Education
The desk's free explainers — the mechanics behind the positions, not a course and not a paywall. Nine how-to guides on tracking whales, moving assets across chains, and how the market's newer venues actually work.
On-chain & whale tracking
How to track crypto whale wallets (free tools, 2026)
The free toolstack — explorers, DeBank, Arkham, Nansen, Dune. How to find an address, what to watch, and the traps.
DeBank alternatives: 7 wallet trackers compared
Arkham, Nansen, Zerion, Zapper, free explorers and Dune vs DeBank — chains, free tier and labeling.
How to read a whale portfolio like a desk
Position sizing, cost basis, leverage, LP vs directional — telling conviction from noise.
Cross-chain swaps & bridges
How cross-chain swaps work
Bridges, native settlement and RFQ desks, mapped.
Cross-chain swap vs bridge
Same asset moved, or a new asset received.
ETH to SOL: bridging explained
Wrapped vs native, and what you actually want.
How to swap Monero safely
Routes, venue checks, operational hygiene.
BTC to XMR: routes compared
Maya, RFQ desks, P2P and atomic swaps.
Market mechanics
How perpetual DEXs work — and why they matter
On-chain leverage, funding rates, liquidity.
Reference — look it up
Crypto glossary — every metric defined
Plain, answer-first definitions of the on-chain and market terms the desk uses — MVRV, SOPR, funding rate, TVL, FDV and more.
Live crypto charts the desk watches
DeFi TVL, stablecoin market cap, Fear & Greed and total market cap — live, updated daily, read the way a desk reads them.
Whale watch — biggest holders, live on-chain
The largest identified holders ranked by live Arkham-mapped holdings — funds, treasury companies and individuals, exchanges stripped out.
FAQ
How do you track crypto whale wallets for free?
Start with a block explorer (Etherscan, Solscan) for ground-truth transactions, then layer a free portfolio tracker — DeBank, Arkham, Nansen or Zerion free tier — to read an address’s full holdings across chains, and Dune dashboards for whale leaderboards. Watch accumulation, exchange in/outflows and new position entries; avoid mislabeling exchange omnibus wallets as whales. Full walkthrough in the whale-tracking guide.
What are the best DeBank alternatives?
Arkham for entity attribution, Nansen for labeled Smart Money cohorts, Zerion and Zapper for clean multichain portfolios, free block explorers for ground truth, and Dune for custom analytics. Each does one job best — see the comparison.
Cross-chain swap vs bridge — what’s the difference?
A bridge moves the same asset (or a wrapped IOU) to another chain; a swap exchanges asset A on chain X for asset B on chain Y in one operation. Bridges carry ongoing custodial risk; swaps carry execution risk only during the swap window. Full breakdown.
Are these guides free?
Yes — every explainer is free, no paywall, no email gate.
Related
- All notes — research and thesis breakdowns, updated most days.
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