Crypto videos, podcasts and blogs are the easiest way to keep learning after this course. They're easy to get to, but there's plenty of junk out there too: right next to a solid breakdown you'll run into paid coin promotions or "signals" from people who make their money off subscribers, not the market. In this lesson you'll see what each format is good for, where to find free materials and how to spot a promotional source in five minutes.
- For the basics, university courses and the learning sections of exchanges and aggregators work best.
- Videos are handy for charts and interfaces, podcasts for interviews and ideas, blogs for depth.
- The main signs of advertising are promises of income, referral links and no breakdowns of mistakes.
- Check bloggers' forecasts against their track record, not against how confident they sound.
Which format is good for what
Don't limit yourself to one type of content: each has its strengths. Videos are hard to beat when you need to see a process: setting up a wallet, placing an order, marking up a chart. Seeing it once is a lot easier than reading about where to click. Beginners are better off with short videos on one specific topic than with hours-long livestreams where the host answers questions from the chat.
Podcasts help you make sense of context and ideas. On your commute you can listen to interviews with analysts, developers or project founders and pick up things you won't find in a textbook: what risks insiders see, what the industry argues about, why people make the decisions they do.
For depth, there are blogs and newsletters. You can reread a text, check its numbers and links, save it to your notes. One solid analytical article can replace hours of video where the point is spread thin between ad breaks, and it's easier to compare with other sources and spot where they disagree.
| Format | Best for | Weak spot |
|---|---|---|
| Videos | Interfaces, charts, step-by-step guides | Lots of filler, clickbait, hidden ads |
| Podcasts | Interviews, ideas, discussing trends | Hard to check numbers by ear |
| Blogs and newsletters | In-depth breakdowns, analysis, documentation | Take time and attention |
| Online courses | Learning the basics systematically | Can go stale if not updated for a long time |
Where to learn the basics for free
A good place to start is the learning sections of major platforms: Binance Academy, Coinbase Learn, CoinGecko Learn, Kraken Learn Center. They offer free articles and videos on blockchain, wallets, trading and security, often in several languages. Just keep in mind that these are companies that make their living from crypto, so they may go easier on the risks than they should.
If you want to understand the technology more deeply, try university courses: Princeton University's "Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies" on Coursera, or MIT OpenCourseWare lectures on how cryptocurrencies work. They get a bit heavy in places, but they explain the mechanics with no ads and no promises. And even if you don't finish, the first few lectures will give you a solid foundation.
If you prefer video and you're mainly interested in trading, there's also our free BuyCrypt Academy video course on YouTube. It's 20 short lessons of 5 to 11 minutes each, about three hours in total: how the order book and futures work, how to read a chart, how to tell a trend from a range, what volume and delta show, and how to find levels and entry setups. You can watch it right on the course page.
If you follow specific networks, read the developers' own blogs: the official Ethereum Foundation blog for news on upgrades, or the Bitcoin Optech newsletter, which breaks down technical changes in Bitcoin in detail. And for a list of books, see the lesson on what to read about cryptocurrency.
Heard about a new law or network upgrade on a blog? Find the original: the project's official blog or the text of the law itself. Retellings often get the details wrong, and your money depends on those details.
Video bloggers and analysts: how to read forecasts
There are thousands of crypto channels, and most of them make money from your attention: views, ads, referral links, paid subscriptions. That doesn't make them bad, but it's exactly why their headlines so often scream about an imminent crash or rally.
The main trap is forecasts. A nice chart and a confident voice feel like expertise, but only one thing tells you how good the forecasts are: how often they come true. Authors rarely keep these stats, and failed calls get deleted or quietly forgotten. Check for yourself: find a video from six months ago with a specific price target and see how it played out. You can also look up the forecast accuracy of many YouTube bloggers in the blogger indicator at buycrypt.com/blogger-indicator.
Treat a blogger as a source of ideas, not signals. A useful author explains why they think what they think, where their scenario could fail and where they'd get out of the trade themselves. If all you hear is "just wait, this will 10x", that's entertainment, not analysis. The one who talks more about their own risks is the one who's earned your trust.
Don't trust paid channels with "accurate signals": they often show only the winning trades. If the signals consistently made money, the author would be better off trading them than selling subscriptions.
Podcasts and newsletters: how to listen with purpose
The strength of podcasts is long conversations with the people building the industry. Shows like Unchained, Bankless and similar interview formats have been popular for years, with guests ranging from project founders to lawyers and researchers. Outside the big English-language shows, the choice is thinner and the quality is hit or miss.
When you listen to a guest, remember that they're almost always promoting their own project or point of view. That's normal, but what they say is the position of an interested party, not neutral analysis. After an episode, it's worth hearing what critics say about the same project, and jotting down the points you liked so you can check them later with a cool head.
Newsletters are great because they come to you and you don't have to scroll a feed. Subscribe to one or two that analyze events rather than just retell them, and unsubscribe from the ones that have turned into a stream of ads. A good newsletter gets you up to speed on the week in ten minutes; a bad one eats half an hour and leaves you with nothing.
An ad built into an episode or video, often read in the author's own voice. An honest author will say outright that it's an ad. If there's no label and the product is praised a little too enthusiastically, be on your guard.
How to tell a useful source from an ad
This check takes a few minutes and can save you money. Look through a source's last twenty posts and judge them as a whole, not by one random post. If it's all "urgent", "last chance" and coin reviews with a buy link, the source is working for advertisers, not for you.
Pay special attention to promotions of new tokens. If a dozen channels suddenly start talking about the same unknown coin, it's most likely a paid campaign. How to recognize projects like that is covered in detail in the lesson on scam projects.
Good content isn't chasing a million views: it calmly admits mistakes, says "I don't know", breaks down losing trades, cites primary sources and doesn't rush you. That's the kind of content you actually learn from.
- Are there promises of income or guaranteed growth?
- Does the author disclose that a video or post is sponsored?
- Does the author keep a record of their forecasts, including the failed ones?
- Do they explain their reasoning or just name targets?
- Do they cite primary sources and data?
- Do they push you to buy through a referral link?
How to build these materials into your learning
Endlessly watching videos creates the illusion of learning. To make the knowledge stick, ask yourself after each piece what you're actually going to try from it. No answer means it was entertainment. One lesson you've put into practice is worth more than ten playing in the background.
Put together a short list: one podcast, a couple of analytical blogs, one learning section. There's no need to chase quantity. Keep your news feeds separate: where to follow crypto news is covered in the level on tools. Every couple of months, go over the list and drop the sources that no longer give you anything new.
And don't skip the practice. Before you risk real money, test an idea from a video on a demo account. That's often where you find out that fees, slippage or your own nerves leave the slick strategy from the video no chance.
Your routine might look like this: Monday and Wednesday, lessons from an exchange's learning section; Tuesday and Thursday, one analytical article; the weekend, one podcast episode. Any ideas about trading, you write down and test on a demo account.
Take one crypto channel or blog you watch or read and go through its last 10–20 posts using the checklist from this lesson: promises of income, ad labels, referral links, links to primary sources. Find a forecast from the author with a specific price and deadline that has already passed, and check whether it came true; if the author is listed in the BuyCrypt blogger indicator, check there too. Then decide: keep the source, follow it only for ideas, or unsubscribe.
Entry is free and you trade on a demo account, so you need no money of your own. Free tournaments pay out Tour Passes, and those get you into tournaments with USDT prizes. The best go further — to a $5,000 funded account.
FAQ
Can I learn trading from YouTube alone?
The basics, yes: there's plenty of free material. But without practice, a trading journal and testing ideas on a demo account, videos will only give you theory.
Should I buy paid courses from bloggers?
Start with free material: most paid courses retell the same things. If you do decide to pay, look closely at the curriculum, at reviews outside the author's own channel and at any promises of income. There's more on courses in a separate lesson.
How can I tell whether a blogger's forecasts are any good?
You need a history of their forecasts checked against the actual price, not a collection of lucky screenshots. Keep such a table yourself or leave it to services that record forecasts automatically.
What language is best to learn in?
For the fundamentals, your native language works fine, but for depth you can't do without English: project documentation, research and most interviews with developers come out in English. To start, you can use subtitles or built-in translation.
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