How we are funded

How our business model works

1. 01We explain BitcoinCalmly, with sources and without sales pressure. Most of our pages contain no advertising at all.
2. 02We feature providersWhere it fits the topic – buying, saving, custody and tax – we name providers that meet our minimum criteria. With and without partnership.
3. 03You decideA partner link takes you to the provider. Whether you open an account or buy something there is entirely your decision.
4. 04The provider pays usIf you open an account there and deposit money or buy something, the provider pays us a fee. It does not cost you more.

If our link gives you an advantage, such as lower fees, we state it right next to the link – together with the provider’s conditions.

How partners pay us

Depending on the provider and contract, there are different models:

• Fixed fee per new customer: a one-off amount when you open an account through our link – often only after identity verification or your first deposit.
• Share of fees: a share of the fees the provider earns from you, usually for a limited period.
• Share of the purchase price: for hardware wallets, metal backups and software, a percentage of the net price.
• Combinations of these models.

Which model applies to which partner is shown in the partner list. A sign-up is attributed to us via a random click number without personal data – details in our privacy policy.

How to recognise advertising

You can always recognise advertising on our site at a glance:

• “Ad” always comes first. Every ad block – in a provider card or a provider box – starts with the label “Ad”. Right next to it we explain what the asterisk means.
• an asterisk * on every paid link, in the text and on buttons (such as “Visit BISON*”),
• a short risk warning right at the paid link for exchanges and apps,
• a transparency notice directly below the headline of every page that may contain paid links.

Provider cards: when a text mentions a provider or a term such as “hardware wallet”, the word is finely underlined. It opens our card: at the top our factual assessment with a link to our profile, below it – clearly separated – the ad block, if there is an advertising partner in your country. The word itself never leads straight to the provider. Everyone sees the same card; the goal compass, quiz or learning progress change nothing about it. Without an advertising partner the card only shows our assessment and the official website – then without a label.

How often: at most five cards per article, never in the first paragraph. A provider box that is visible without a click appears at most once per article and only from stage 4 of the learning path (“Buy”) – where you make the decision. There is no advertising on the homepage, the learning path page, in calculator results, on the legal pages or in articles about fraud, criticism and risks, emergency funds, psychology and common beginner mistakes, nor in “Before you start”. We label advertising in our newsletter too.

Not advertising: links to sources, authorities and live charts (TradingView, CoinGecko, mempool.space) – we have no partnership with these chart services. Our server fetches live values such as the bitcoin price from mempool.space first. Only if that fails does it fall back to other public interfaces – including those of Kraken, Coinbase and Blockstream (maker of the Jade), which are also on our partner list. The order of sources has nothing to do with partnerships. Details are in our methodology.

Assessment first, partner link second

Our order is always the same: first we assess a provider according to our methodology. Only providers that meet our minimum criteria can become partners at all. Only then do we check whether there is a partner programme.

• Whether a provider is a partner and how much it pays has no influence on assessment or ranking.
• We feature good providers and products without a partnership in the same way.
• Partners do not see our texts before publication and cannot change them.
• If a partner no longer meets our criteria, we remove the ad links – even if we lose income as a result.

Our partners

We have agreed or requested a partnership with these 20 providers. Links to them are always labelled as advertising. The list is generated automatically from our master data (as of 29 September 2026).

We feature these providers without being paid for it:

• BisqNo licence – open-source software without an operating company
• Hodl HodlNo licence in the EU – not listed in the ESMA register
• COLDCARDHardware manufacturer – no financial licence required
• LedgerHardware manufacturer – no financial licence required
• SeedSignerOpen-source project – no company, no financial licence
• BlueWalletNon-custodial software – no financial licence required
• PhoenixNon-custodial software – no financial licence required
• Blockstream AppNon-custodial software – no financial licence required; buying feature via external partners
• Sparrow WalletNon-custodial software – no financial licence required
• NunchukNon-custodial software – no financial licence required

Our own bitcoin holdings

Anyone who writes about bitcoin and owns bitcoin has a potential conflict of interest. The EU MiCA regulation treats it as market manipulation if someone voices an opinion on a crypto asset through the media after taking a position in it and profits from the price impact without disclosing this conflict of interest (Art. 91 MiCA). We therefore disclose:

• [The operator owns bitcoin and intends to hold it for the long term.]
• [The operator does not own any other crypto assets.]
• [The operator has no stake in any of the providers featured.]
• We do not buy or sell around the time of our publications in order to profit from possible price reactions.
• We do not publish price forecasts or price targets.

If anything changes, we will update this information.

What we never do

• no paid rankings, placements or “test winner” badges
• no paid articles without labelling – if there were ever a paid collaboration, “Advertisement” would be at the very top
• no advertising for crypto-asset service providers (exchanges, apps, brokers) without a MiCA licence – not even for high commissions
• no advertising for other crypto assets, new tokens, leveraged products or loans
• no bonuses with artificial time pressure
• no banner ads, no ad networks, no tracking cookies
• no selling of data

We never ask for your seed phrase, never call you and never hold your money.

Found a mistake?

We check our information regularly, but fees and conditions change quickly. If you spot a mistake or outdated information, write to support@blockchain21.net. We check every report and correct errors promptly. We document corrections to content publicly in our corrections log.