Everyday Crypto

Crypto has stopped being exotic.

A quarter of Americans, and one in twelve British adults, now hold some, and most of them bought it on their phone without ever being told how to keep it, who really holds it, or what happens to it when they are gone.

In Everyday Crypto, technologist Wasim Ahmad explains, in plain English, what cryptocurrency is and what it isn't, how to buy a sensible amount and keep it safe, where the yield on your coins really comes from, what the tax authority needs from you, and how to spot the scams that now run as an industry. Through true stories and real-world cases, the exchange that failed with the customers' money inside, the hardware wallet whose faulty dice cost its owners their coins five years later, the text message that opens a months-long con, he shows what goes wrong, why, and the calm habits that stop it.

Then it changes register. For the holder of real wealth, and for the wealth managers who have spent years forbidden from touching this asset, it sets out custody that survives an audit, the concentrated position, crypto philanthropy, and the question the whole book walks towards: what happens to it when you are no longer there to hold it.

Five questions run through every chapter: how much, who holds it, in what form, what the tax authority needs, and who inherits it. They are the same questions at fifty dollars a month and at fifty million. Only the zeros change.

You don't need to become a security expert. But by the time you finish this book, you will know how to protect yourself and your family.

QUESTIONS IT ANSWERS

• Is it too late to buy, and how much is a sensible amount?
• The app says my crypto could be earning. Where does the yield come from?
• My coins are on an exchange. Do I own them, or does it?
• I bought a hardware wallet. Am I safe now?
• A text from my bank, a call from my son: how do I know it's real?
• What happens to my crypto when I die, and who can my family call?

Every chapter opens with where you are, and closes with what you can do now, the same afternoon.