Affiliate Disclosure

Some links on this website and in our videos are affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. This page lists those relationships in full and explains how we choose them.

The rule

We only recommend products that earned it on their own merits, after testing them against the alternatives. That rule has been the same since the channel started, and it stays the same regardless of how much an affiliate program pays.

What we will not do is publish the specific setup Mike keeps his own Bitcoin on. Naming your exact hardware in public is a security risk in this field, and a recommendation does not need it to be honest.

We have declined sponsorships from companies whose products we would not put a viewer on. Casa and Vault are both public examples. We turn down deals that pay well when the product does not pass that test. That is not virtue-signalling. It is the only sustainable way to keep a channel like this honest over time.

Current affiliate relationships

The following partnerships are in place at the time of writing. If any of these change, we will update this page. If you are reading this far down a legal page, we appreciate the diligence.

The Bitcoin Way

Self-custody consulting. We refer skeptics who would rather pay an experienced person to walk them through the setup than DIY it. We receive a referral fee when one of our viewers signs up.

Link pattern: thebitcoinway.com/partner/bitcoin-straight-up

Start9

Self-hosted node server (the Start9 server). A node in a box that runs Bitcoin Core, an Electrum server and other open-source software without the technical setup. We have a 5% off discount code (STRAIGHTUP) and earn an affiliate commission when viewers purchase using the link or code.

Link pattern: store.start9.com with discount code STRAIGHTUP

MicroSeed

Metal seed phrase backup. A stamping kit that punches your 24 recovery words onto a steel or titanium washer, so the backup survives fire and water and does not look like a Bitcoin backup to anyone who finds it. We have a 5% off coupon (straightup) and earn a referral commission of 18% when viewers purchase using the link or code.

Link pattern: microseed.io/?ref=STRAIGHTUP with coupon code straightup

SeedSigner (Bitcoin Brabant and Solo Satoshi)

Air-gapped, open-source Bitcoin hardware wallet, and our lead hardware recommendation since August 2026. Bitcoin Brabant ship it in Europe with a 2.1% off code (bitcoinstraightup); Solo Satoshi assemble it in the USA for North America. We earn a commission on both.

Link patterns: bitcoinbrabant.com/en/product/seedsigner-battery-smartcard/ with code bitcoinstraightup, and solosatoshi.com/product/seedsigner/?aff=8256

Coldcard (Coinkite) — retired

Bitcoin-only hardware wallet. We stopped recommending the Coldcard in August 2026 after the seed-generation entropy story, and it has been removed from the security guide and the site. The old affiliate link may still appear in older YouTube descriptions.

Amazon Associates

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, which is an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon. When we recommend specific books (such as Saifedean Ammous's The Bitcoin Standard or Andreas Antonopoulos's Mastering Bitcoin), the links go through Amazon's affiliate program and may pay us a small commission.

Tag: bsuchangebitcoin-20

Future partnerships

If we add new affiliate partnerships in the future, they will be added to this list within seven days of going live. We will only add partners whose products pass the same test as everything above.

What an affiliate commission actually means

When you click an affiliate link and make a purchase, the seller pays us a small percentage of the sale. The price you pay is the same as if you had gone to the seller's website directly. The commission comes out of the seller's margin, not your wallet.

Affiliate commissions are how we cover the cost of running the channel and the website. They are not how we get rich. Most of the partnerships listed above pay between 5% and 20% of a sale, and most sales are small. Some partnerships (e.g. Amazon books) pay pennies per click-through.

Why we keep this transparent

You should know exactly what financial relationship we have with anything we recommend, so you can weight the recommendation accordingly. The full list is here, on a page anyone can read, in plain English. We would rather under-promise and stay credible than over-promise and lose your trust.

If you ever feel like a recommendation on this site is being driven by the affiliate commission rather than the product's actual quality, we want to hear about it. Email mike@bitcoinstraightup.com and tell us. We will look into it.

You are not obligated

You are under no obligation to use any of these affiliate links. You can go directly to any of the seller's websites without using our link, and the product will work the same. We provide the links because they are convenient and because they fund the rest of what we do, but if you would rather not use them, that is fine.

Scope of this disclosure

This Affiliate Disclosure applies to all affiliate links shared by Bitcoin Straight Up — on the website, in the newsletter, in YouTube videos, in YouTube descriptions, on social media, in our paid products (the e-book and Bitcoin Security Straight Up), and anywhere else we represent the brand.

Contact

For any questions about this Affiliate Disclosure, contact us at mike@bitcoinstraightup.com.