This page collects the material we actually use ourselves when researching an article, plus the ZenBlockk guides worth reading first. Nothing here is a referral link and nothing on this page is a recommendation to use a particular product or to invest — it is simply where reliable primary information lives.
Start with these guides
If you are building a foundation rather than looking something up, read them in this order.
- What is Bitcoin? — the origin, the 21 million cap, mining and halvings.
- How blockchain technology works — blocks, hashes, nodes and consensus, no code required.
- Ethereum explained — smart contracts, gas, staking and what the network is for.
- Crypto scams and how to avoid them — the frauds that cost beginners the most.
- What are stablecoins? — USDT, USDC and DAI, and what each is actually backed by.
- Cryptocurrency taxes — which events are taxable and what records to keep.
Personal finance guides worth reading first
If you are here for everyday money questions rather than crypto, read these in this order.
- The emergency fund — how much you need and where to keep it.
- How compound interest works — the math behind saving, investing and borrowing.
- Credit card interest — how daily compounding turns small balances into large ones.
- How loan interest works — APR, amortisation and the true cost of borrowing.
- How to start investing with $100 — a step-by-step guide to a first investment.
Primary sources we rely on
Protocol documentation and white papers
When a claim concerns how a protocol behaves, the protocol’s own documentation settles it. The original Bitcoin white paper is nine pages and still the clearest statement of the idea. Ethereum’s developer documentation and the EIP repository cover how upgrades are proposed and what they change.
Block explorers
Explorers let you verify on-chain facts yourself rather than taking anyone’s word for them — transactions, fees, contract code and token supply. mempool.space for Bitcoin fees and blocks, and Etherscan for Ethereum addresses and contracts. Learning to read an explorer is one of the fastest ways to stop being misled.
Regulators and consumer warnings
Before trusting a platform, check whether your national regulator has published a warning about it. The European Securities and Markets Authority, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority and the US Securities and Exchange Commission all maintain consumer alerts and registers of authorised firms.
Tax authorities
Crypto tax treatment is national, so a guide can only orient you — the authority’s own guidance is what binds you. Examples include the US Internal Revenue Service, HMRC’s cryptoassets manual in the UK and the Agencia Tributaria in Spain. Check yours before filing.
Consumer finance regulators and official guides
For saving, credit and investing, official consumer-education pages are the most reliable place to check a rule or a definition. In the United States, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the FDIC and Investor.gov (run by the SEC) publish plain-language guides, and the Federal Reserve and the Bureau of Labor Statistics publish interest-rate and inflation data.
Reporting fraud
If you have been defrauded, report it to your national police or financial regulator quickly. Do not engage with anyone who contacts you afterwards offering to recover your funds for an upfront fee — recovery scams routinely target people who have already been victimised once.
A note on tools
We deliberately do not publish “best wallet” or “best exchange” affiliate round-ups. If you want to understand how to evaluate one yourself, read our guides on comparing exchanges and understanding market cycles, then verify anything you are told against the sources above.