallet, an exchange, and a card to spend it. Three steps, in order, with the exact tools I use myself. No jargon, no hype, and a real person on the other end when you get stuck.

Start with Step 1 Talk to a human first

Built and maintained by CryptoTech and the Crypto Counsel team.

The setup — do these in order

Three things you need before you buy anything

Each step depends on the one before it. Get the wallet first, because that's where everything else ends up — and it's the step people skip and regret.

Step one

A wallet — your own account, that only you control

A crypto wallet is your personal bank account, except there is no bank and no help desk. Whoever holds the recovery phrase holds the money. That is the whole game, and it's why this step comes first.

Rabby

Everyday

A wallet for Ethereum and the chains built like it, on your computer or your phone. Before you approve anything, it shows you in plain terms what that transaction is about to do — which is the exact moment most people get robbed.

Get Rabby

MetaMask

The standard

The most widely used wallet there is, in your browser or on your phone. Almost every crypto site knows how to talk to it, so it is worth having even if you use something else day to day.

Download MetaMask

Trezor

Your savings

A hardware wallet — a physical device that keeps your keys offline. This is the savings account: coins you're holding long term and don't need to touch. My own favourite.

Get a Trezor

Other wallets I'm happy with: Trust Wallet, Exodus and TokenPocket. Whichever you pick, the next box applies to all of them.

Before you go any further: write down your recovery phrase

When you set up a wallet it gives you a list of words — twelve or twenty-four of them. Those words are the money. Anyone who sees them can empty your wallet, and if you lose them, nobody on earth can get your funds back. Not me, not Trust Wallet, not Binance.

Write them on paper. Put the paper somewhere safe, and put a second copy somewhere else safe. Don't photograph them, don't email them to yourself, don't keep them in your notes app. And if anyone — including someone claiming to be me — ever asks you for those words, they are stealing from you.

Step two

An exchange — where your money becomes crypto

An exchange is the shop. You send it normal money by card or bank transfer, and you buy Bitcoin, Ethereum or whatever else with it. Set up your 2-factor authentication before you sign up — most exchanges now require it, and so will your wallet.

Binance

My daily driver

The biggest exchange in the world, fees around 0.1%, and moving funds to and from your wallet costs next to nothing. Sign-up is easy; verification takes patience but it's worth it.

Kraken

Security first

US-based and heavily focused on security and regulatory compliance. Good if that reassurance matters more to you than having every altcoin under the sun.

ChangeNOW

No-KYC swaps

Swaps one crypto for another with no account and no ID check. That only covers crypto-to-crypto. Turning normal money into crypto needs KYC — an ID check — wherever you do it, so you still want one of the two beside this for that.

Swap on ChangeNOW

Others I use: KuCoin and Gate.io. Both carry a much wider range of coins than the big two — worth having once you know what you're doing.

Not your keys, not your crypto

Coins left on an exchange are held by the exchange: they hold the keys, and you hold their promise. If the exchange is hacked, freezes withdrawals or goes under, your coins can go with it. Buy on the exchange, then move what you are not putting to work into your wallet from step one, where you hold the keys.

Step three

A card — so you can actually spend it

Crypto you can't spend is a spreadsheet. You need somewhere to land your money that gives you a real card and a fair exchange rate. One warning before you shop around: most crypto cards are region-locked. A card that's brilliant in Europe often won't issue to you at all elsewhere, so check your own country before you get attached to one.

Wise

Start here

Not crypto: normal money (fiat) only. Hold and convert dozens of currencies at the real exchange rate, with a card that works almost everywhere. Free to open, and one of the very few that's genuinely global.

Open a Wise account

KAST

Crypto card

A dollar account and a Visa card that run on stablecoins. You load USDC or USDT and spend it like normal money, in shops and online. The standard tier is free.

Open a KAST account

Nexo

Earn & borrow

An account that pays you on crypto and cash that would otherwise sit idle, and lets you borrow against it — more on that just below. Check the card before you count on it: when I last looked, Nexo only issued it in Europe and the UK.

Open a Nexo account

More options — RedotPay, Bitget Wallet, Ownly Pay and LQuid Pay — are on the Tools I Use page, along with which cards actually issue outside Europe.

Once you're set up

Put the money that's just sitting there to work

This isn't a fourth step — it's what to do after the three are done. Nexo works like a savings account for crypto: your idle coins and cash earn interest instead of doing nothing, and you can borrow against them in over 45 currencies without selling.

Treat it the way you'd treat any savings product. Read the terms, start small, and never put in money you need next month.

Open a Nexo account

Advertised rates

On your cash (fiat)up to 10%

On your cryptoup to 5%

Rates are set by Nexo, change over time, and depend on your tier and lock-up. Always check the current numbers on their site before you deposit. The Nexo earn account is available globally; the Nexo card is Europe and the UK only.

Where to go next

Three doors, depending on what you came for

Free