Looking for help getting started. I'm trying very hard to understand but there's SO much jargon. I need to make sure I understand the basics correctly.

Hey everyone, hoping I can learn something from this. I've never done anything with crypto before but my goal is to at least get an account set up, something that could theoretically be used for crypto, and start understanding the various ways you can earn, spend, and cash out different coins.

I've watched several YouTube channels' intro to crypto, but I'm always worried about following any of their advice too closely because so many of them seem like they're subtly (or not so subtly) trying to get you to go with their sponsors for various things.

Here's where I think my knowledge level is so far. Please tell me where I'm wrong, because I inevitably am.

Wallets

From what I understand, wallets don't hold any crypto. They are just keygens/keyholders that give you two keys: a public and a private key. The public key is what you provide to others to send or receive crypto, and the private key is a 24-word password to access the wallet.

I have no idea how someone determines what wallet to start with. Every YouTuber suggests their own affiliated wallet it seems, and I have a hard time trusting someone I've never watched before when it's clear they make money from their suggestions to newbies. That's not to say they're all malicious, I just don't know how to tell.

Blockchain

So this is where the crypto is actually 'stored,' right? It's a publicly-available ledger that shows each and every transaction made? I don't know where to view this blockchain or exactly how that works, and from what I understand, there's multiple blockchains for different types of coins, and that's an area where I start getting really confused.

Honestly, so many times I have read posts of people saying 'just look up blockchain and learn how it works, there are tutorials everywhere' and yet none of them can ever point to a good tutorial or explain it themselves. The videos I've seen on YouTube about the topic always contain enough jargon to make me think that they're not for complete beginners like me. But the above description seems to be at least basically true, I think?

Exchange

Not going to lie, I understand very little about this. I have seen that these can be used as an alternative to wallets, though virtually every video I've seen seems to say this is a very bad idea and to not do it, at least as a beginner. I assume this is also where crypto coins are exchanged for other coins?

Can you put crypto onto an exchange from a wallet, and vice versa? I'd assume so if you used exchanges to invest in volatile coins, but I'm not sure if that's true.

Basically, my hope is to set up a wallet and earn some crypto using one of the free methods I've seen talked about on this sub. Maybe convert a small amount of personal cash into crypto to start understanding the whole process. My goals with that crypto would be to maybe mess around with coin investment, potentially use it for online gambling/gaming sites, and be able to know enough to make basic purchases with it.

I don't know how to get crypto from real money, or how to convert crypto to real money. I'm confident I could get a wallet set up, but have no idea which wallet to choose. I've read enough to probably be able to get a bit of free crypto to start, but I'm not sure how to convert random coins to stuff I could actually use. I've read BTC and ETH are the two most common for purchases/gaming sites/etc, but I've also read that they're on different blockchains or exchanges or something.

I'm not looking for people to just say "go on YouTube and learn" because if you read my post you'll understand that I've tried that and never found a sufficient source that explains it all in a complete beginner friendly and non-biased way. I'm totally fine with you linking specific videos that you think will help though, or just trying to explain some of this stuff to me.