← Crypto · lesson 1 of 12
By the end of this one you'll know what crypto is in plain words, what makes it different from the money in your checking account, and why people argue about it so much.
Crypto is money that lives on the internet and moves person to person, with no bank sitting in the middle. Think about trading eggs with your neighbor over the fence. You hand her a dozen, she hands you tomatoes, and no store, no manager, no card machine gets a say or takes a cut. Crypto tries to work the same way, except the eggs are digital coins and the fence is the internet. Instead of one bank keeping the record of who has what, thousands of computers around the world all keep the same list and check each other's work. That is really the whole idea, money neighbors can pass over the fence without asking a company for permission. Everything else you hear about crypto, the good and the ugly, grows out of that one idea.
Same lesson, told by a hundred dollar bill. Tap to walk it one step at a time.
In this example, someone puts $100 into a phone app that sells crypto, and the app charges a 1. 5% fee, which is $1. 50. So $98. 50 actually becomes crypto. If the price drops 10% the next week, that $98.
50 is worth about $88.
65, and if it rises 10% it's worth about $108.
35.
The price can move both ways, and the fee comes out no matter what.
Your brother-in-law corners you at your niece's birthday party, paper plate in hand, saying banks are finished and crypto is the future. Your cousin across the table rolls her eyes and says it's all fake internet money. You've got about $50 of breathing room this month and both of them are looking at you.
Pick your move. Then peek at the other roads if you're curious.
Crypto is just money passed neighbor to neighbor over the internet fence, with no company in the middle to take a cut or take your call.