RealOpen Certified · Lesson 1 of 8

Crypto basics for agents

After this, you can follow a buyer's description of what they hold, where it is kept and what it would take to move it, and ask the five questions that matter before anyone writes an offer.

After this lesson you can

Tell a blockchain from a coin from a token, and say why "which network?" is a required question.
Explain the difference between an exchange account and a wallet the buyer controls, and why only the second can be proven.
Name what ties crypto up and what it takes to move it: fees, confirmations, tags, and the fact that nothing can be reversed.
Ask the five questions and recognize what a real holder's answers sound like.

By Johnny Schiro, licensed real estate broker in Texas, New York and Florida. Updated 2026-10-10.

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About the certification

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Crypto in two sentences

Cryptocurrency is digital money that moves on a public ledger called a blockchain instead of through a bank. For your purposes, it is an asset your buyer owns that can be turned into U.S. dollars, the same way a stock portfolio can.

You will not handle crypto yourself. On every route but one, the buyer's money starts as crypto and arrives at escrow as dollars. This lesson gives you the vocabulary to understand what your buyer holds and what has to happen before it can pay for a house.

Blockchain, coin, token

These three words get used as if they meant the same thing. They do not.

A blockchain is a network: a shared public ledger kept by many computers, with no bank in the middle. Bitcoin is a blockchain. Ethereum is a different blockchain. So are Solana, Tron and the XRP Ledger. People also say "chain" or "network."
A coin is the currency built into a blockchain. Bitcoin's coin is BTC. Ethereum's is ETH, also called Ether. Each network charges its fees in its own coin.
A token is an asset that someone issues on top of an existing blockchain. A token has no network of its own; it rides on someone else's. A stablecoin is a token designed to stay at one dollar. USDC and USDT, also called Tether, are the two you will see.

So a holding is always two facts: the asset, and the network it is on. "I have Bitcoin" gives you both. "I have USDT" gives you half.

One token, many networks

USDT exists on Ethereum, Tron, Solana and other networks. So does USDC. It is the same dollar-pegged token with the same name, issued separately on each network, and the network is often written as a suffix: ERC-20 means Ethereum, TRC-20 means Tron.

Two things follow. "Which network?" is a required question: $400,000 of USDT on Tron and $400,000 of USDT on Ethereum are both real, but they move at different speeds, cost different fees and go to different addresses. And the wrong network is the classic funding-day mistake: a transfer sent on a network the receiving address does not expect can be delayed or lost. The funding instructions name the network, and the buyer follows them exactly.

What it takes to move crypto

Network fees are paid in the network's coin. The fee is often called gas. Sending USDT on Ethereum takes a little ETH; sending it on Tron takes TRX. A wallet that holds nothing but stablecoins cannot send them until it also holds some of the network's coin. Raise this before funding day, not on it.
Transfers confirm in blocks. A transfer is not finished when the buyer taps send. It is finished when the network confirms it. On Bitcoin that can take from several minutes to more than an hour, and RealOpen executes a Bitcoin trade after two confirmations. Ethereum, Solana, Tron and XRP usually confirm in seconds to a couple of minutes. A fee set too low is the usual reason a transfer gets stuck.
Transfers cannot be reversed. There is no chargeback and no recall. That is why a deposit address must come from the buyer's RealOpen account and nowhere else, why a careful buyer sends a small test amount first, and why every crypto scam ends the same way: the money is gone the moment it is sent.
Some transfers need a tag as well as an address. XRP is the usual example. A transfer to or from an exchange may need a destination tag, sometimes called a memo. When the instructions show one, it is not optional.
Every transfer has a transaction ID. It is also called a hash or a TXID, and it is the receipt. Anyone can paste it into a block explorer and see the amount, the time and both addresses.

Public, but without names

A blockchain is public. Anyone can look up any address on a block explorer, a public website that shows its balance and full history. What the ledger does not show is who controls an address. Three things follow:

A screenshot or an explorer page shows that an address holds money. It does not show that your buyer controls that address. Anyone can look up a rich address.
Screening works. Because the history is public, funds can be traced back to where they came from, which is how a wallet is screened and how source of funds is documented.
Buyers guard their addresses. Anyone who knows an address can see what it holds. Treat a buyer's address like an account number, and do not forward it.

Wallets, keys and addresses

A wallet is the software or device that controls someone's crypto. It holds a secret called a private key, usually backed up as a 12 or 24 word seed phrase. Whoever holds the key controls the money, full stop. That is the whole security model, and it is why the phrase shows up in so many scams.

A wallet has one or more addresses. An address is a long string of letters and numbers that works like an account number. One wallet can hold addresses on several networks, and a Bitcoin wallet usually spreads its funds across many addresses, which is normal. Every address the buyer verifies counts, and RealOpen's dashboard shows a Bitcoin holder how to get all of theirs counted.

Two rules:

Never ask a client for a private key or seed phrase, and never accept one. No legitimate party in a real estate deal needs it. RealOpen never asks for it. Anyone who does is stealing.
A screenshot of a wallet, an exchange balance or a block explorer is not proof of funds.

Exchange custody versus self-custody

Exchange custody means the crypto sits in an account at a company such as a large U.S. exchange. It works like a brokerage account: the exchange holds the keys, and the customer has a login.

Self-custody means the owner holds the keys personally, on a hardware wallet (often called cold storage) or in a software wallet on a phone or computer.

Both are legitimate, and a real holder can tell you immediately which one they use. Here is why you care:

Ownership of a self-custody wallet can be proven. The owner signs a message with the wallet or sends a small transfer from it, and either one can only be done by someone who holds the key.
An exchange account cannot be proven that way, because the exchange holds the keys. To be verified by RealOpen, a buyer with funds on an exchange first withdraws them to a wallet they control. At funding time, they can send from the exchange if they like.
Exchanges set their own rules for getting crypto out. There are daily limits, there can be a hold of a day or more before a newly added withdrawal address can be used, and a compliance review can freeze a withdrawal for days. None of that is a red flag. All of it is a timing problem.

So "my Bitcoin is in a hardware wallet" is not a red flag. It is the easiest case to verify. Module 4 covers how.

Where crypto gets tied up

Not everything a buyer holds can be sent today.

Staked. Locked with a network to earn rewards. Getting it back out can take from a day or two to two weeks, depending on the network. The buyer still owns it, and it still counts toward verified proof of funds, disclosed as staked.
In DeFi. Lent or deposited in an app that runs on a blockchain. It has to be withdrawn from the app first.
Locked or vesting. Tokens from an employer or a project that cannot be moved until a set date. Until then they are not buying power.
Pledged. Posted as collateral for a loan. The lender or its custodian holds it for the life of the loan.
Held by an entity or with other signers. An LLC's wallet, or a multisignature wallet that needs two of three keys. The crypto is real, and moving it needs the right people.

Every one of these is a legitimate reason funds are not available today, and every one has a verifiable fact behind it: a staking position on the ledger, a vesting contract, a loan agreement, an operating agreement. Module 3 teaches you to tell these from the stories that only sound like them.

Price movement and timing

Bitcoin and Ether can move several percent in a day. Stablecoins are built not to. This matters in a purchase because the buyer owes a fixed number of dollars at closing while holding an asset whose dollar value keeps changing.

A proof of funds states an amount below the wallet's current market value, to leave room for price movement.
The buyer does not have to sell early. On the route RealOpen runs, the crypto is converted when the deal is funded, at that day's price.
A buyer whose holdings barely cover the price has less room than a buyer with a cushion. Find that out before you write the offer.

Five questions for every crypto buyer

What do you hold?
Which network is it on?
Is it on an exchange or in a wallet you control?
Is any of it staked, lent out, locked or pledged?
How does the total compare with what you need to close?

You do not have to judge the answers. Write them down. A real holder knows all five without looking anything up, the way you know which bank you use. Module 3 adds five more questions for the first conversation and tells you what to do with the answers.

A working rule on the first question: if you have heard of the coin, it is probably usable. If the buyer tells you about a token they created, or one you cannot find anywhere, it probably is not. RealOpen accepts Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, XRP, Cardano, Dogecoin, Zcash, BNB, POL, USDC and USDT, and considers other highly liquid tokens case by case. The current list is at realopen.com/buy/accepted-crypto.

What this course skips on purpose

Mining, how blocks are validated, cryptography, NFTs, and whether crypto is a good investment. None of it changes how you close a deal. Tokenized real estate gets one paragraph in Module 2, because clients confuse it with buying a home. You are also not the buyer's tax or investment advisor, and Module 6 covers what to say when those questions come up.

Optional reference: networks, layers and address formats

Nothing in this section is on a check. It is here for the day a buyer says something you want to look up.

Bitcoin and Ethereum are the two largest networks by market value, and they are separate systems that do not talk to each other.

Feature	Bitcoin	Ethereum
Built to	Hold and move one asset, BTC	Run programs called smart contracts, which is why tokens and apps live on it
Coin	BTC	ETH
A new block	About every 10 minutes	About every 12 seconds
An address	Starts with 1, 3 or bc1	Starts with 0x
Words you will hear	Sats, cold storage, self-custody	Gas, stables, staking, DeFi

A Bitcoin address cannot receive ETH, and an Ethereum address cannot receive BTC. A wallet app may show both, but underneath they are separate addresses on separate networks. Other networks you will hear named are Solana, Tron, the XRP Ledger, Cardano and BNB Smart Chain. Each is its own blockchain with its own coin.

Layer 1 and layer 2. A layer 1 is a base blockchain, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum or Solana. A layer 2 is a network built on top of a layer 1 to make transfers faster and cheaper; Arbitrum and Base are layer 2 networks on Ethereum, and Polygon is usually mentioned in the same breath. The same asset can sit on different layers, and ETH or USDC on Base is not in the same place as ETH or USDC on Ethereum even though the address looks identical. Moving an asset between networks is called bridging; it is an extra step with a fee and some waiting. Holdings on Base and Arbitrum count toward a buyer's verification and proof of funds, but RealOpen does not quote funding on those networks today, so a buyer who holds there bridges to Ethereum before funding day.

Wrapped tokens. Wrapped Bitcoin, or WBTC, is a token on Ethereum that tracks the price of Bitcoin. It is not BTC on the Bitcoin network, and it moves like any other Ethereum token. When a buyer holds a wrapped or less common token, ask RealOpen before you assume it can be used.

Liquid staking tokens such as stETH stand for staked ETH and can be transferred like any other token.

The glossary for this lesson, RealOpen Certified’s crypto terms for real estate agents, is its own page: read the glossary.

RealOpen Certified is a private designation issued by RealOpen. It is not continuing education credit and is not issued or endorsed by any state licensing authority. How certifying works.