We use various exchanges in trading and investing. Without them, we would need to trade over-the-counter (OTC) with other people, which would be inconvenient. There are various exchanges/brokers for each asset class, each with advantages and disadvantages. Below are some of our personal choices and why we use them.

It is important to understand that the crypto space is still developing, and there have been many instances of fraud and mismanagement. We never recommend keeping your crypto holdings on third-party exchanges, especially not long-term holdings. Instead, we recommend learning about self-custody through crypto wallets.

Binance is the largest crypto exchange. Its offerings cover anything you need, from Spot and Futures to Staking and Farming. If you have access to its services, it is a great exchange for anything crypto.

Spot Fees: Their spot fees meet the industry standard of 0.1% maker and taker.

Futures Fees: Their futures fees are below the industry standard at 0.04% Taker and 0.02% Maker.

KYC? Binance requires KYC to be completed to use their services.

Region Lock? Binance is not available in North America and many other countries. You can check whether it’s available to you here: https://www.binance.com/en/country-region-selector

While a smaller exchange, Mexc has been one of our favorites due to the many benefits offered to perpetual futures traders. Their offering is focused on futures and spot trading, and they currently offer the lowest fees in the market. They also run many trading events that can provide extra rebates and bonuses.

Spot Fees: Their spot fees are the best in the industry at 0%

Futures Fees: Their futures fees are the best in the industry at 0.01% Taker and 0% Maker

KYC? MEXC does not currently force users to KYC; however, it will likely do so soon.

Region Lock: MEXC is available in much of the world. However, it is not available in North America or parts of Asia. See the full list under ‘Prohibited Countries’ here: https://www.mexc.com/terms

Our final centralized mention goes to Coinbase. It’s one of the most well-known and compliant exchanges in the industry. However, it is very much catered to the average Joe and, as such, is not a great platform for active trading. It also suffers from high fees. Coinbase is available in North America and Europe and can be a good onramp for many countries.

Fees: Coinbase’s fees can vary but are much above industry standards, with spot-taker orders reaching 1.5% and, at best, reaching 0.4% on advanced maker orders.

KYC? Yes, Coinbase requires KYC to be used.

Region Lock: Coinbase is available in most Western countries, including North America, the EU, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

For those blocked out due to region locks, don’t want to deal with KYC, or simply don’t want to suffer from third-party risk, you can use a decentralized exchange like Hyper Liquid. These ‘DEXs,’ often called, let you trade without relying on a centralized company to manage and custody your funds.

Fees: HyperLiquid’s fees start at 0.035% Taker & 0.01% Maker. These come down to the more volume you trade.

KYC? No! There are no KYC requirements for HyperLiquid.

Region Lock: There are no region locks on HyperLiquid.

You will need a wallet to access DeFi and NFTs or to self-custody your crypto. A crypto wallet is like a decentralized bank account. When creating a wallet, you are assigned an ‘Address’ and a ‘Seed Phrase’ or ‘Private Key’.

The address is made up of many letters and numbers. It is public; you can send crypto to receive it in your wallet. The Seed Phrase or Private Key, however, is very different. These function as the password to your wallet and should be kept offline and away from the public eye.

As long as it is kept safe, this password will allow you to access your crypto from anywhere on any device with an internet connection. Should it leak, however, others can access all your crypto holdings. This is why we do not take pictures of seed phrases/private keys or keep copies on devices that may be hacked. It is best to store two to three copies of this password on paper in secure locations.

Every wallet's balance and transactions are tracked on the blockchain. They can be inspected using a block explorer like Etherscan or something adjacent to whichever chain you use. So, while the addresses are anonymous, everything you do on it is public. Contrary to popular belief, crypto isn’t all that great for criminals, as it’s very hard to turn crypto into cash without needing some form of identification.

It’s important to know that there are many different blockchains, but many of these chains work on the same building blocks, meaning they share the same address. Below, we’ll share which wallets work with which chains. Now, let’s talk about which wallets we like to use.

Bitcoin runs on its blockchain. However, many chains offer bridged asset versions, meaning you can have BTC on the BNB or Ethereum chain, etc. Remember that these bridged versions are not Bitcoin but versions supported by big protocols and exchanges like Binance to back them with Bitcoin.

The majority of chains today run on the EVM. Every chain on EVM will function with the same wallet address. These chains include but are not limited to Ethereum, BNB, Polygon, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, Linea, Fantom, zkSync, Scroll, Blast, and many more.

One of the other big clusters of chains is the one built on Cosmos (ATOM). The important thing to remember with the Cosmos SDK chains is that they all have different addresses for each chain. However, they will still function within the same wallet. These chains include, but are not limited to, Cosmos, Injective, Celestia, Osmosis, and more.

Solana, Near, Kaspa, Polkadot, and others run on their systems. You will likely need to install a different wallet for each chain.

When you spend enough time in DeFi, you will likely have a nice array of different wallets for different purposes. Here are our favorites for the major chains.

The Rabby wallet is hands down the best EVM wallet. It clearly shows you what effect any transaction will have on your wallet and what coins you hold on (nearly) every EVM chain, including tokens that are staked or vesting. It also offers the option to pay crypto on one chain to get gas on another. So, if you ever need gas, no more asking friends to send you a quick $2 to move your money around.

You can get Rabby wallet at https://rabby.io/

Next on our list is the Phantom wallet, the most popular wallet for the Solana blockchain. While its quality-of-life options aren’t great, Solana doesn’t have many solid options.

You can get Phantom Wallet at https://phantom.app/

Keplr wallet is the primary choice for the entire cosmos ecosystem. It offers a decent dashboard that gives insights into your staked and un-staked tokens and tracks tokens across all compatible chains.

You can get a Keplr wallet at https://www.keplr.app/

UniSat is a popular choice for exploring ordinals and runes on the Bitcoin network. However, remember that DeFi on Bitcoin is in its infancy, and the UX will likely not be great.

You can get UniSat wallet at https://unisat.io/

Until now, we’ve only discussed software wallets that run on your browser, phone, or desktop. But for any serious crypto user, we recommend getting a hardware wallet. These are physical devices that protect your crypto. Although they still use seed phrases, they remove the risk of a compromised phone, laptop, or PC.

Ledger, Trezor, or Keystone all work. If you purchase a hardware wallet, do so through its official website. These wallets support many different chains and tokens. Just be sure to check the official information for details.

You can get these wallets at

KYC, or ‘Know Your Customer,’ is always contentious. However, it is part of many governments’ anti-money laundering measures. Simply put, KYC asks for your identification. If you’re moving millions through crypto, organizations want to know who you are to ensure you’re not committing any crimes. Fair enough, right?

Well, not for many in the crypto space. It’s no secret that many crypto users, including our team members, value their privacy. It’s always iffy for us to share everything someone needs to steal your identity with a third party. This is why we, and many others, like to avoid KYC when possible.

In reality, the chance that your identity gets stolen like this is quite low as long as you stick to reputable exchanges. For some others, however, it’s simply skirt region blocks. Many traders will use exchanges like MEXC, which don’t require KYC, and then turn on a VPN to get around region blocks.

Ultimately, you should decide what you are comfortable with. KYC is not inherently bad and will most likely not result in any issues for you. We’ve personally KYC’d with a multitude of exchanges.

It’s time to create a wallet! We’ve used Rabby Wallet as an example, but you can create whichever wallet suits your current needs. We’ve created a walk-through to set up your wallet. You can click here for our step-by-step guide. 

Once you’ve chosen an exchange, you must set up an account. For this example, we’ll use MEXC. 

For help setting up a MEXC account, visit our tutorial

For help setting up a Coinbase account, see This Article

For help setting up a Binance account, see This Page

The most important skill to learn when trading is how to manage risk. Even when trading based on our newsletter or Telegram ideas, you will eventually wipe yourself out if you have poor risk management skills. 

The big factor here is how much money you put on the line when entering a trade. We want to ensure that if that trade loses, it never loses more than 5% of the trading account when the stop loss hits. After this point, it becomes increasingly likely that the account will bleed out further and eventually reach 0.

Here, you’ll find a video explaining how to use a futures exchange in practice, including how to figure out your risk on a trade: Futures Trading Guide.

If your exchange does not support this method of calculating losses, you can do the math manually by taking the price distance from entry to stop loss and multiplying it by your position size.

For example, if I had a $20,000 account, and my risk limit was 5%, that would be a maximum risk of $1000. If I’m looking to long Bitcoin, and my entry is at $50,000, and my stop-loss is at $49,000, I can long up to 1 Bitcoin without exceeding my risk limit. If the stop-loss were instead at $48,000, I would not long more than 0.5 BTC; that way, I wouldn’t lose more than my maximum risk.