Guides
How digital dollars and bitcoin work, how people keep them, and what can go wrong.
Glossary- Crypto scams: how they work and how to spot themMost crypto scams don't hack anything: they talk you into sending the money yourself, and no one can pull it back. The signs repeat: a stranger with an investment, a hurry, a secret, a promised return, a request for your recovery words, and payment only in crypto.
- Custodial or self-custody: who holds your bitcoin?With custody, a company holds your bitcoin and you hold its promise to give it back; in self-custody, you hold the key, and no one can bring it back if it's lost. Keep everyday money in a wallet you control, and savings in collaborative custody, where no one, the company included, can move them alone.
- Getting paid from abroad in digital dollarsA client abroad can pay you in digital dollars at any hour, and they arrive in minutes. But the whole trip, in and out of local money, cost 0.3% to nearly 9% in a 2026 central bank test, and a payment can't be reversed, so the invoice has to name the token, the network and the address exactly.
- Hardware wallet, multisig or collaborative custody?A hardware wallet is one key that still has to reach you. Multisig fails when one company holds all the keys. Collaborative custody, done properly, avoids both.
- How many bitcoin will ever exist?Just under 21 million: 20,999,999.9769. Bitcoin's software creates them on a fixed schedule that halves every 210,000 blocks, about every four years, until around 2140; by the end of October 2026, about 20.1 million had been created.
- How to send and receive digital dollars without losing themA transfer of digital dollars can't be undone, so every check comes first: the same token and the same network on both sides, the whole address taken from its source and never from your history, and a small test before the full amount.
- Saving in dollars when your currency is fallingDollars protect savings from a falling currency, not from the country: governments have frozen dollar deposits and turned them into local money, cash can be stolen, and digital dollars can be frozen by their issuer or lost with a key. Spread your savings across ways that fail for different reasons.
- Wallets without a seed phrase: how passkey wallets workA passkey wallet swaps the words you'd write down for a passkey in your Apple or Google account, which locks the wallet's key or signs for it. There's nothing on paper to lose, but the account becomes the key: fine for everyday money, not enough on its own for savings.
- What are digital dollars, and who stands behind them?Digital dollars are tokens a company issues against assets it holds, promising a dollar for each one handed back. The two you'll meet are USDT, from Tether, and USDC, from Circle: no government guarantees either, both issuers can freeze them, and they differ in what backs them, who checks it and where they're allowed.
- What does buying bitcoin really cost?More than the fee you see: much of the cost is inside the price, as a spread. When researchers bought and sold through nine apps in 2026, a round trip cost from about 0.5% to more than 6% on average, depending on the app.
- What happens to your bitcoin when you die?It stays where it is until someone signs with its key. Your heirs can claim an exchange account with the estate's papers; coins in a wallet only you could open are lost unless someone finds the key, and whoever finds it can take them.
- What happens to your crypto if you lose your phone?Usually nothing: the coins were never on the phone. You lose them only if the key that moves them can't be rebuilt anywhere else, or if a thief gets the phone unlocked or takes over your number.
- Wrench attacks: how to stay safe if you hold cryptoCriminals who learn that someone holds crypto, and where they live, sometimes come to the door and force them to send it. Saying less, keeping your address out of crypto records and keeping savings where no one can move them on the spot lower the risk; if it happens, your safety comes first.