Learn Crypto Safely

The four red flags

Guaranteed or fixed returns. Real markets move both ways; anyone promising 2% a day is paying old investors with new money.

Urgency. “Presale closes in 10 minutes”, “only 50 spots left” — pressure exists to stop you checking.

Someone else holds the keys. If a ‘platform’ won't let you withdraw without paying a ‘tax’ or ‘unlock fee’ first, the money is already gone.

Contact you didn't start. Romance, job offers, ‘account recovery’ and investment groups on Telegram or WhatsApp are the main entry points.

Checks that take two minutes

Search the token on Certified Crypto Market and compare the contract address with the one you were given. Copycat tokens reuse the real name and logo.

Look for liquidity that is locked, a team that is identifiable, and an audit from a firm you can contact independently.

Read the regulator warning lists. National regulators publish lists of unlicensed firms; we surface those warnings on coin and exchange pages.

If you've already sent money

Stop sending more — scammers often ask for ‘fees’ to release funds. Record wallet addresses, transaction hashes and chats, and report to your national police and financial regulator.

Be wary of ‘recovery services’ that contact you. Most are a second scam targeting victims.

Verified

We reviewed evidence submitted by the project — such as contract ownership, official links, team identity or audits — and it matched independent sources. The badge confirms those specific points only.

Caution

We found something that needs your attention: a regulator warning, an unresolved incident, unusual token distribution or claims we couldn't confirm. Read the reason on the coin page.

Unverified

We haven't reviewed it yet. That is not an accusation — most coins are unreviewed. It simply means the market data is all we can show.

Verification is never investment advice or a guarantee that a token will hold its value.

Market cap vs. FDV

Market cap is price × circulating supply. Fully diluted valuation (FDV) is price × maximum supply. A big gap means many tokens are still to be released, which can pressure the price as they unlock.

Volume

24-hour volume shows how much traded. Very low volume means a large sell can move the price a lot. Volume far higher than market cap can be a sign of wash trading.

Supply

Circulating supply is what's tradable now; total supply includes locked tokens; max supply is the hard cap, if any. Bitcoin's max is 21 million; many tokens have no cap at all.

Charts

Use the Simple chart for the overall trend and, where a coin offers it, the TradingView chart for indicators (it is only offered when we can confirm that TradingView lists this exact coin). Log scale shows percentage moves fairly over long periods.

Your seed phrase is the wallet

Anyone with your 12 or 24 words controls your funds. Never type it into a website, never photograph it, and never share it with ‘support’ — no legitimate service will ever ask.

Hot and cold

Keep a small spending balance in a hot wallet on your phone or browser, and long-term holdings on a hardware wallet bought directly from the manufacturer.

Approvals and signatures

Connecting a wallet is harmless; signing is not. Token approvals and ‘permit’ signatures let a contract move your assets later. Review and revoke old approvals regularly.

Address poisoning

Scammers send tiny transfers from addresses that look like yours or a friend's so you copy the wrong one from your history. Always check the full address, not just the first and last characters.

Licensed where you live

Check that the exchange is registered with your country's financial regulator. Unlicensed exchanges can freeze accounts or disappear with little recourse.

Proof of reserves and track record

Prefer exchanges that publish regular proof-of-reserves reports and have a history of processing withdrawals during market stress.

Don't store long-term

Exchanges are for trading. Move holdings you don't plan to trade to a wallet you control. Our exchange pages show trust scores and market depth to help compare.

How a DEX works

A decentralized exchange swaps tokens from liquidity pools via smart contracts. There is no account, but there is also no support desk — a wrong token or malicious approval can't be reversed.

Slippage and fake tokens

Anyone can create a pool for any token, including fakes with the same ticker. Always swap by contract address from an official source, and set a sensible slippage limit.

Where yield comes from

Real yield comes from trading fees, borrowing interest or staking rewards. If you can't tell where the yield comes from, it's likely new deposits or token emissions that will fade.

Smart contract risk

Audits reduce but don't remove risk. Check how long a protocol has run, how much value it secures and whether admin keys can change the contracts.

Types

Fiat-backed coins like USDT and USDC hold cash and short-term bonds. Crypto-backed coins like DAI are over-collateralized by other crypto. Algorithmic coins rely on market incentives — and have the worst failure record.

De-pegging

A stablecoin can trade below $1 if confidence in its reserves drops. Check the issuer's attestations and how quickly redemptions are processed.

The mechanism

Every 210,000 blocks — roughly four years — the reward miners get for a new block halves. It started at 50 BTC in 2009 and fell to 3.125 BTC in April 2024.

Why it matters

It cuts the rate of new supply, which is why it gets attention. Past halvings were followed by strong markets, but four data points are not a law — prices depend on demand too. See the live countdown on our Events page.