Plainchain

Affiliate disclosure

A few links on Plainchain are affiliate links. Here is exactly how that works, where they appear, and the rule that keeps them from bending anything we teach.

Plainchain is free to read, and almost entirely free of commercial links. We fund the work in one narrow way: a single "how to start safely" handoff for readers who have already decided, on their own, to try crypto. If you open an account or buy a device through one of those links, the provider may pay us a small commission, at no extra cost to you. This page explains the arrangement in full, because trust is the only thing a reference site really has to offer.

Almost every page on this site carries no commercial link at all — the explainers are pure education. Our affiliate links appear only in the clearly marked handoff box that sits at the end of the main beginner's guide, and occasionally inline where we point a reader who has decided to start toward a reputable place to do so. That box names two well-regulated exchanges and one self-custody hardware wallet. That is the entire commercial surface of the site.

Every affiliate link on this site carries an inline note that it is an affiliate link and is tagged in the page's code as sponsored and nofollow, so search engines treat it correctly. Plain reference links to sources, documentation and regulators are not affiliate links and earn us nothing. If a link is not clearly marked as an affiliate link, assume it is not one.

The options that pay us nothing

To show the recommendations are not bought, we deliberately also point readers to good options that earn us nothing. On the exchange side, Bitstamp runs no consumer affiliate programme, so we make no money if you use it. On the self-custody side, the software wallets MetaMask and Trust Wallet pay us nothing either. We recommend them anyway when they are the honest answer, and we say on the page that they pay us nothing — because leaving out a good option just because it is unprofitable would make this a shop window, not a reference.

What we will never do

We will never take a payment to say a coin is a good buy, because we do not say any coin is a good buy. We refuse presale, meme-token, airdrop and "guaranteed return" promotions outright, whatever they pay, and we do not link platforms we cannot responsibly recommend to a reader's market. Some links are unpaid placeholders today and would become tracked links only if and when a suitable programme is in place; the disclosure stays the same either way. A commission has never changed a word of what we teach, and it never will.