What are /r/BitcoinBeginners' favorite Products & Services?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1839213191/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_S2027DR0XAJWSKD54F64

This book was a big help for me.

It's up to date to for 2021.

https://youtube.com/user/Computerphile

This YouTube channel was a huge help with raw technology.

One of the easiest ways to buy bitcoins is probably Coinbase.com, so I recommend that for the beginning. The markup is 1.5% over spot, tough. Bitstamp.net is cheaper 0.25%, but it's a little less user friendly, because it's just an exchange, where Coinbase is more like a broker.

If you buy, hold it. My minimum duration of holding is 3 years. The price might go down again and you don't want to lose your cool and sell at a loss. Invest what you're willing to lose and ride it out, for 3 years. The longest bear market we had until now, was about one year. Don't lock in losses.

Hold your own private keys. Buy from Coinbase or an exchange and then send the funds to an address, to which you control the private keys. As a wallet, I recommend for Android Mycelium and for iOS Breadwallet. Make sure to backup the recovery seeds before using the wallet and you're good to go. Think about using an old, factory reset Android phone or tablet you've got laying around with only the wallet app installed for added security.

I kind of wrote that above, but make backups. Write down all the passwords and seeds you need to access your bitcoins on paper, not on your computer. Store that paper with, for example, your birth certificate. Most people are able to keep paper save for decades as demonstrated by you still having your birth certificate.

There's a lot of FUD here about Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin Cash is a fork of Bitcoin that does not include SegWit, upped the maximum blocksize cap to 8MB, implemented a new difficulty adjustment algorithm, and removed Replace-By-Fee. It forked from Bitcoin on 8/1/2017, so everyone who had Bitcoin on that date have the same amount of Bitcoin Cash (unless they have moved/sold it).

Bitcoin Cash was created in order to resolve the scaling problems that Bitcoin is suffering from now, as evidenced by the escalating transaction fees. In general, Bitcoin Cash favors on-chain scaling with optional off-chain scaling solutions whereas Bitcoin favors off-chain solutions and no on-chain scaling. You can read more about Bitcoin Cash here: https://www.bitcoincash.org/

>Is it just a security thing, just in case?

Gemini is a secure exchange but there are many other risks you are exposed to when keep your bitcoins on an exchnage:

1) These exchanges do not respect your privacy and immediately hand over records or the IRS and law enforcement

2) Capital gains exposure risk

3) During a Split , which might happen soon, exchanges might not give you coins on both sides of the fork or delay your receiving them as we say coinbase take a year to refund ETC. When you control your private keys you always have both sides if a split ever occurs(unlikely)

4)Asset forfeiture

5) You are trusting a third party to act as security defeating the main purpose of bitcoin = peer to peer cash

> Any suggestions?

Install electrum wallet, back up your seed. Copy a receive address, send the bticoins from gemini to this receive address. done .

https://electrum.org

In the future buy a hardware wallet like ledger, keepkey,digital bit box or trezor

If you don't control your private keys , you do not own any bitcoins but IOUs!

Because some people massively overpay. If the mempool is low, 1 sat/byte payments should be processed fine. If the mempool has a bit of a backlog you may need to pay more, but most estimates are shit and end up in massive overpayments (since it's paid by the end user, most services don't really care).

Last block https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/transactions?q=block_id(577686)&s=fee_usd(desc)#f=block_id,id,hash,time,input_count,output_count,output_total,output_total_usd,fee_usd,fee_per_kb,fee_per_kb_usd,fee_per_kwu,size

You can see there are a few outliers paying over $100, some of the minimum were paying <$1 if you reverse the sort. This screws the average over.

To understand better, sort on fee/kb (USD), the top payees are pating $100 per kb, the bottom paying $1 per kb. If you have 1 $100, and 1 $1 transaction, the average is $50, so you can see how a few big transactions skew the numbers, the average may be $x, but most will be playing less.

For most transactions a reasonable fee is needed for speedy processing (for non urgent transactions such as moving to cold storage I only ever use 1 sat/byte), but most are paying well over the odds. I think in time as people get used to it, it should get better as the estimates improve, bad wallets will be penalised because people will use the wallets that don't waste your money by overpaying 100x.

Of course there will always be people moving millions, that don't care about paying an extra $50, as long as its picked up asap.

This is pretty accurate, the reason behind this is that hedgefunds and professional traders usually only trade from Mon - Fri, so the volume on the weekends is usually much lower and this allows the market to be very easy manipulated on weekends. The direction the market usually takes on weekends is the same as the overall bitcoin sentiment, right now the sentiment is more bearish (fearfull, data from the crypto fear and greed index) which mostly results in the market going down.

Electrum is one of the most popular SW wallets and it works really well. Minimalistic app, yet a lot of features that will help you to keep your BTC payments well organized and easy to use.

Some core features: - Encrypted private keys on your PC - Good SW for creating a cold storage - HW wallets are supported too - Decentralized servers run by community - anyone can run a server, thus nobody controls the servers and they are never down

address: https://electrum.org/

> To back it up - would I just be able to for example zip the entire folder and put it on a USB stick and theoretically open that up on another PC and have it work?

Yeah, this should work - providing you pick the correct directory (where the wallet is located). It is possible that the wallet is protected (encrypted) by password - I hope you have that password if that's the case...

> What program would be best to move to, and how would I do that?

This is one of the best PC wallets:

https://electrum.org/

...very convenient and user friendly and it also offers also more secure "cold storage" option - when you generate and use the wallet offline.

First, after you backup your existing wallet, install Electrum @ PC and send there some small amount from your existing wallet. You can explore how it works - receiving, sending. Also try restoring from seed. When you are familiar with it enough, you can send into it all your BTC from your existing wallet.

If you have tens/hundreds/thousands of BTC you might want to use hardware wallets like Trezor or Ledger.

Translation: can someone please google me how to transfer out of El Toro?

Me: Sure

https://www.etoro.com/en-us/customer-service/help/1320587972/how-do-i-transfer-cryptocurrency-from-the-etoro-trading-platform-to-my-etoro-money-crypto-wallet/

Ledger is next level. Easy of use and you can store pretty much all major cryptos there on one device. If you decide to go with a software wallet, I'd say go with Electrum: https://electrum.org/#download

There are all kinds of threads where people recommend ways of buying. It depends on the method you wish to use to pay and where you are located. A local Bitcoin ATM is often the simplest and fastest (coinatmradar.com), but one of the more expensive ways to buy. Coinbase, Kraken, LocalBitcoins, BitQuick, Mycelium Trader, Paxful, Purse and others are ways to buy online or via various methods and have a range of fees. Coinbase or a full exchange site would probably be the least expensive way to buy, but potentially the slowest. Coinbase is usually recommended for newcomers, or an ATM or local bitcoin group if you want to get started.

Best strategy is to buy slowly over time (dollar cost average) with funds you can afford to lose, unless you're an experienced trader.

Best storage method is a paper wallet, but if you're just getting started try a mobile wallet (Airbitz, Mycelium, Copay) and learn about other methods including full nodes here: https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

> A small dip then occurred.

1-2 % is well within normal variance of volatility. I would not assume they are related

>What I’m struggling to understand is why the potential for Satoshi’s coins being moved causes a dip in the value.

I don't think they are related because the block spent wasn't even one of the assumed patoshi patterns that might be coins satoshi mined

> Also- if that’s the case, if satoshi moved all their coins, the market would crash,

Perhaps it would freak out speculators if it was one of the ~740k btc that were mined early on and may have been mined by a single miner. (this evidence is not conclusive either as there are other explanations for the similar extranonce pattern. The patoshi pattern is based on extranonce not being reset and various unsubstantiated assumptions and some guesswork so you should be aware that it is merely a hint of an large early miner who may or may not have been satoshi)

>Surely satoshi is like a multi billionaire who as soon as they try to access their billions, reduces their value to nada?

The only blocks we know satoshi mined are block 9 and the genesis block. What you are looking at is spikes in coindays destroyed freaking out speculators -

https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/charts/coindays-destroyed

We don't know what will happen exactly if many early coins moved thus causing a spike here but at minimum their would be a bear trap I suspect

We still don't even know if it was a single miner who mined these 740k btc either but if it was indeed Satoshi I suspect that he purposely lost the keys or is dead but we can never know until it happens

Satoshi would likely spend the BTC on the fringes first anyways and not move large chunks of coins all at once to spook the market

You might be better off trying to make the trades yourself, if you're having trouble getting past the verification on LBC try LocalCoinSwap.com, all you need is a valid email. Anything your sister does could make her liable for capital gains taxes or just some hassle trying to explain the situation if it came to it, which understandably she probably wants to avoid the complications of.

Safe is a relative term. Whilst I agree that hardware wallets are better than purely software wallets the latter are still "safe" if used correctly. If you are only storing small amounts of coins the cost of a hardware wallet becomes a factor and something like Exodus Wallet may be more appropriate.

Coin.mx has been shady throughout their entire history, but in general customers seem to receive their bitcoins eventually. If you're in the US with a bank account, I'd recommend Coinbase:

https://coinbase.com/

You don't need to verify your identity in order to use bitcoin. Bitcoin is an open system and no one can stop you from using it. There is also nobody in charge who you have to answer to.

There are many open source wallets that you can use. Electrum and copay are good for newbies.

While bitcoin itself is free for anyone to use converting money from fiat (dollars, euros etc.) to bitcoin is regulated by governments. When it comes to buying or selling bitcoin you will have to sign up for a reputable exchange and verify yourself there or use localbitcoins and buy from individual traders.

In the US coinbase is considered a reputable exchange/broker. Worldwide there is bitfinex and bitstamp. If you tell us which country you live in we can offer country specific advice on how to buy and sell bitcoin.

1. Open Core

2. It should be downloading the blockchain and not able to send yet.

3. Click Help > Debug Window

4. Click the Console tab

5. (If you haven't set a password, skip this step) type in the following: ("bitcoin222" is your password, 60 is the number of seconds you will allow the wallet to stay unlocked)

> walletpassphrase "bitcoin222" 60

1. Type the following in the console: (Replace <address> with your address that you sent your bitcoins to.)

> dumpprivkey "<address>"

Then just below, it should show a Private Key starting with "K" or "5".

Copy that long string of numbers and import it to any other wallet software.

Every wallet software has a "Import Private Key" feature. Use that.

A good wallet software that doesn't require downloading the blockchain is as follows:

• Electrum: https://electrum.org/download.html

Anyone else can also post suggestions. Once you've imported the key to the new wallet you can send it as you please.

The greatest danger is that it will be stolen or fall into someone's hands who will use it for identity theft.

One good approach is to "watermark" your ID (like shutterstock does). Add the name of the service that you are submitting to, and the date. Then potential thieves will have difficulty reusing the images.

/r/bitcoin is brigading this thread - be careful who you believe. /r/bitcoin is known for being a propaganda fueled tool to drum up support for Bitcoin and Bitcoin Core and censor any dissenters: http://telegra.ph/Inside-the-Dragons-Den-Bitcoin-Cores-Troll-Army-04-07

The best ELI5 version I know that is really easy for beginners is

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Bitcoin-Book-Matters-Finances-ebook/dp/B07W957N7T

Here are 2 more that are good and non technical-

The Internet of Money: A collection of talks by Andreas M. Antonopoulos

The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking

more:

https://www.lopp.net/bitcoin-information/books.html

fasted to get up and running is cash app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.squareup.cash&amp;hl=en

https://cash.app/help/us/en-us/1110-bitcoin

coinbase pro is slightly cheaper though but takes longer to go through full AML/KYC verification

>but they limit you to $100 a week.

limits can be increased with an initial purchase , adding a cc, and bank account and finishing verification. Many people like me have limits over 30k usd

>So I am OK with bank transfer as long it is like 1-3 days wait time for example.

ACH deposits in Coinbase pro take 6-8 days typically. This is why people spend money on fees with regular coinbase so they can lock in the rate. Since we are not in a bull market where time is of the essence (FOMO) , you should just deposit in coinbase pro , wait , and than set a buy limit order to avoid all fees.

>Fees not too expensive like less than 3.5%

cash app has no fee , but is slightly more expensive than a buy limit order on coinbase due to the spread

Download a good wallet, like Electrum.

Send a small amount of your Bitcoins to that wallet.

Learn how to use it, practice how to do backups, etc.

Once you've learned enough, transfer all your Bitcoin there.

You now have full custody of your Bitcoins.

If you don't have a huge amount of Bitcoins, then this should be OK for now.

Eventually you will want to transfer your funds to cold storage, which can also be done with Electrum.

Cold storage just means that the private keys have never been and will never will be in contact with the Internet. You can do this with an air-gapped computer(no wifi, bluetooth, etc), or buying a hardware wallet.

You then can have a watch-only wallet on electrum to see your funds, but not spend it.

To spend from cold storage you can use partially signed bitcoin transactions (PSBTs), which you can do through QR Codes or passing around a memory card/USB drive between the device in cold storage and a normal computer.

Because of "Know Your Customer" (KYC) regulation most exchanges will have to do at least some vetting before allowing users to get bitcoins. As another user mentioned here, localbitcoins is an exception to this rule (as it's not the site that's selling you the coins), but escrow & bank transfer confirmation times can still take 1-2 days. This may still be faster than Coinbase all the same. Check out the list of methods where and how to get BTC: https://howtobuybitcoin.io/ remember credit card, cash, paypal, and SEPA (EU) or wire bank transfers all valid means of purchasing. In your case, a larger volume of coins will be needed, so perhaps look into Kraken (bank transfer) as I've heard they process deposits in 2 days and ID verification is done within minutes/hours. Then the final option is Paxful (person 2 person exchange like localbitcoins), where PayPal and plenty of other payment methods are available. Fees will be higher, but depending on some sellers the transactions might go through within 12-24hrs. Please remember to stay safe as a beginner to bitcoin, take your coins offline for storage. Here's a list of bitcoin wallets (choose desktop or web wallets to store coins truly offline). Let me know if you need any extra tips.

Hi u/IllustriousTutor3902,

I can understand your concern about fees.

You can browse the fee table here to learn more about the fee structure for each of our offerings. You can get as low as 0% depending on your volume.

For large trades, we have an OTC desk service (deeper liquidity and a private, more personalized service). If this is your case, feel free to reach us if you have any questions.

Have a nice one!

Serena from Kraken Support

Bitcoin doesn't have foolish arbitrary rules like banks. There is no age or other requirements for ownership. The only issue you have is that many exchanges rely on banks. If you use http://www.localbitcoins.com or the mycelium android wallet you ought to be able to find someone who will sell directly to you. Or better yet - find your way to a bitcoin meetup and let them know in advance that you're interested in a buy.

But above all else - do all of these things with a wingman. Preferably an adult or someone who can help you if you find yourself dealing with a shady character.

You can use Bitcoin without a bank:

1. Download one of many software wallets. for a computer (Mac, Windows, or Linux) I recommend Electrum https://electrum.org/download.html

2. Once you have your wallet set up with a password and you have some addresses, then sign up for an account with https://localbitcoins.com/

3. Search for "I want to BUY bitcoins" and type in your area. (aka San Francisco, California)

4. Find a user that is selling bitcoins for a good price, the payment method you want (money order, direct deposit, in-person cash exchange, many methods are available) and when you do find a guy (Remember to read his feedback page to hear what other people think of him) contact and initiate the buy order.

5. If you want to use Localbitcoins's escrow function, you must receive your bitcoins to your Localbitcoins account. If their site went down suddenly, they could run away with your bitcoins or a hacker could hack their site and get your bitcoins... so you want to send them from local bitcoins to your Electrum wallet as soon as possible.

Don't use a GPU to mine Bitcoin.

You need to use a special computer called an ASIC.

If you try to GPU mine Bitcoin, then your electricity bill will go up hundreds of dollars to maybe get $10 of BTC.

Your parents would rightfully murder you. Try to avoid this.

Go so some chores for some cash, then get your parents to buy Bitcoin for you. Then you give them the cash for the Bitcoin. They can use the cash app to buy Bitcoin. Then you withdraw it to your Bitcoin wallet.

I recommend using Mycelium Bitcoin wallet for Android.

Mow lawns in the summer. Wash cars. Walk dogs.

Go earn money and buy Bitcoin with that money.

u/24ganeplay_

NEVER allow ANYONE to posses, control or hold your Bitcoin/Crypto Currency Private Keys, under ANY circumstances.

Bitcoin is scarce and valuable. People can and will do ANYTHING to steal it from you. Do NOT make it easy for them to do so.

ONLY download directly from the Official https://electrum.org URL website, onto a computer/device which will NOT be connected to ANY live internet/mobile telephone connection. Do NOT use ANY other versions. This will creates a cold hardware wallet.

Master 24 Seed and 25th Word (hidden wallets) handling, archival: onto indestructible surfaces, such as Titanium, secretly storing in multiple and separate secret geographical locations. Do NOT store both Seed and Word together in the same location.

Seed/Word is used to permanently recover ALL of your Bitcoin/Crypto Currency, in the event ANY hardware device malfunctions.

Order ONLY directly from the Original Equipment Manufactures: ColdCardWallet or Trezor. Do NOT order from ANY resellers.

Pay attention and carefully inspect for any signs of tampering, upon receipt. If in doubt, return it for a refund and place a completely New Order.

NEVER type your Seed/Word ANYWHERE, under ANY circumstances, at the request of ANYONE.

Watch out for Phishing, fraudulent and imitation websites and apps.

🦉

Have you heard of asset backed loans?

For example take a look at this: https://www.schwab.com/pledged-asset-line

My expectation is once we hit $500k-$1M per coin, you'll easily be able to borrow against your Bitcoin at a very low interest rate. That way, you'll never have to sell.

Whatever you do. First do practice runs with small amounts!

For now, I suggest withdrawing a small amount, say 10 mBTC to a hot wallet (say, Mycelium on Android, BRD on iOS) and go through the whole process of receiving. Then try sending that small amount somewhere else, perhaps a hot wallet on a desktop pc, e.g. Electrum. ( https://electrum.org ) Make sure you learn how verify binaries/executables and always double check the URL.

The rule is you first separate out your Bitcoin into a new wallet unless its a very small amount . Than import the seed into a wallet like https://www.coinomi.com/en/ to recover the bcash , than send the bch to an exchange to sell for fiat or btc . You can use swap exchanges like https://changelly.com/ if you don't have an account with an exchange right now to swap for free btc

It's impossible to be exact because the price does keep fluctuating. But that could just as easily work for you than against you. Use something like xe.com to agree on an amount just before they send it (if they don't send it right away, you'll want to recheck). Right now 400 euros is 0.01426957 btc.

If you plan to hodl it (good idea), send it to your own private wallet. If you want to convert it to Euro right away, have it sent to an exchange account and put it on a sell order for at least 400 euro (or a little more to cover fees/some extra profit).

This is a good tutorial for creating paper wallets using https://www.bitaddress.org/ :

https://www.wikihow.com/Store-Bitcoin-with-a-Paper-Wallet#Creating_a_High_Security.2C_Encrypted_Paper_Wallet_sub

You can download the binaries from

https://bitcoin.org/bin/bitcoin-core-0.10.0/

Just unpack the data, and you can start bitcoind. Do you have questions about how to configure this? Or how to run it automatically on startup?

From where did you download electrum and what version is it ? In recent versions it doesn't say incorrect seed. It simply won't let you proceed to the next step i.e. the next button will appear grayed out. Seeds from 2.x versions are not compatible with 1.9.x electrum wallets so make sure you have the right version. 1.9.x seeds WILL work in 2.x wallets. 2.x seed mnemonics are 13 words while older 1.9.x seed mnemonics are 12 words.

The official site is https://electrum.org and there are instructions there for installing on linux using python pip. I recommend downloading the latest 2.6.x version.

/u/bitpoop is right about sweeping the key into a more usable and/or secure wallet. If that piece of paper is lost or damaged, your BTC are not recoverable.

I think it's also worth mentioning that electrum is a very user-friendly, secure wallet. The backup process (seed phrase vs wallet file) is a little more user-friendly than the core client, imho.

Here is a great guide to using the electrum wallet, including how to sweep the keys into electrum.

Your coinbase wallet is online. Like a hotmail or dropbox account. Nothing is kept on your machine. Your private keys/bitcoins are all on coinbase's servers. The wallet that downloaded before with the whole blockchain was bitcoin core, a wallet that you run locally, that keeps your bitcoins on your pc.

You can also have software wallets where you keep your bitcoins on your computer but you don't need to download the whole blockchain like electrum.

Your coinbase account is as secure as your browsing habits. eg Do you have 2-factor-authentication on your account? If not you should enable it.

I would recommend downloading and trying out electrum because in the long run you will want to move your bitcoins from an online wallet to your own device and possibly cold storage for larger amounts.

• PC/Mac: https://electrum.org/
• Android: Mycelium
• iOS: Breadwallet

As a general rule: Always make a backup of your wallet before sending even one satoshi to it. The mentioned wallets are backed up by simply writing down a mnemonic representation of a 128-bits seed, a random number. A piece of paper with those twelve words is all that is needed to reconstruct the whole wallet. It doesn't matter if you used only one address, or a million. So keep that piece of paper safe and secure.

Have fun with bitcoin :)

I would move away from website based wallets. You can use circle to buy your coins but then should transfer them to a different wallet this website has a selection of wallets you can download.

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Bitcoin-Book-Matters-Finances-ebook/dp/B07W957N7T

Here are 2 more that are good and non technical-

The Internet of Money: A collection of talks by Andreas M. Antonopoulos

The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking

more:

https://www.lopp.net/bitcoin-information/books.html

Stay away from the blockchain wallet as it is buggy and has much larger fees due to lack of segwit. If you wanted an online store that btcpay is the way to go but being in person at the farmers market is safe to just use a regular wallet . For your case a Lightning wallet is best as you can accept both onchain and lightning transactions -

Éclair LN wallet for Android and desktop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq4lF2s4UtI

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.acinq.eclair.wallet.mainnet2

Keep in mind that in order to accept lightning you need inbound liquidity , the easiest way to get this is open a channel with a merchant and buy something with a remaining balance.

With lightning you can get instant confirmations and don't need to trust but for small amounts 0 conf onchain is also fine as no one will scam someone at a farmers market

Short answer: when its ready. Longer answer: it's on the testnet, the more people that use it and discover/report bugs, the quicker they will be rectified and made into a more robust system. Torguard has also started to use it on the main net so the process of adoption has already started.

I want LN to be right, not right now. If it was released when it wasn't ready and people lost money, it would have such a massive negative impact on btc that it might not recover from.

Wallets like electrum, mycelium, and core are very common and popular

GDAX is not even close to a market leader -

Here is the list of exchanges volumes -

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets

Gdax is at best #6 in liquidity

Here's the official statement from Trezor regarding Bitcoin Gold Fork: https://blog.trezor.io/trezor-statement-on-bitcoin-gold-fork-78cebc0532c7?gi=dc6e411c036b

As far as I am aware, this is the real Bitcoin Gold that got created because of the fork. https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-gold/

What you need is your private key. I don't know if you can load it on Ledger but you can surely import it on Electrum wallet. https://electrum.org/#home

Edit: Don't respond to any DM's, people will try to scam you

Digital storage fails over time. I wouldn't trust USB thumb drives for any critical data.

For long storage, this is what I would do. You need two USB thumb drives and a printer.

• 1: create a Tails USB drive
• 2: boot from said Tails installation and never connect to any networks
• 3: start Electrum and write the recovery seed on a piece of paper (or paste it into a text file and print it out)
• 4: split the recovery seed into a m-of-n-Shamir Secret Sharing Scheme, for example 2-of-3.
• 5: copy the splits into text files and print them out.
• 6: copy a few addresses to a text file and put them on the 2nd USB thumb drive.
• 6a: also copy the master public key to the 2nd USB thumb drive. You can import it into a hot (internet connected) installation of Electrum
• 7: reboot and try to recreate the seed from the splits
• 8: check if the same addresses are created once you put the seed in
• 9: if everything worked, you can now use these addresses and send funds to them
• 10: memorize the seed
• 11: once memorized, burn the paper you wrote it on
• 11a: make it a habit to repeat the seed to yourself in your head a few times a day. Soon it will be burned into your brain.
• 12: store the three shares in independent and secure places. For example, one in an envelope at your moms house, one in your gun safe (if you don't have a gun, also buy a gun), and one on your person. In case one of these things burns down, or you forget the seed, you can still recover it.

There are transactions available that take place after certain conditions are met.

E.g. I could make a transaction that waits until, say, 1000 blocks are mined.

I could spend those coins before then but if I pass away that transaction could be mined. If I use it as a fail safe for my death I could always move the coins by the 999th block.

Bitconnect is a ponzi scam . Do not do this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbR1SXIje1U

https://steemit.com/bitconnect/@vlemon/warning-do-not-invest-in-bitconnect-it-is-a-ponzi-scam-read-these-10-reasons-why

as sleazy as onecoin ponzi

Start with something simple like www.coinbase.com - they make it very easy. You can leave them there or take them offline into a wallet. Buy some bitcoin and Ethereum - then after that you can progress to AltCoins like Neo, IOTA, Monero etc. You buy these coins with Bitcoin or etherum on exchanges like Bittrex or etherdelta. https://coinmarketcap.com/ shows all the prices and where you can buy them etc. Hope that helps

Install

https://electrum.org/#download

select "standard" > "I already have a seed" > enter your 12 words

See if they are accepted , if not repeat and next time click options and check "BIP39" seed and re-enter the words to see if they work

I think you can restore your wallet.dat with a couple different clients, but my guess is you were using Bitcoin Core. I would download that and place the wallet.dat in the correct folder to open it. First, it is probably a good idea to make a couple backups of that file just in case. With Bitcoin Core you have to download the whole blockchain to see your balance, but you can export private keys without have to wait for the blockchain to sync.

If you don't see a use for it then don't use it. If you must know it was originally an advancement in computer science. It became popular among criminals because bitcoin transactions are uncensorable. The problems you are facing are in the fiat <-> bitcoin conversion and that is because of overbearing government regulations.

BTW you can install a wallet on your computer or phone without providing personal info. See the list at bitcoin.org:

https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

I recommend electrum for desktop PCs.

Oh jeez, I was gonna start answering but the questions just keep piling up!

I have a Ledger HW1, the cheaper, earlier version of the Nano. It's really good, but you may not need it at this point since you're just starting out. If you do get it, I suggest combining it with Mycelium on Android (you'll need an OTG adapter as well).

Where to buy it, that depends on what country you're in and what payment options you have available to you. If you're in the US, Coinbase might be a good place to start, but move your coins to a wallet, don't keep them there.

As for your other questions, I think you just gotta start reading up and trying things out.

https://bitcoin.org/en/getting-started

Here's a small tip to play around with. 500 bits /u/changetip

I would use Gdax which is Coinbase's live exchange site. The fees are less.

You can use the same account you have for Coinbase and it's instant and free to transfer from Coinbase to Gdax.

Here is a blog post about it. https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@beevo/how-to-not-pay-coinbase-fees-usd-to-btc-eth-ltc

Check it in block explorer.

For example I use blockchair.com in which your txid shows:

https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/transaction/d66dbb835a4b61c39e6d26dadf223ab56c5c7dedd318f566127659949b7a3908

You should be able to find your address in outputs.

yes , but they charge an absurd fee and the withdrawal is complicated

its a 2 step process of sending it to their software wallet , than withdrawing

https://www.etoro.com/en-us/customer-service/help/1320587972/how-do-i-transfer-cryptocurrency-from-the-etoro-trading-platform-to-my-etoro-money-crypto-wallet/

usually its smarter to sell the bitcoin for fiat , withdraw the fiat and than use the fiat to buy bitcoin on a much better exchange from my experience

https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/eth?HashingPower=27.5&amp;HashingUnit=MH%2Fs&amp;PowerConsumption=150&amp;CostPerkWh=0.08&amp;MiningPoolFee=1

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Looking like a "no", unfortunately.

Bitcoin giftcard is one thing and buying bitcoin with giftcards is another.

A Bitcoin Giftcard would simply be a bitcoin wallet with some amount of bitcoin in it. The wallet can be created with any of the gazillion wallet softwares out there. You could make a giftcard out of it by sending the private keys to someone. The keys can be sent as QR code or a list of seed words.

Buying bitcoin with giftcard is something different. It's also possible, for example using bisq where you can buy bitcoin using amazon gift cards.

There are many different wallets. Some need to download the entire blockchain history and som just connect to others that have. Be careful when downloading wallets since there are scams. I would probably recommend Electrum as a PC wallet - but don't trust me.

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Your private and public key will be a lot longer than an 8 figure number.

https://twitter.com/ElectrumWallet/status/1129273388805918721

Warning: attackers are posting phishing links in our github issues, pointing to fake Electrum websites. Our website is https://electrum.org . Never download Electrum from another source. Always verify GPG signatures.

Electrum servers are being DDOS attacked right now so

Restart electrum and recheck

If you still have an issue switch to a different electrum server -

https://bitcoinelectrum.com/how-to-switch-to-a-different-electrum-server/

Also did you get electrum from an official source like google play or https://electrum.org/#download and are you running 3.3.4?

even though I'm an Ubuntu user myself, why choose Ubuntu for USB OS? Ubuntu is a bit too much for that, IMO. Why don't use something like <strong>tails</strong> or something else that is focused on USB type stuff?

> I cant understand why people keep on choosing to use complex and overpowered wallets

Google "download bitcoin", and https://bitcoin.org/en/download (bitcoin core) is the first result.

When you're new, you want to pick the most legitimate-looking download, so I think people will keep making this mistake for a long time.

Choose your wallet. Both multibit and electrum have been around for a while and are regarded as pretty good. Green Address is well regarded multi-sig web wallet that you may also want to look into.

Extracting keys without loading up the blockchain unfortunately looks a little harder. There is a tool called pywallet that may be able to it, but you need a little programming experience in order to run it.

You don't need coinbase to receive bitcoins. You can install a bitcoin wallet on your PC or mobile. See the options here:

https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

Choose wisely but remember that bitcoin is an open system so regardless of which wallet you use you can send to and receive bitcoins from every bitcoin user in the world.

First step is to get yourself a wallet for your Bitcoin, I would recommend Electrum.

Next if you are interested in any altcoins (Litecoin, Ethereum, Dash etc.) you can do your own research through forums like Bitcoin Talk and specific subreddits and Twitter pages related to your chosen coins.

If you need inspiration for what coins to invest in you should check out coinmarketcap.com

Next I would look into finding the Telegram, Discord and Slack channels for your favourite coins, you will need an invite to join the channels, you can search Google, Twitter and Reddit for those.

If you need any more info, I am putting together a detailed guide on crypto investing for beginners.

You can check out Chapter 1 here: https://steemit.com/crypto/@cj900/cryptocurrency-investment-tips-for-beginners-chapter-1-getting-started

Good luck!

Ok, I apologize, a bit confused about the wording of your post. So you are not referring to an altcoin but buying in New Zealand.

>bitcoin.com

stay away from that wallet and company . It is run by a fraud and convicted felon and the wallet is closed source , higher fees because it lacks segwit, buggy , overcharges for buying bitcoin, and larger attack surface.

Better wallets listed in the FAQ

For new zealand

you can buy from

https://www.independentreserve.com/

kraken.com

coinmama.com

https://www.etoro.com/

exchanges like kraken, etoro, and binance would be best for buying large amounts but due to their fees for withdrawal being 0.0005 BTC it doesn't make sense to buy small amounts

independentreserve.com has slightly smaller fees of 0.0003 btc to withdraw but that is still high compared to most of the world

This means that for small amounts coinmama looks best for you

Don't feel stupid, OP. I was asking the same questions a few weeks ago because I have an abundance of older but still usable and decent laptops. I wondered if they were anything worth harnessing.

This calculator helped me a lot: https://www.nicehash.com/profitability-calculator (edit: it looks like their USD conversion calculator is boned right now claiming I'd make 12 Billion dollars in a month!)

Nicehash is a cool piece of software that will intelligently set up what kind of coin you'd be most profitable mining, then mines it for you all under one piece of software.

Long story short, none of the hardware I had at my disposal would be worth mining with. If I didn't lose money, my profit was estimated at $0.02 per month or something around there.

Try playing with Nicehash though. It's fun to learn with.

Hi! Nicolas, co-creator of Delta here! I think our app might right up your alley. :) You can download it via https://getdelta.io and if there's anything that you find confusing or want extra, feel free to mail us via or talk to us via Slack or Telegram. Links are in the Settings part of the app. :)

BitcoinS1x and BitcoinS2x are futures of the Nov 18th split that where the original chain is heavily favored and B2X is trading around 17% of bitcoins price

https://cryptowat.ch/bitfinex/bt2btc

If the split goes through you will get the same ratio of B2X altcoins which you can decide to dump or keep

Consider anxpro.com? Hong-kong based, but reasonable. Other than that, look into localbitcoins, coinmap.org for ATMs.

EDIT: Kraken seems to have launced in Japan. Hopes this helps!

Bummer! I'm sure this is stressful.

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Sounds like you are getting some conflicting feedback from these systems. The important thing to understand is that there are multiple wallets at work, under the hood. (It sounds like you have, at least, two -- coinbase's hosted wallet and your own private bitcoin wallet with a seed phrase.)

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If you put your seed into electrum, and it shows as empty, then it almost certainly is. Though you could double-check by trying another wallet like Exodus. (https://www.exodus.io/)

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I wasn't aware that Coinbase had ATMs. Are you sure that it was a *coinbase* ATM?

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Is there any chance you have another seed laying around? Also, I think that if you reach out to LocalBitcoins support, they will help you recover your account.

I would try Bisq . They’re a decentralized version of Local Bitcoins but very young so the market liquidity is much less.

They have an arbitration service to combat fraud.

Also, I would stop using The blockchain Wallet and switch to something client side.

multiple peer to peer exchanges have existed for some time now . And with cross atomic swaps on the lightning network exchanging currencies within are ecosystem will be simple and extremely inexpensive . Here is an example of a p2p exchange - https://bisq.network/

KYC (Know your Customer) and AML (Anti Money Laundering) laws in many countries mean that when buying over a registered exchange, you need to share this information to setup a new account. Localbitcoins and Bisq don't require registration.

Accepting Bitcoin is easy. Payment processors like bitpay and coinbase allow you to accept Bitcoin and instantly turn your earnings into real dollars that are deposited into your account daily. You have the option to keep a % of your earnings as Bitcoin as well. I believe Bitpay charges no fees, whereas Coinbase charges a 1% fee after your first $1 million USD sold, although you'll have to double check that. By accepting Bitcoin online, you will save money on transaction fees due to the traditional methods of Paypal and credit cards having higher fees. Because of this, it would be a good idea to add some sort of incentive for people to purchase in Bitcoin ;). Of course, that's up to you.

I'd suggest just clicking on the links and learning more.

The risk isn't specifically about Coinbase, it is about any online (hot) wallet. Think of hot wallets like your physical wallet in your pocket/purse. If someone stole $500 out of it you may be upset, but it may not be the end of the world. But if $20,000 was stolen then that might be tough to cope with. The limit of what you have in a hot wallet depends on what you are comfortable with. Personally I have any "savings" in cold storage and then just keep a couple hundred in various hot wallets.

I do believe Coinbase's security to be top notch, but that doesn't mean something bad couldn't happen one day. It isn't worth relying on someone else to keep your funds security, especially when hackers are going to be targeting these companies. If your coins are secured in cold storage you can have greater confidence that no matter how many places are hacked, your coins are secure.

Good info on Coinbase's security methods:

https://coinbase.com/security
http://antonopoulos.com/2014/02/25/coinbase-review/

>Does block chain do the same?

No. And please call it blockchain.info to distinguish it from the bitcoin blockchain.

>And is it secure?

It is currently secure but it has had security problems in the recent and distant past. I don't recommend using it.

You have many good options as far as bitcoin wallets are concerned. /u/dskloet mentioned some good ones above. I'd like to add electrum to that list for desktop use.

You don't need a hardware wallet. Just setup a multisig wallet that requires the use of 2 devices to spend bitcoins. Say your desktop PC and your mobile phone. You can view transactions and balances and get addresses to hand out to payers using either device independently. But to spend the coins you need both devices. So this is pretty secure and allows you to secure and spend your coins without too much inconvenience.

You can do multisig wallets with copay and electrum.

I wouldn't consider any of those to be "wallets". Sure, you can store coins there but you don't actually hold the private keys but rather you have an account with an exchange that holds them for you. Look up Mt Gox if you want to understand why that can be a problem, as well as many others over the years. If you plan to trade there's no real way around that though at the moment. If you want to actually hold your own coins in a wallet personally I like Electrum. When you create your wallet you'll be given a string of 12 random words which you can use to recreate your wallet on any computer. It's a great protection against the possibility of your hard drive dying, your computer getting stolen, etc. As long as you don't have any Bitcoin stealing malware on your computer and you keep that list of 12 words safe somewhere you're fine. Another benefit is that it's a light client, meaning you don't have to store the entire blockchain locally on your computer, rather it communicates with servers to verify wallet balances. I use a tiny netbook for most of my Bitcoining so for me that's a plus. There are a lot of other great options but that's what I use.

As indicated by other posters, first check and make sure that you don't have a modified/infected binary. Download another copy from https://electrum.org/download.html and use an md5 checksum utility (ie: http://www.winmd5.com/) to verify the install file.

More than likely, though, your download is correct, electrum is fine, and Bitdefender has a false positive. It happens.

> Is it possible to purchase partial bitcoin?

Yes. You can buy eg. 0.001 BTC.

> mobile, desktop or web wallet

Electrum for desktop. After that, you could try also mobile wallet (Mycelium is often recommended) for your wallet for "day-spending outside".

> Both my phone and PC are older, can I transfer my bitcoin to a new computer?

There should be no problem with older HW. You can create more wallets - then you just send (all) your bitcoins to new wallet. Or - Electrum also gives you seed (12 words) - this seed is all you need for re-creating your wallet (on the same computer again or on different computer).

> Also, is the web based wallets as secure?

Online (i.e. web) wallets are generally a bit less secure than desktop wallets. For storing larger amounts of bitcoins - look into cold storage (i.e. desktop wallets (eg. Electrum)) run on computer disconnected from networks.

Edit: tip in next comment

> Am I right in thinking that the bit coins will appear in my Armory wallet once BitcoinQT is fully synced

Yes, you're right. You could toss your computer out the window & you could still receive bitcoin to your bitcoin address.

Now, to actually spend/transfer them then you need a functional wallet or at least the private key to that bitcoin address (which is why you're waiting for Armory to sync up).

Just FYI, if you want a more lightweight wallet take a look at https://electrum.org/ or https://multibit.org/

I would never suggest to invest in anything near the all time high. Of course there are exceptions like the MSCI WORLD before the corona crisis etc. But always keep in mind Bitcoin went from $18k to $3k in 2018. The lowest Bitcoin price last year was around $3k aswell.

I always invest when there is fear and not greed in the market. (Check out: https://alternative.me/crypto/fear-and-greed-index/)

I don't know the details, but the PoW function for CN is designed to be ASIC- and GPU-resistant by making it extremely memory-intensive. That means that your memory latency and bandwidth are likely the critical bottleneck, and the CPU is spending most of its time waiting for memory channels.

Those are both fairly recent CPUs, so I expect both use DDR3 with different clock rates, like 1333 vs. 1600 (PC3-10600 vs. 12800). But there are more variables than that, perhaps the 4790k machine does not have the fastest RAM that it can use or has the slots installed wrong so that it can't use dual-channel, or perhaps it has PC3-12800 with 11-11-11 timings (13.75 ns latency) while the 2600k machine has PC3-10600 with 7-7-7 timings (10.5 ns).

You can probably see and adjust ("overclock") the RAM settings in your BIOS setup, or you can use a tool like CPU-Z to see it from Windows. That will also let you compare L1/2/3 cache sizes, configurations, CPU and bus clock rates and multipliers, etc..

As for the cost of electricity, you really need to measure it at the wall with a kill-a-watt or similar to eliminate variables like PSU efficiency if you want to be sure how much it's going to cost you.

Yeah someone could image the disk in the laptop then perform forensic analysis on it, this could reveal SSH keys, bitcoin wallets etc. There are a bunch of tools to do this.

Most wallets force the user to encrypt their wallet making it much more difficult to get at the coins.

Defence against this is pretty simple, boot into dban and run it for a few cycles over the disk you want to deadificate there are arguments as to how many is enough but anything more than 10 and you'll be fine.

Some pawnshops won't accept a laptop that doesn't boot into an OS so you may want to break out your win7 install media and throw that over the top of a freshly DBANd disk.

You would have to download gpg, since you're on windows, and learn how to use that to verify the signature.

Animazing's an Electrum Dev, but to trust the key fingerprint given there, you would have to have a trusted source who will attest to the correctness of the key.

Apart from electrum.org, you can refer to this reddit thread in which animazing declares his public key and it's vetted by others, I also can attest to it, his fingerprint is

9914 864D FC33 499C 6CA2 BEEA 2245 3004 6955 06FD

Picking a password TL;DR

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/936:_Password_Strength

>I’ve heard of using a password manager

Keepass is great

https://keepass.info/

>Are they safe for storing passwords to log into exchanges and emails?

Passwords alone are insufficient. Always use 2FA with google authenticator as well. 2FA with txt messaging is also unwise.

If you're in the US buy from coinbase. I would recommend downloading the bitcoin "core" client, which helps the network when properly configured. You can learn about many trusted wallets here: https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

In most cases unless their is a problem with your ID you can verify , buy and withdraw the bitcoin with cash app in less than 30 minutes (often 15 min) the first time and thereafter once verified the you can buy and immediately withdraw

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/square-cash/id711923939?mt=8

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.squareup.cash&amp;referrer=utm_source%3Dcash-web-bitcoin%26utm_medium%3Dweb

Buying and selling bitcoin is listed under the investing tab to the right of dollar sign on bottom(squiggly line) than selecting Bitcoin

In order to withdraw you need to scan your state drivers license.

If you are in the USA than cash app

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/square-cash/id711923939?mt=8

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.squareup.cash&amp;referrer=utm_source%3Dcash-web-bitcoin%26utm_medium%3Dweb

Verification either is instant or can take a couple days once you verify your phone, email and ID. Buying and selling bitcoin is listed under the investing tab to the right of dollar sign on bottom(squiggly line) than selecting Bitcoin

For a mobile watch-only wallet, Sentinel is good: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.samourai.sentinel&amp;hl=en_AU

r/Jobs4Bitcoins/

>How do you determine price in BTC or other coins?

Most wallets show you both the fiat amount and BTC amount, or you can look at trading pairs on an exchange or install a widget on your cell phone like this -

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.esstudio.coinwidget&amp;hl=en_US

>For example I sell an ebook for 10.00USD. How do I determine what to charge in bitcoin or other crypto for the same ebook?

You are going to want to use a solution like btcpay or a hosted shopping cart solution which auto adjusts the btc amount required based upon the fiat desired.

Read this - https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinBeginners/comments/da4xye/super_newbie/f1naw67/

ChangeNOW has a nice sticker about that, but, unfortunately, there are no stickers on Reddit.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.changenowstickerapp

You can also spend bitcoin using the Bitplaza app The app allows anyone to purchase electronics, gadgets, groceries, ect paying with bitcoin.

> If I use a VPN, does that make incoming connections more difficult?

Possibly
Without a VPN, incoming connections have to be routed through your home router to your node by configuring port forwarding on your router
With a VPN, the port forwarding configuration has to be done at the VPN gateway

• Some VPN providers refuse to support port forwarding (eg IPVanish)
  
• Some don't mention port forwarding in any of their Web pages or documentation (eg IPredator)
  
• The most popular VPN provider, Private Internet Access, only supports port forwarding on some of their gateways, and they publish a list of the gateways and the port forwarding works fine - but then a Bitcoin node can only listen on port 8333, and that port might be used by someone else on the gateway you want to use
  
• AirVPN supports port forwarding on all their gateways, but again, you have to check whether 8333 is available for you, or whether they supply an arbitrary list of 20 ports you're allowed to forward
  

Sorry the answer is not more simple

Easiest way to buy Bitcoin is with Cash APP in the US(clarify if you live outside USA)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.squareup.cash&amp;hl=en

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6308-cash-app-and-bitcoin-faq

Let us know if you have any other questions

If you're looking for a mobile wallet, for Android, personally I would recommend Samourai which has supported SegWit pretty much since it came out.

Ensure that you use SegWit as it will be cheaper to send in future.

For a desktop I'd recommend Electrum all the way (again, make sure you're using SegWit if possible).

We recently launched Cryptorai (www.cryptorai.com). Most of the other apps take the global average for calculations, not only for the prices but also for your portfolio value, so the result is ~5% variance. e.g. if you have a Bitcoin at GDAX and 15 k and one in Kraken at 14k, they will either give total value as 30k or 28k depending on which exchange you selected last. They don't factor in the location of your coins, just the number of units.

At Cryptorai, we understand the importance of correct calculations. Our app does the calculations by the location of your coins and uses the prices on that exchange instead of one price for all. Similarly, for prices also we convert in USD or other fiat based on data from the particular exchange. You will find our numbers much closer to exchange numbers and actual values and you can also see your realized and unrealized gains for each coin.

And the best part is that we do all this without ever touching your data. It always stays in your device.

We are only a month old and adding new features every week. We have just launched exchange CSV import and API sync to make it convenient to add transactions. Give it a try and let us know what you think. Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cryptorai.cryptorai&amp;hl=en) and iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cryptorai/id1276618322?mt=8)

Keep AirBitz. It's a great wallet. Your wallet is not your exchange. You will need to get bitcoin from somewhere or someone to put some bitcoin in your wallet. If you don't like the AirBitz wallet for some reason, try Mycelium for Android.

Option 1: Go to bitquick.co. Find a bank that's close to you. Be sure to copy and paste the wallet address (also known as the public key) from your wallet into the appropriate blank at BitQuick. Deposit cash into that bank with the information that you received from BitQuick. Take a picture of your teller receipt and send it to bitquick. You should have btc in your wallet very soon.

Option 2: Circle.com. Go to circle.com or download the android app here. Follow the relatively simple instructions, and you should have some bitcoin in short order.