10 lessons · about 29 minutes in all
Learn
Short lessons on how this actually works, written for people doing it for the first time. No tips, no picks: just the mechanics, the fees and the risks.
More lessons
In reading order
- Lesson 2 · 3 min readWhat is a wallet, and why Viru doesn't hold your moneyYour wallet is yours. Viru can show it, but never move it.
- Lesson 3 · 4 min readHow a swap worksWhat happens between tapping Review and seeing your new balance.
- Lesson 4 · 3 min readEvery fee, explainedWho gets paid when you swap, and what Viru charges (nothing).
- Lesson 5 · 2 min readWhat the risk tiers meanMajor, Established, High risk: a size label, not a rating.
- Lesson 6 · 3 min readMeme coins, and why Viru leaves them out for nowWhat they are, why their prices swing so hard, and why they aren't on Viru for now.
- Lesson 7 · 2 min readStablecoinsDigital dollars, and why 'stable' has a small print.
- Lesson 8 · 2 min readBase vs. SolanaSix networks, two addresses, same idea.
- Lesson 9 · 4 min readTokenized stocks: what they are, and who can trade themThe idea, the catch for US students, and what Viru offers outside the US.
- Lesson 10 · 3 min readStaying safeThe handful of habits that prevent almost every loss.
Glossary
A–Z
- Address
- The public identifier of a wallet. Safe to share; it's where people send you tokens.
- Approval
- Permission for a contract to take one token from your wallet: a signature, or a small transaction with its own network fee. The ones sent from your wallet are for exactly the amount being sold.
- Block explorer
- A public website (Basescan, Solscan) where anyone can look up any transaction or token.
- Gas / network fee
- The small payment to the network for processing a transaction, paid in ETH, POL, BNB or SOL.
- Liquidity
- How much of a token is available to trade. Low liquidity means prices move a lot when you buy or sell.
- Market cap
- Price × total supply. A rough measure of a token's size.
- Non-custodial
- You hold your own keys; the app can't move your funds without your signature.
- Slippage
- The difference between the price you saw and the price you got, because the market moved in between.
- Smart contract
- A program on the blockchain that runs exactly as written, for example a swap pool.
- Stablecoin
- A token designed to stay worth one unit of a currency, usually the US dollar.
- Swap
- Trading one token for another directly from your wallet.
- Wallet
- Software (or hardware) that keeps your private key and signs transactions for you.
Nothing on Viru is investment advice. Learning how something works is not a reason to buy it.