The archive · Ten guides · Method first
The guides
The fourteen records tell you what specific coins are. These ten pieces teach you to read any of them — including ones this archive has never covered.
Three are about method: how supply figures work, what the layer 1 and layer 2 distinction costs you in practice, and what backs the dollar-referenced tokens most people end up holding. The fourth is practical, for the point at which you have finished reading and want to actually buy something. The fifth is a reference on wrapped tokens: who holds the original coin behind WBTC, WETH and bridged assets. The sixth sets out what a governance token entitles you to, and where that entitlement stops. The seventh follows a staking reward back to the place it was minted, and the eighth takes the opposite direction: what a burn or a buyback does to the supply figures. The ninth goes down to the base layer: what the ERC-20, BEP-20, TRC-20 and Solana token standards each define, and what they leave for you to check. The tenth returns to staking from the holder’s side: what a liquid staking token such as stETH or rETH is a claim on, and how it is redeemed.
How to read a token's supply and emission schedule
Total, max and circulating supply are three different numbers; market cap and fully diluted valuation are two more. This is the vocabulary every record on the site assumes, plus the arithmetic that makes an emission curve readable.
Layer 1 vs layer 2: what the difference costs you
Written backwards from the fee and the wait, rather than forwards from an architecture diagram. Covers bridges, withdrawal delays, and why the same coin on two networks is two different balances.
Stablecoins: what actually backs the big ones
Three structures that all say “one to one” and mean different things. Includes a question worth asking directly: whether you personally can redeem, and what it means that you probably cannot.
Buying your first token: from account to storage
The mechanics, including the annoying parts: verification failures, deposit costs, choosing the right pair, and a step worth planning before you buy — deciding where the coins live afterwards. This is the one page carrying the site's referral link, marked as one.
Wrapped tokens: who actually holds the original coin
WETH, WBTC and bridged coins all promise one to one. What differs is whether a contract, a company or a bridge keeps the original — and the 2024 WBTC custody change shows why that answer can move while the reserve stays put.
Governance tokens: what a vote can and cannot change
Voting power has to be switched on before a balance counts for anything, and the vote itself only reaches the admin functions written into the contracts. Published thresholds from Uniswap and Compound, plus the emergency powers that sit outside the process.
Where staking rewards come from, and what dilutes them
A staking percentage is paid out of new supply, out of other people’s fees, or out of both. Cardano’s reserve and Ethereum’s reward formula show the difference, along with the reason the rate falls as more people join.
Which supply number moves when tokens are burned or bought back
Destroying tokens inside the contract, parking them at an address with no key, and buying them back on the market are three different events that get the same headline. What each one does to total supply, circulating supply and the figures built on top of them.
ERC-20, BEP-20, TRC-20 and SPL: what a token standard actually defines
ERC-20 makes name, symbol and decimals optional; BEP-20 requires symbol and decimals but keeps name optional. Its cross-chain supply wording comes from the retired Beacon Chain system. TRON reuses the interface with different fees; Solana exposes mint and freeze authority in account fields. None of these standards establishes a token's backing or safety.
What stETH, rETH and other liquid staking tokens are a claim on
stETH balances are recalculated after oracle reports; wstETH, rETH and the Solana pool tokens discussed here reflect rewards or losses in an exchange rate. Compare queues, deposit pools and reserves, and how validator losses can reach holders.
What these guides will not do
They will not tell you which coin to buy, when to buy it, or what it might be worth later. There are no price forecasts anywhere on this site and no ranking of assets against each other, because ranking requires a view about the future and this archive does not have one.
What they do is give you the questions to ask and show you where the answers are published, so that you can go and check a claim rather than take anyone's word for it — including ours.
Next: the fourteen records · the reference tables · how the archive is compiled