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Before you put in a single euro
Getting into crypto in 2026 is easier than ever and just as risky as it always was. Opening an account is the easy part. Understanding what you're buying takes a lot longer. And regulators say it without sugarcoating: crypto-assets are volatile, you can lose a large part or all of what you put in, and if the platform goes bust there's no guarantee fund to pay you back.
That's why my starter guide opens with “the 4 golden rules before you start” (at 1:07) instead of what to buy. Then I cover where to buy safely, how to make your first purchase, where to keep your coins, how to protect yourself from scams and what the Spanish tax agency expects. It's this page in video form, and it's the first one you should watch.
Chapters (7)
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The four-week path
There's no rush. The market will still be there in a month, and a month of learning saves you a lot of grief. This is the path I suggest, built from my videos and from what the CNMV and Europe's financial supervisors recommend:
- 01
Week 1: concepts
What Bitcoin is, what a blockchain is and what the halving is. Three videos and a basic vocabulary. You don't buy anything yet.
- 02
Week 2: buying safely
You pick an authorized platform, lock down your account and make a small first purchase to learn the process, not to make money.
- 03
Week 3: self-custody basics
You learn the difference between leaving your coins on the exchange and holding them in your own wallet, how to store your seed phrase, and you send a test transaction.
- 04
Week 4: strategy and risk
You decide how you'll invest (for example, with recurring buys), your maximum amount, what you'll never do and how you'll keep records for taxes.
Each week has its own section below with the matching videos. If a term trips you up, the glossary covers them all, and the guide on how to start in crypto walks through the process in more detail.
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Week 1: understand what you're buying
Bitcoin was born from a nine-page document. On October 31, 2008, someone signing as Satoshi Nakamoto posted a link to “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” on a cryptography mailing list. On January 3, 2009, the network's first block was mined. The idea fits in one sentence:
“A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.”
EP.01 of my Entiende Cripto series is about exactly that: the problem in the financial system Bitcoin tries to solve, who created it and why, how it really works and, refreshingly, a whole chapter on the real risks, “without sugarcoating” (at 9:50).
Chapters (10)
The piece that holds everything together is the blockchain. The EU's legal definition, from the MiCA regulation, talks about a “distributed ledger”: an information repository that keeps records of transactions and is shared across, and synchronized between, a set of network nodes using a consensus mechanism. In plain English: an account book that thousands of computers hold a copy of and nobody can rewrite on their own. In the video I explain it with exactly that image, the shared notebook, and I end with “the honest buts”.
Chapters (6)
Third concept: the halving. Bitcoin has a cap of 21 million coins, and the reward miners get for each block is cut in half every 210,000 blocks, roughly every four years. The last halving was on April 20, 2024, and it brought the reward down to 3.125 bitcoin per block; the next one is expected in 2028. In the video I explain why this “clock” sets the rhythm of market cycles and where in the cycle I think we are.
Chapters (6)
To go deeper on this part, there are two guides: what is Bitcoin and cycles and the halving.
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The minimum vocabulary, minus the jargon
You don't need a hundred terms. These will get you comfortably through the first few weeks:
- Crypto-asset
- Under MiCA, a digital representation of a value or a right that can be transferred and stored electronically using distributed ledger technology or similar technology. Bitcoin is one; there are thousands.
- Blockchain
- A type of distributed ledger: chained blocks of transactions, copied across many nodes and validated by consensus.
- Halving
- The 50% cut in Bitcoin's block reward that happens every 210,000 blocks.
- Altcoin
- Any cryptocurrency other than bitcoin.
- Stablecoin
- A crypto-asset that tries to keep a stable value. MiCA calls the ones pegged to a single official currency, like the euro or the dollar, “e-money tokens”.
- Exchange
- A platform where you buy and sell crypto. In the EU it's a crypto-asset service provider and needs authorization.
- Wallet
- An app or device that stores the keys controlling your coins. Hot if it's connected to the internet; cold if it isn't.
- Private key
- The piece of data that proves certain coins are yours. Whoever has it controls them.
- Seed phrase
- A list of words that lets you restore your wallet and all its keys. It's the master key and you never share it.
- Custody
- Who holds access to your coins. If the exchange holds it, you depend on the exchange; if you hold it, you depend on yourself.
- DCA
- Buying a fixed amount at regular intervals, without trying to guess the best moment.
- Volatility
- How much and how fast a price moves. In crypto, a lot.
- Leverage
- Trading with borrowed money to multiply your exposure. It multiplies losses too.
- White paper
- The document that describes a crypto-asset. In the EU it must warn about its risks and can't make claims about its future value.
- FOMO
- Fear of missing out. The reason behind a lot of purchases made at the worst possible time.
The full glossary has the rest, and my videos show these terms in use with examples.
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Week 2: your first purchase, on an authorized platform
A big part of your safety gets decided here. Since July 1, 2026, only authorized platforms can operate in Spain, authorized either by the CNMV or by another EU authority: that day marked the end of MiCA's transitional period there. So the first step isn't comparing fees, it's checking authorization.
- Look the platform up in the CNMV's register of crypto-asset service providers or in ESMA's register.
- Check which specific company is providing the service. The CNMV warns that MiCA protections only apply to the legal entity authorized in the EU, not to other companies in the same group.
- Lock down the account before depositing money: a long, unique password, two-step verification with an authenticator app and login alerts.
- Always log in by typing the address yourself or through the official app, never from an ad or a link someone sends you.
- Make a small first purchase. This week's goal is to learn the process (deposit, purchase, fees, history), not to nail the price.
What about leaving everything on the exchange? It's convenient, but it comes at a price. Mt. Gox once handled more than 70% of the world's bitcoin transactions; in February 2014 it halted all trading and went bankrupt, with around 850,000 bitcoin missing. In November 2022 it was FTX's turn: it filed for bankruptcy after a wave of withdrawals exposed a hole of about $8 billion. In both cases, plenty of people who thought they owned crypto really owned a promise from the platform.
The guide on exchanges and MiCA explains how to read the register and what changed with the EU law, and the exchanges section covers the licensed platforms and how to choose one. The exchange I use is OKX, which holds a MiCA licence granted in Malta; why I use it, and its downsides too, are covered in that section.
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Week 3: self-custody basics, without fear
Holding your coins in your own wallet means nobody can freeze them or lose them for you. It also means nobody can recover them for you. European supervisors are clear about it: losing your private keys means losing access and ownership permanently and irreversibly.
- Write your seed phrase on paper (or stamp it in metal) and keep it where nobody can see it. No photos, phone notes, emails or cloud storage.
- Never type it into a website or tell it to anyone. No legitimate support agent will ever ask for it; anyone who does is robbing you.
- Send a test transaction with a tiny amount before moving anything serious, and check the network and the address character by character.
- Buy hardware and download apps only from the manufacturer. No second-hand devices, middlemen or links from ads.
That last point isn't paranoia. In my Ledger vs Trezor comparison I put it bluntly: never buy a second-hand wallet, and neither Ledger nor Trezor will ever ask for your seed phrase. If someone asks for it in their name, it's a scam.
Chapters (7)
For the test transfer, in my MetaMask tutorial I show you how to create the wallet, store the seed phrase without messing it up and move crypto from the exchange to the wallet and back, step by step. Do it first with an amount that won't hurt.
Chapters (5)
To choose between a hot wallet (an app) and a cold one (a device that stays offline), see the guide on hot vs cold wallets, and once you know which one you need, the security section brings together the comparisons and step-by-step tutorials.
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Week 4: strategy and risk
With the concepts clear and your first purchase done, it's time to decide how you'll invest. The simplest strategy to start with is DCA: buying a fixed amount at regular intervals, whatever the price does. It doesn't make you a fortune teller; it takes away the pressure of trying to be one. In the video I present it as a way to accumulate without stress or staring at charts all day, and I show you how to automate the purchases.
The other big decision is whether you'll invest or trade. In “Trading vs Investing in Bitcoin” I weigh the pros and cons of each path, explain why most traders lose money and walk through the stat about the five days that decided Bitcoin's entire year. Regulators back me up on the first point: for CFDs, a leveraged product popular with retail investors, studies by European authorities, the CNMV among them, found that between 74% and 89% of retail investors lose money.
Chapters (7)
If you're torn between crypto and the stock market, “Bitcoin vs S&P 500” puts both side by side: the index, which I describe as the safe and steady bet, and Bitcoin, which I call the most profitable asset of the last decade, but far more volatile. I don't sell either one as a cure-all, and I give my opinion at the end.
Chapters (5)
And scalping? It's in this section because the video is aimed at beginners, but it's worth putting in context: it's very short-term trading, it takes discipline and screen time, and it's not where you start investing. If you're curious, watch it after week 4 and practice without real money before risking anything.
To put numbers on your plan (your maximum, how to split it, when to get out), the risk management guide and the bitcoin DCA guide are the next step.
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The classic mistakes that wreck beginners
My video on the seven mistakes starts from an uncomfortable idea: most people who get into crypto end up losing money, and it's almost never bad luck or because the whole thing is a scam, but because they repeat the same mistakes over and over. I made some of them myself; others I see everyone make. Number 1, I warn you, is the most dangerous of all (at 9:42).
Chapters (8)
One mistake deserves a chapter of its own: buying altcoins because they look “cheap”. A low price per coin says nothing if there's nothing behind the project, and many never get back to their highs. In “Las 3 Peores Criptomonedas de 2026” (the 3 worst cryptos of 2026) I go through, with names, the scam signals and dangerous tokenomics worth spotting before you buy.
Chapters (4)
And if you're in your early twenties, “If I started crypto at 20, I'd do this” is for you. I'll admit it: I messed up at the beginning. I boil it down to three pieces of advice: the second is about steering clear of gambling, which was my big mistake, and the third is about a long-term mindset.
Chapters (4)
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What not to do, however good it's made to look
Four temptations take out more beginners than any bear market. None of them is illegal in itself. All of them get expensive.
- Leverage. Trading with borrowed money multiplies gains in the ad and losses in your account. To see what regulators think: on crypto CFDs sold by investment firms in Spain, the maximum leverage for a retail client has been 2 to 1 since a 2019 CNMV resolution, because ESMA considers crypto an immature, high-risk asset class. If someone offers you far more, ask yourself why.
- FOMO. Buying because something has shot up and everyone's talking about it. I sum it up in the description of “Aquí es donde se crean los millonarios” (this is where millionaires are made): most people buy when everything is going up and sell scared stiff when everything falls.
- Gurus and influencers. European supervisors warn that influencers can be incentivized to promote certain crypto-assets, and the CNMV tells investors not to be swayed by affinity with their social media “followers”. That includes my channel: always double-check.
- Unsolicited DMs. Nobody serious messages you on Instagram, Telegram or WhatsApp to offer you an investment. The CNMV asks you to stay alert to unsolicited offers on social media, and its red flags include unexpected calls or emails, urgency and use of its logo: the CNMV would never invite you to invest.
Chapters (6)
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What order to watch the videos in
If you'd rather go straight to the videos, this is the order I suggest. Each one builds on the previous one (titles translated from Spanish):
- “How to start investing in crypto from ZERO”: the big picture.
- “EP.01 What is Bitcoin”: the why behind all of this.
- “What is the blockchain, explained for beginners”: how it works under the hood.
- “What is the Bitcoin halving”: the cycles.
- “Wallet vs Exchange”: where to keep what you buy.
- “How to create your MetaMask wallet and move money from the exchange without losing it”: your first transfer, step by step.
- “7 mistakes that RUIN crypto beginners”: what not to do.
- “What is DCA in crypto”: a simple strategy.
- “Trading vs Investing in Bitcoin”: choosing your path.
- “Bitcoin vs S&P 500”: crypto against stocks.
- “If I started crypto at 20, I'd do this”: the mindset.
- “The best scalping strategy for beginners”: only once everything above is clear.
When you're done, move on to my Entiende Cripto series, where I break down the most important cryptocurrencies one by one, and subscribe to the channel so you don't miss the next videos. And keep in mind the line I repeat in my descriptions: “Esto NO es consejo financiero. Es mi análisis personal. Haz siempre tu propia investigación.” (This is NOT financial advice. It's my personal analysis. Always do your own research.)