Crypto basics for agents

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. Module 2 covers the routes. This lesson gives you the vocabulary to understand what your buyer holds and what has to happen before it can pay for a house.

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. Solana's is SOL. 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.

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. The network is often written as a suffix: ERC-20 means Ethereum, and 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. They move at different speeds, cost different fees and go to different addresses.
• The wrong network is the classic 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.

A related word is wrapped. 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.

• Network fees are paid in the network's coin. The fee is often called gas. Sending USDT on Ethereum takes a little ETH, and 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.
• 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, and why a careful buyer sends a small test amount first.
• 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.

Exchange custody means the crypto sits in an account at a company such as Coinbase, Kraken or Gemini. 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. That might be a hardware wallet such as a Ledger or a Trezor, which is often called cold storage, or 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 proves control.
• 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.
• Exchanges set their own rules for getting crypto out. There are daily limits, and there can be a hold of a day or more before a newly added withdrawal address can be used.

So "my Bitcoin is in a hardware wallet" is not a red flag. It is the easiest case to verify. Module 3 covers how.

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.
• 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.

You will also hear of liquid staking tokens such as stETH. Each one is a token that stands for staked ETH, and it can be transferred like any other token.

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 4 covers what to say when those questions come up.