Introduction — From Map to Door
Ava doesn’t open with “click here.” She opens with your hands.
“Hold them out,” she says. “Pretend there’s a key resting there. Not metal—twelve or twenty-four words. If you keep them safe, the door opens for you and only you. If you lose them, the house is gone. If you share them, the house is no longer yours.”
You feel the weight even though it’s only words.
Ava draws two small boxes and a circle.
“In this insight,” she says, “we make three moves: choose the door, cross the river, do one honest action.”
Choose the door.
You learn what custody actually means: not where assets live, but who can move them. Custodial (someone else holds the key; easy, reversible, policy-driven). Non-custodial (you hold the key; neutral, unforgiving, consistent). Then you decide where the key sleeps: hot (connected, fast, exposed) or cold (offline, slow, sturdy).
Ava doesn’t sell you a brand; she aligns a posture. If your goal is learning with tiny amounts, start hot and visible. If your life happens on a phone, start light with Rabby Mobile or Trust; keep desktop for depth, hardware for sleep. If your goal is storing real value, introduce cold as the quiet backstop.
She keeps official download bookmarks (mark them Ava’s safe path) so you don’t wander into look-alikes. One wallet per browser profile. No ghosts, no crossed wires.
Cross the river.
“On-ramp,” Ava says, “is a ferry, not a home.” You’ll acquire a small starter amount through a major exchange—coffee money, not conviction—and move it to your wallet. The point isn’t speed; it’s the motion: deposit → small buy → withdrawal → confirm arrival.
She teaches you to trust the confirmations you can check on a public explorer. She keeps a short list of vetted sign-up pages because the safest path is the one you can recognize next time.
Do one honest action.
You’ll make a micro-swap you can explain without hand-waving: what you swapped, which pool handled it, what it cost, where to see the receipt. Then you’ll close the window you opened by revoking the allowance. Not because paranoia is the goal—but because habit is. Approvals are windows. We open one on purpose and close it.
Ava tilts the notebook so you can see the rhythm that will repeat across your trading life:
Prepare → Move small → Act once → Verify on-chain → Clean up.
“This isn’t a victory lap,” she says. “It’s a breathing drill. When size shows up later, your hands should already know what to do.”
What we will do (and why it matters)
Ava taps the page with the side of her pencil. “We’re not learning tricks. We’re teaching your hands a rhythm.”
First, you’ll choose a custody posture that fits today. Decide who holds the key and where it sleeps—and watch how that single choice lowers your stress on later screens. Then you’ll install one wallet from the official page—no detours, no ads—and treat the seed phrase like a deed: written twice, stored quietly, never typed into a website.
You’ll cross with coffee money only. The ferry (Binance/Kraken/Coinbase) gets you across; your wallet is where you live. You’ll watch a tiny withdrawal leave one world and arrive in another, and you’ll learn to trust the explorer more than any screenshot.
Finally, you’ll do one honest action: a micro-swap with a plan you can say out loud. You’ll read the receipt like a mirror and then revoke the approval you granted. The swap shows you the chain in motion; the revoke teaches you that posture lasts longer than clicks.
Ava leans back. “When the amounts grow, nothing changes except the zeros. The rhythm stays.”
How it feels when you do it right
It won’t feel like winning. It will feel like knowing.
The click lands, the hash appears, the explorer says Success, and your pulse… doesn’t spike. You copy the Txn Hash into your notes. You glance once at the To address. The fan in your laptop spins down while the block finalizes, and you realize the chain just handed you a receipt no one can quietly edit. That calm isn’t bravado. It’s competence with proof.
Ava’s quiet lane markers
Ava keeps a short row of bookmarks she trusts: the official wallet pages (Rabby/MetaMask/Trust Wallet), official sign-up for the big ferries (Binance/Kraken/Coinbase), the explorer, and the revoke tool. She doesn’t pitch them; she uses them. Label them exactly like that on the course page. No fireworks—just lanes that keep you out of copycat traps.
If you remember only three things
Ava closes the notebook and speaks without looking at the screen:
She stands. “Door first. Then the view.”
The rhythm you just learned is the anchor you’ll use when we enter the storm in Course 3.
Custody (who moves the money) & Temperature (where the key sleeps)
Ava doesn’t start with brands. She draws two quiet levers and waits.
On the first she writes Custody — who can move the funds.
On the second she writes Temperature — where the key sleeps.
“Name your posture on both,” she says. “When you can do that, the rest of the choices stop feeling like guesses.”
She flips the pencil and underlines today. Not forever. Today.
Ava tells you a simple story.
On the ferry (an exchange), you log in with an email and a password. If you forget them, support can reset you. A bank transfer clears, a buy button fills, a withdrawal queue says “please wait.” It’s comfortable—and permissioned. Policy can pause you, reverse you, or rate-limit you. This is custodial. It’s fine for crossing water. You just don’t live on a boat.
On shore, the door opens with a key only you hold. Twelve or twenty-four words, written on paper. No helpdesk. No quiet reversals. If you sign it, it’s you. If you lose it, it’s gone. That’s non-custodial. Neutral. Unforgiving. The rules apply the same to everyone—especially you.
Ava looks up. “Neither is holy. Each serves a moment. Use the ferry to get across. Use your own key to live.”
She has you star one bookmark: Official sign-up (Ava’s safe path) for your ferry (Binance/Kraken/Coinbase). Then another: Official wallet page (Rabby/MetaMask/Trust Wallet). The star makes a soft click in the browser bar. “Lanes before speed,” she says.
“Hot,” Ava says, tapping your screen, “is connected.” A browser extension or a mobile wallet. Fast, visible, perfect for learning with small amounts. Also exposed: pop-ups, rogue extensions, the temptation to click when you’re tired.
“Cold,” she continues, setting a small hardware device on the table, “is offline.” Slower, quieter. The private key never touches an online machine. You bring cold in when the balance justifies a vault.
She sketches the matrix in words:
“You’ll likely live in non-custodial + hot for tiny practice,” she says, circling the air, “and graduate to non-custodial + cold when the numbers would make you bargain with yourself.”
Ava asks you to say it out loud: “Today I am a Learner.”
Learner means: ferry for crossing, hot wallet for tiny hands-on, nothing in hot that would keep you up at night.
Later, you might say: “I am an Operator.”
Operator means: same setup, plus a hardware wallet as a quiet backstop. Daily taps from hot, periodic transfers to cold.
One day, you’ll say: “I am Long-Hold.”
That means: most value asleep in cold, hot holds interaction spend only, ferry empty by default.
She nods when you choose. “Good. Naming things makes them lighter.”
Ava keeps this part calm and practical.
She has you open your wallet’s official page from the bookmark—not search. You’ll install from there in the next lesson, but the lane is set. On the ferry, you enable app-based 2FA, set an anti-phishing code, and turn on a withdrawal allowlist with a time-lock. On your side, you decide where your seed lives (two paper copies, two places), and you promise yourself one simple rule: one wallet extension per browser profile. If you need both Rabby and MetaMask, you give each its own profile. Fewer ghosts. Fewer mistakes.
When you ask about “threats,” Ava doesn’t hand you a list. She walks you through a room.
First, the wrong door: a download page that rhymes with the real one. You almost click. She taps your bookmarks bar—the Official page star you set earlier—and the impostor goes dull.
Next, a blind prompt slides up on a dapp. “If you can’t read it,” she says, “you don’t sign it.” You close it and feel the room get quieter.
Then a window you forgot you opened: an old unlimited approval lingering from weeks ago. You visit your revoke page, watch the line vanish, and feel the draft stop.
Finally, your laptop nags for updates; you restart before opening the wallet. Fresh profile, no random extensions, no shared devices. The desk looks cleaner because it is.
“The explorer is your receipt,” Ava says. “If it isn’t there, it didn’t happen.”
“We’re not building paranoia,” she says, capping the pen. “We’re building posture.”
Ava keeps your hands on the table.
“Three motions. No money.”
You star four lanes—Official sign-up (Ava’s safe path), Official wallet page (Ava’s safe path), Explorer, Revoke tool. The star clicks; the path feels real.
You write your posture at the top of the page—Learner / Operator / Long-Hold (today: ___)—and say it out loud.
You set a ceiling for hot: a number you’re perfectly fine never seeing again in hot. You circle it. The circle feels like a guardrail.
You close the notebook. The room gets quieter.
Ava stands, sliding the hardware device back into its box.
“You’ve named your posture,” she says. “Next we pick a tool you can actually read—and install it from the right place.”
Readability over hype — and the quiet strength of cold storage
Ava doesn’t open a settings menu. She sets three things on the table:
a laptop, a phone, and a small metal device that looks like nothing.
“Doors,” she says. “One you click. One you carry. One that sleeps.”
You already named your posture (Learner / Operator / Long-Hold). Now you’ll choose a door that matches it. Not the loudest logo. The door you can read.
Ava starts with the laptop.
“Desktop is where you see clearly. If your wallet can show you, in human words, what you’re about to approve, you cut half your mistakes before they happen.”
She slides two desktop wallets forward.
Ava’s line: “Vision beats courage. But sometimes gravity saves you.”
(Your course page labels: Rabby — Official page, MetaMask — Official page.)
Ava picks up the phone.
“Most people live here,” she says. “If your wallet can’t move with you, you’ll default back to exchanges. That’s not learning.”
She shows you two options:
Ava draws a line in your notebook: Desktop for depth, mobile for presence.
“Rabby gives you both. Trust is fine too. Just pick one you’ll actually open.”
(Labels: Rabby Mobile — Official page, Trust Wallet — Official page.)
The small metal device rests in your hand.
“Hardware,” Ava says, “is the part people skip in conversation and miss when it matters. Ledger. Trezor. The key never touches an online machine. You don’t buy this for speed. You buy it so your future self doesn’t have to bargain with the past.”
She sketches the choreography:
Hot wallet (Rabby, MetaMask, or Trust) interacts.
Cold wallet (Ledger/Trezor) stores.
Explorer mirrors.
Revoke closes windows.
She pauses on the last two lines.
“The explorer is your mirror. Every action you take, the mirror reflects it back—untainted, unspun. If the explorer doesn’t show it, it didn’t happen. You paste the Txn Hash into your notes, glance at the To address, and that’s the proof you keep.”
Then she taps the word Revoke.
“Every approval you grant is a window. Some need to stay open briefly, but if you walk away without closing them, the draft eventually chills the whole house. Revoke is the tool that shuts the window after you’re done. You click revoke, confirm once, refresh—and watch the approval vanish from the list. Security feels like silence.”
Hot for interaction. Cold for sleep. Mobile stays light even when you own a vault.
Ava rewrites the three roles as if they’re scripts:
She looks up. “Which one are you today?” The word you say aloud matters more than the tool.
One rule saves hours later: one wallet extension per browser profile.
If you want Rabby and MetaMask, each gets its own. No collisions, no ghost prompts. On mobile, install Rabby or Trust from the official page—not search, not ads. Lanes before speed.
The fan hums, the phone buzzes, the hardware sits heavy in your hand.
You feel the path settle under your feet.
Ava closes the notebook.
“Door chosen,” she says, voice even. “Next we cross the river—carefully, with receipts.”
The custodial on-ramp — a ferry, not a home
Ava draws two shores in your notebook:
on the left, your bank;
on the right, your key;
in the middle, a short strip of water with a ferry crossing it.
“We board,” she says. “We cross. We step off. Comfort and policies belong here. Autonomy begins over there.”
You nod. In Lesson 6 you chose a door you can read. Now you’ll bring a small amount across the water—slow enough to see, small enough that your nerves stay steady.
The ferry is a custodial exchange: Binance, Kraken, Coinbase. Someone else holds the key; you borrow their rails to move money from the old system into the new. That means rules, waiting, business hours—and also a smoother first step.
You open your Official sign-up (Ava’s safe path) bookmark—no search, no ads. The page is plain. Good. Plain is how safe doors look.
Ava talks you through setup without raising her voice: a long random password saved in your manager; app-based 2FA (not SMS); an anti-phishing code so real emails show a phrase only you know; a withdrawal allowlist with your wallet address and a 24–48h activation lock. A tiny banner appears: “24–48 hours.”
Your thumb pauses over the mouse. The timer feels like a metronome on the desk.
“That clock is part of your posture,” Ava says. “We don’t outrun it; we plan around it.”
You don’t fill the ferry with gold bars. You carry coffee money.
Ava’s rule: €20–€50. Enough to feel it. Too little to bargain with yourself.
On the buy screen she taps ETH on Ethereum Mainnet.
“You’ll need ETH for tolls. It’s also clean starter cargo. If you want to test swaps later, add a small slice of USDC—on ERC-20—but not instead of ETH.”
She underlines a line you’ll keep forever:
Token + Network must match.
(USDC ERC-20 goes to Ethereum. Not TRC-20. Not “whatever was cheapest.”)
Your wallet is ready. Time to board. Ava slows you down.
“Now the rest,” she says. You repeat the same steps for the remainder of your small starter amount—same address, same network, same mirror. Copy the hash.
On phone? Trust Wallet or Rabby Mobile will ask for Face/biometric. Approve once. Switch to your explorer app, paste your address, and watch the line settle. Same mirror, smaller screen.
“There,” Ava says. “You didn’t ‘get crypto.’ You moved value with proof.”
The interface tries to help—and sometimes helps you wrong.
A cheap TRC-20 option winks under USDC; you ignore it because your wallet is on Ethereum.
An address with a familiar start appears in clipboard history; you don’t use it because you copied from the wallet UI and verified the first/last six aloud.
A chat tab blinks with “support” promising speed if you share your seed; you close it—real support never needs your key.
A memo/tag field appears on a different asset’s page another day; you’ll read the asset’s rules then—but ETH/ERC-20 to your wallet doesn’t use memos.
The explorer shows pending while the exchange says done; you don’t click twice. You wait for the mirror.
Ava shrugs. “Most disasters are boredom or haste. You’re here for neither.”
Ava rests her hand on the explorer tab.
“This is your mirror. It reflects exactly what happened—nothing more, nothing less. If it isn’t here, it didn’t happen.”
You paste the second Txn Hash beneath the first. Two receipts. Quiet on the page. Proof that will read the same next month.
You ask about revoke. She shakes her head.
“Not today. Withdrawals don’t grant token approvals. We opened no windows. Tomorrow we’ll open one window on purpose—you’ll feel the power an approval grants, and what it feels like to close it.”
She leaves the explorer open, calm as a ledger.
Pocket anchors (carry these, not more):
Ava rests her pencil across the notebook.
“You’ve crossed once,” she says. “Bank to ferry, ferry to key. Nothing glamorous—just rails you could see with your own eyes.”
She leans back.
“That’s where Part 1 ends. The map turned into motion. Next, we build the door that actually lasts. Your key. Your posture. The door to crypto.”
