Course outline
- 1What a crypto wallet is, and where the coins actually live
- 2Custodial vs non-custodial wallets: whose keys are they
- 3Types of crypto wallet: hot, cold, extensions and hardware
- 4The seed phrase: what it is and why you tell it to nobody
- 5Address, private key and password: how they differ
- 6Where to download a wallet without installing a fake
- 7How to install MetaMask and create a wallet
- 8How to install Rabby: a wallet for many EVM chains
- 9Phantom: a Solana wallet and how to download it
- 10Tonkeeper: how to get a wallet on TON
- 11Hardware wallets: why Ledger and Trezor, and where to buy them
- 12An exchange wallet: convenient, but the keys are not yours
- 13What DeFi is, in plain language
- 14CEX and DEX: where to swap, and what that implies
- 15Gas: why a swap will not send without ETH, SOL or TON
- 16How to buy crypto: fiat, exchange, network, DEX
- 17How to swap tokens on Uniswap (EVM)
- 18How to buy a token on Jupiter (Solana)
- 19How to swap a jetton on STON.fi (TON)
- 20Phishing: where you never type a seed phrase
- 21Why a tracker asks for an address, not a seed phrase
- 22How to check the purchase arrived: network, address, tracker
- 23Wallet security: short rules that actually work
- 24Twitter / X: how to find a project's real account and skip the clone
- 25DefiLlama: where to find a project's real site and Twitter
Three strings that look “roughly like access” in the UI. They are not the same thing.
Address
Public. On Ethereum and most EVM chains — 0x plus 40 hex characters. On Solana — Base58. On TON — EQ… / UQ….
You can give it out for payment, paste it into a tracker, put it in a profile. You cannot recover a seed from an address. You can see how much sits on it: the network is public.
Private key
One long string for a specific address. It signs spends. Exporting a “private key” from a wallet is almost like handing over the seed, but for one branch, not the whole set of addresses. It does not go in a chat. It does not go in a website.
Seed phrase
12 or 24 words. From it come many addresses and keys. That is the whole wallet, every chain inside that phrase. See why the seed stays secret.
App password / PIN
Protection for this MetaMask install or this phone. Forgot the password, still have the seed — you restore. Lost the seed, remember the password — in a month you change phones and have nothing.
Crypto360 asks only for an address (and a read-only exchange key). If a service asks for a seed “to show the balance”, close the tab.