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If you don't want to trust exchanges with your bitcoin and use electrum -
"How to redeem my BCC?
BCC wallets will require you to import your seed or your private keys, which can be exported from Electrum. Doing so will expose all your Bitcoin funds associated with that seed to the BCC wallet you decide to use.
Therefore, after the BCC fork, but before you enter a seed or private key in a BCC wallet, you should move all your funds to a new Electrum wallet, with a new seed. You will still be able to use the old seed or private key with BCC, because BCC has replay protection. Wait until your funds are confirmed in your new Bitcoin wallet, before you enter the old private key in a BCC wallet. This will protect your BTC funds from rogue/untrusted software."
Source : https://electrum.org/bcc.txt
It's okay.
If you have an Android phone, install Mycelium.
If you have an iOS phone, install Breadwallet.
For computers (both Macs and PCs) I'd recommend installing https://electrum.org/
Before you store Bitcoins, do two things:
Make sure your computer is virus free and has a reputable antivirus running in the background. Malwarebytes is a great option.
Make sure you have a backup of the wallet (usually called a "seed" which is just a list of 12-24 random words). Write this on physical paper and hide it in a couple different locations. That way if your house burns down you'll have a backup copy somewhere else.
For storing small amounts of BTC, you obviously don't need to go through all this trouble. For larger amounts (thousands of dollars worth), you'll need to learn how to make secure offline wallets.
Many ways but one way I'd use is to install Electrum (from official site only, https://electrum.org) and then create a wallet from the private key displayed on the paper (or scan QR code). Ideally you'd do this on a computer not connected to the internet but that depends on how secure you feel about your system - have you visited suspicious sites, is it possible you may have malware? Malware can steal btc so don't put the private key into any system that you're not confident about.
Once you have made a wallet from the private key you can send the btc to a safe place or to an exchange. If you just want to hold on to it I'd suggest not doing the above until your have a hardware wallet on hand and can send to a new wallet created on that device. IMO I'd say hold onto that paper until you know what you're doing. There's a good chance it will be worth much more by the time you do. Read, read, read. It'll be worth it.
Most important - the private key and related QR code must be kept private, safe away from prying eyes and destruction.
Clone the contents of your hard drive onto a modern one and load the files onto your PC. You might have a pool login file, but more likely than not you will encounter a 'wallet.dat' file. Load this file into Electrum (https://electrum.org/#home) and you should see your bitcoins pop up. If you need more assistance feel free to reply to this comment and I'll tell you what you can do next.
Oh, and don't reply to any PMs about your coins, no matter how benign they might seem. Scammers are getting really clever these days.
Bitcoin does sound pretty perfect for this kind of transaction.
The scammer will need to sign up and get verified with one or more big bitcoin exchanges. Depending on where he lives
I recommend:
-www.bitstamp.net
-www.circle.com
-www.coinbase.com
Once he is fully verified he should be able to get 5k worth of Bitcoins no problem.
Bitcoin Core is a bit slow, it's probably going to take ages to sync, you might want to look into - https://electrum.org/#home - https://multibit.org/
These lightweight clients will let you receive and securely store your Bitcoins almost instantly.... They don't require the entire blockchain to be downloaded for them to work...
Make sure you use a good password and make a backup of your wallet. (if you are using Bitcoin Core the wallet.dat file can be found here on windows: press start and type %appdata% and hit enter. the wallet.dat file should be in the bitcoin folder. Go ahead and copy paste that file)
Now send the scammer one of your Bitcoin receiving addresses and wait for the funds to arrive. If they don't, well thats up to you ;)
Once he sends the Bitcoins there is no going back..If you want to sell your Bitcoins for Fiat currency then you can use one of the following exchanges I mentioned earlier. I recommend keeping a few if you can afford to loose the money as an investment.
Hope this helps
There are multiple ways, but I'd do this:
- Install a light wallet like Electrum https://electrum.org/#home
- Search for a bitcoin exchange to buy bitcoin
Also try to learn how bitcoin works by reading on sites like www.bitcoin.org
Move your btc from blockchain to a local wallet such as Electrum
Install Electron Cash on a machine that does not have your Electrum wallets
Wait until the BCC hard fork has taken place, and a few BCC blocks have been mined.
Move all your Electrum funds to a new Electrum wallet. This will move only your BTC, and not your BCC, because the BCC blockchain has replay protection. Wait until the transaction is confirmed.
Enter the seed of your (now empty) old wallet or private keys in Electron Cash. Since the BTC have been moved to a new wallet, entering your old seed in Electron Cash will not put your BTC funds at risk.
See also How to redeem my BCC?
There's a good statement here about that: https://electrum.org/bcc.txt
tl;dr: It says that after the fork, for maximum safety (unless you feel comfortable trusting both Electrum and Electrum Cash simultaneously with the same key) you should use Electrum move BTC to a new Electrum wallet with a new seed. The BTC will move, but the BCC will remain accessible in Electrum Cash under the original seed. You can then load the original seed into Electrum Cash.
Download from official site here: https://electrum.org/#download
Release 2.8.0 (March 9, 2017)
- Wallet file encryption using ECIES: A keypair is derived from the wallet password. Once the wallet is decrypted, only the public key is retained in memory, in order to save the encrypted file.
- The daemon requires wallets to be explicitly loaded before commands can use them. Wallets can be loaded using: 'electrum daemon load_wallet [-w path]'. This command will require a password if the wallet is encrypted.
- Invoices and contacts are stored in the wallet file and are no longer shared between wallets. Previously created invoices and contacts files may be imported from the menu.
- Fees improvements:
- Dynamic fees are enabled by default.
- Child Pays For Parent (CPFP) dialog in the GUI.
- RBF is automatically proposed for low fee transactions.
- Support for Segregated Witness (testnet only).
- Support for Digital Bitbox hardware wallet.
- The GUI shows a blue icon when connected using a proxy.
You do need to upgrade, but you have several options on how to do this.
You are using now a bitcoin wallet that is a 'full node' - it validates all transactions issued on the Bitcoin network. It's the most secure way, but also most expensive - blockchain data takes about 100GB of disk space right now, and is growing at about 140MB per day.
To continue using full node wallet, you need to update the software, and then to 'synchronize' with the blockchain. That means to download and validate all the blockchain data from the time you last used your old wallet, up to the present. It can take a while (days to weeks), depending on your Internet connection speed, and the speed of your CPU.
If you want to go this route, I recommend to download a Bitcoin Unlimited wallet and install it. https://www.bitcoinunlimited.info/download
Second option is to use a 'lite' wallet. It does no save all the blockchain data, only headers (33MB now), and uses other's full nodes to check for transactions. A popular desktop lite wallet is Electrum. https://electrum.org/#download
After installing this wallet, you will need to send your coins from your 'Bitcoin wallet beta 0.8.1' to your Electrum wallet.
Electrum is one of the more popular lightweight wallets. It needs an Electrum server (which is a fullnode with some extra features) as a backend. ElectrumX is a popular implementation of that.
Don't bite my head off, but I see merchant adoption as fundamentally more likely than consumer adoption:
- Merchants have a good incentive to support bitcoin, as it's a way to attract market share - a differentiation from their competitors
- Consumers have less of a good incentive - compare the ease of use (including buying bitcoins then spending them at a merchant) to using cash (you have it anyway)
- People using bitcoin as consumers (not investors), in my experience, are doing so to: a) Support bitcoin - for various reasons, e.g. principles b) Play with cool technology
Of course, there's other benefits for consumers, but these are edge cases: a) get around laws b) get around banks c) get around fees
It seems to me that the easier bitcoin is to use (including acquire) the better - otherwise why would a regular person - someone who isn't motivated by principles, technology novelty, shitty banks - bother?
Compare users of Linux vs Mac OS/Windows: Linux is undebatably harder to use, overall. People use it out of principles, for geek fun, and for freedom from controlling vendors (Apple, Microsoft)
Ubuntu gained market traction by streamlining things as much as possible for the user. Ease of use = increased adoption.
Why did torrenting and downloads take off vs buying DVDs? Importantly it was 100% cheaper. But also it was easy and fast and convenient, it took 5 minutes for someone to set it up for you and show you how torrents work.
Thoughts?
Edit: This is why I feel Electrum and bitcoin ATMs are so important. Purchasing from merchants needs work to be faster and simpler. Your competition is PayPass. Aim for that.
Very nice, I love to see the network effect going strong.
I wouldn't advise new casual users to chose a heavy-weight client like bitcoin-qt. A light-weight client like Electrum feels more appropriate and forces new users to backup the wallet seed. Other current advantages with Electrum are:
- Deterministic wallets, no need to make new backups
- Coin control, free BTC on a specific address or chose from which addresses you send BTC
- Easy way to do cold storage with Electrum for users who want to put more funds in bitcoin.
The title is confusing. Have you found a bitcoin private key or a password to your account at btc-e? Or both?
Password to btc-e com : useless, forget about it.
Private key: you may have bitcoins. Download electrum from electrum.org , create a new wallet (choose the option "import bitcoin address or private keys and enter your private key) and see whether you've got something ..
can you R-E-A-D the document you linked to? if thats not ELI5 4 you maybe you shouldnt be messing with... stuff?
from https://electrum.org/bcc.txt :
How to redeem my BCC?
BCC wallets will require you to import your seed or your private keys, which can be exported from Electrum. Doing so will expose all your Bitcoin funds associated with that seed to the BCC wallet you decide to use.
Therefore, after the BCC fork, but before you enter a seed or private key in a BCC wallet, you should move all your funds to a new Electrum wallet, with a new seed. You will still be able to use the old seed or private key with BCC, because BCC has replay protection. Wait until your funds are confirmed in your new Bitcoin wallet, before you enter the old private key in a BCC wallet. This will protect your BTC funds from rogue/untrusted software.
here's some wallet tips:
We can use methods your used to.
- Spendable wallet (Checking Acct)
- Cold Storage (Savings Acct)
It would be totally fine to use coinbase or some web wallet for your daily use. Yet when your amounts begin to exceed safe hot-wallet values (whatever threshold your comfortable losing), you can simply send to your cold storage.
How to make cold storage
I'd recommend using Electrum. It's impossible to "lose" wallets generated from a seed (like you see on multibit) and you can write down the code easily on a piece of paper.
While your computer is likely not infected by a keylogger/virus; I'd recommend making a live-cd just to be sure you can start with a fresh slate.
If you installed Ubuntu, you can simply use the software center and install Electrum from there directly. Open up the program and generate a wallet; it will give you 12 random words (write these down on paper!). Then copy down the public address (picture of qr code would work).
Now delete everything and shut 'er all down
You should now have a really safe cold storage wallet. Scan the QR code to "save", and be sure to keep that piece of paper with the 12 words SUPER SAFE. Never put these words online, or in a text file
Before you start sending bitcoin to this wallet; try using the live-cd to download electrum again and load the seed you typed. Practice this a few times to be sure you did everything correctly. Don't send your self massive funds before testing this.
Other then that though, that's it! You are now a bank with incredible cold storage security!
security buffs please look over my post
Here are a few options:
- Multibit: lightweight secure wallet (best for light users of BTC).
- Electrum: creates a wallet which is recoverable with a string of random numbers. This is best if you want to create cold storage easily (because you simply write down a string of numbers).
These are light clients which do not require downloading the entire block chain. This is much better for light users of bitcoin who don't wish to download a large file.
But these options are only good if you plan to hold bitcoin.
If you plan on immediately selling these bitcoins for USD in order to contribute towards Wikipedia financing, I'd suggest simply securing your coinbase account with 2FA.
Thanks for researching bitcoin as a payment option!
Electrum is still the best wallet for most (including new) users - the current DDoS attack against servers does not change that. What you need to know now is:
- Have you downloaded the newest Electrum (3.3.4) only from <em>electrum.org</em>? You cannot use versions less than 3.3 now on the public network. This newest version will not show the phishing screen that has tricked users of old wallets into downloading BTC-stealing malware look-alike wallets.
- Have you securely stored your seed words off your computer in a safe place? Anyone with these words can recreate your wallet (and spend your BTC)
You may have some trouble (or may not) syncing to a server - new ones are being added daily and the devs are working tirelessly behind the scenes to make both the wallet and network secure and available. The blacklist just helps keep you from connecting to a malicious server (and keeping them off the network) - it is invisible to you as a user. As long as you can get a green (or blue) light in the lower right corner you are good to go.
Be aware that there is a lot of BTC transactions right now and fees are higher because of it. Setting the fee slider in the middle notch should help ensure your transaction clears in about an hour.
Don't let the current DDoS attack sour you on BTC.
If you don't have the private keys they are not yours. Technically and actually. As Mt. Gox showed.
Bitcoin is being your own bank. It's something everyone needs to get their heads around (and a bit of a double-edged sword). Exchanges are for exchanging currencies and transferring to your own bank. Your money should only be on an exchange temporarily, a few minutes.
Download Electrum, create a wallet, and move your btc to one of the address in it. Now you own your bitcoin.
How to create a wallet completely offline: cold storage.
I go one step further, always check signatures after downloading the software, and create on an offline computer completely in RAM to create wallets, but that's perhaps getting a little tin-foil hat paranoid. Fun exercise though. Actually I'd suggest using BitKey if you use Windows and have lots of viruses ; )
Ninja edit: I think BreadWallet might be a good, simple option as the private keys are only on your phone. Just make sure you back up your phone.
Good comment. I think the biggest risk is simply that the wallet will have access to your private keys, so we have to trust the devs. But as user homopit pointed out;
> you should rename Electrum data directory before starting Electron. That way, Electron will create new wallet. After that, rename Electrum data dir back. After the fork, follow the procedure at https://electrum.org/bcc.txt to import BCC from Electrum wallet. This way, Electron will never have eccess to your Electrum keys.
And here is that procedure: > How to redeem BCC: BCC wallets will require you to import your seed or your private keys, which can be exported from Electrum. Doing so will expose all your Bitcoin funds associated with that seed to the BCC wallet you decide to use. Therefore, after the BCC fork, but before you enter a seed or private key in a BCC wallet, you should move all your funds to a new Electrum wallet, with a new seed. You will still be able to use the old seed or private key with BCC, because BCC has replay protection. Wait until your funds are confirmed in your new Bitcoin wallet, before you enter the old private key in a BCC wallet. This will protect your BTC funds from rogue/untrusted software.
Not a tech expert, don't know if there's anything that was missed. Please someone add/correct if that's wrong.
>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 .
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!
My personal favourite is offline cold storage using Electrum. Download Electrum here: https://electrum.org/. Read about setting up cold storage using Electrum here: https://electrum.orain.org/wiki/Cold_storage.
Buy a cheap net top or tablet or similar -- something you can install Electrum on. NEVER connect that computer to the internet. Be sure to disable wifi, if it has wifi. Use a USB stick to copy the Electrum install files to it.
Password protect your Electrum wallet to protect against theft.
Electrum wallets have a master seed which can be used to restore the wallet. Keep a copy of this master seed somewhere (very) safe. That way, if your offline computer is stolen or destroyed, or you forget your wallet password, you can still retrieve your wallet and bitcoins.
Buying a Trezor is an alternative. Or some sort of multi-sig set up.
There are varying opinions but I think Electrum is pretty great. When you set it up you'll get a string of 12 random words which can be used to back up your wallet. It'll set you up with some receiving addresses and all you need to do is send your coins to one of them. I consider this to be a hot wallet, meaning you only hold coins there that you plan to spend, and in a worse case scenario could afford to lose. It's generally not safe to keep too many coins on a computer due to malware and such. For larger amounts of coins I'd recommend looking into paper wallets or perhaps a trezor.
Edit: added link
> how to make a secured wallet.
Welcome! It's nice to see someone with a 2-year pin asking these questions.
There are a couple of options to making a secured wallet, but I wouldn't go nuts about security until you actually have the coins to warrant paranoia. If you're dealing with less than 2 or 3 days wages, I would just focus on getting comfortable using bitcoin. When you get a bigger investment you can easily escalate your security procedures. (This may not be the same advice everyone would give, but I believe you need to get your foot in the door before you allow yourself to be consumed with security risks.)
If you're just interested in getting started, I would suggest that you choose ONE of the following:
- electrum wallet (desktop) (likely most secure)
- blockchain.info wallet (cloud) (likely second most secure)
- Schildbach wallet on Android (likely least secure of these options, but still recommended)
These wallets each work well on their respective platform, and they focus on ease of use with adequate security.
When you get serious and acquire wealth you'll want to investigate offline storage, but right now you want to just get your feet wet.
Whatever you do, don't leave your coin on the exchange where you bought them. I like to buy on coinbase.com every now and again, but I quickly move my coins to a wallet I control.
Last tip - blockchain.info looks like "internet storage for your bitcoin", but it is substantially more complex. We have a fair consensus that you can securely use blockchain.info, but be sure to back up your wallet.
Your 24 words are a BIP-39 seed. So any wallet supporting BIP-39 will let you access your funds. Though even if Ledger goes bankrupt, your hardware wallet will be perfectly fine.
Edit: Electrum can be used with your Ledger hardware directly.
Hello newcomers!
Hindsight is 20/20 Sure - you *could have bought bitcoin at $10 a coin, but the farther back you go the odds of you forgetting/losing that bitcoin also increase. There were a LOT of ways to lose those funds. Consider what happened to the stoneman as an example. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=782.0
Don't worry about "missing out".
Spend time learning about software/desktop wallets. You'll want to move your coins out of a exchange ASAP when you start to understand things better. Most of the hardware wallets are sold out, but you might want to put in an order for one eventually.
https://electrum.org/#home - is a popular one.
=]
At least the istallation on Android is still as rock-secure as it ever was.
(And yes, that installs a runtime where scripts can run unchecked from the SD card, totally unchecked, having ability to read or delete anything, just because of a shitty Bitcoin app. Safety first!)
You could use a "bitcoin tumbler" like Helix:
http://grams7enufi7jmdl.onion/helix
>put them into a secure, deep web wallet that I can use for...
Don't use online onion wallets. Many are just scams. For the ones that aren't outright scams, you never know when they might breakdown and not be available or if they will be seized by the FBI at some point.
It would be much better to install the Tails operating system to a USB, boot from the USB and use the built in Electrum bitcoin client to secure your coins. (Make sure you write down your Electrum seed words or save them in some other way. They can be used to recreate your bitcoin wallet in case your USB fails or is lost.)
Electrum can be run as a standalone client on Windows, but it should not be used on Windows unless it is run through the Tor process used by the Tor Browser Bundle. If you don't run your Electrum connections through Tor, all of your bitcoin addresses will be linked to your home IP address.
Sarcasm alert!
Newbies: please read the above carefully.
You absolutely don't need to verify your identity to download and run a bitcoin wallet.
Here's just one example client: https://electrum.org
Teach him about private keys and having a wallet (electrum.org is a good choice for low amounts). After that, you can transfer it to his address, and maybe ask him if he wants you to keep a copy of his private key for safety.
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/
for everybody who uses Electrum: https://electrum.org/bcc.txt
Relevant part: > How to redeem my BCC? > ---------------------
>BCC wallets will require you to import your seed or your private keys, >which can be exported from Electrum. Doing so will expose all your >Bitcoin funds associated with that seed to the BCC wallet you decide >to use.
>Therefore, after the BCC fork, but before you enter a seed or >private key in a BCC wallet, you should move all your funds to a new >Electrum wallet, with a new seed. You will still be able to use the >old seed or private key with BCC, because BCC has replay >protection. Wait until your funds are confirmed in your new Bitcoin >wallet, before you enter the old private key in a BCC wallet. This >will protect your BTC funds from rogue/untrusted software.
tldr: Electrum probably wont support BCC, but that's ok. After august, you can just export your private keys in Electrum, and import them in a BCC-wallet. Then you'll have your BCC in the new wallet, and your BTC will remain in Electrum
Yep. Should work that way overall.
Although I would factory reset the device as step one. Never bring it online at all. And move a pgp-signatures verified Electrum version from https://electrum.org to the mobile via OTG-USB or microSd. The rest of your steps look okay to me.
Get electrum https://electrum.org/ and when you open it it'll start creating a wallet. I think the first screen has 4 radio buttons the bottom option is like 'import existing keys'. Choose that and it'll offer a text box where you can type (or perhaps camera the QR). The wallet will sync very quickly and show your balance. Then you just have to hit 'Send' to your coinbase address.
Always verify your downloads with the authors GPG Signature. Don't use this info, go get it off a public key server like MIT's. Just putting this here for informational purposes.
User-ID: Thomas Voegtlin (https://electrum.org) <> a.k.a.: ThomasV <> a.k.a.: Thomas Voegtlin <> Validity: from 2011-06-15 11:29 AM until forever Certificate type: 4096-bit RSA Certificate usage: Signing EMails and Files, Encrypting EMails and Files, Certifying other Certificates Key-ID: 7F9470E6 Fingerprint: 6694D8DE7BE8EE5631BED9502BD5824B7F9470E6
> 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:
...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.
Electrum's official recommendation on how to redeem Bitcoin Cash: https://electrum.org/bcc2.txt
> We recommend to proceed as follows:
Install Electron Cash on a machine that does not have your Electrum wallets.
Wait until the BCC hard fork has taken place, and a few BCC blocks have been mined.
Move all your Electrum funds to a new Electrum wallet. This will move only your BTC, and not your BCC, because the BCC blockchain has replay protection. Wait until the transaction is confirmed.
Enter the seed of your (now empty) old wallet or private keys in Electron Cash. Since the BTC have been moved to a new wallet, entering your old seed in Electron Cash will not put your BTC funds at risk.
Yes, you should. Exodus had a simple "claim bch" button, but you'll have to be a bit manual if you want to claim your bch from electrum.
Per electrums own advice:
>1. Install Electron Cash on a machine that does not have your Electrum wallets.
> ~~2. Wait until the BCC hard fork has taken place, and a few BCC blocks have been mined.~~
>3. Move all your Electrum funds to a new Electrum wallet. This will move only your BTC, and not your BCC, because the BCC blockchain has replay protection. Wait until the transaction is confirmed.
> 4. Enter the seed of your (now empty) old wallet or private keys in Electron Cash. Since the BTC have been moved to a new wallet, entering your old seed in Electron Cash will not put your BTC funds at risk.
If you are using Electrum, and don't want this new wallet to access your wallet, you should rename Electrum data directory before starting Electron. That way, Electron will create new wallet. After that, rename Electrum data dir back. After the fork, follow the procedure at https://electrum.org/bcc.txt to import BCC from Electrum wallet.
This way, Electron will never have access to your Electrum keys.
Edit - quoted the procedure here:
>How to redeem my BCC?
>BCC wallets will require you to import your seed or your private keys, which can be exported from Electrum. Doing so will expose all your Bitcoin funds associated with that seed to the BCC wallet you decide to use.
>Therefore, after the BCC fork, but before you enter a seed or private key in a BCC wallet, you should move all your funds to a new Electrum wallet, with a new seed. You will still be able to use the old seed or private key with BCC, because BCC has replay protection. Wait until your funds are confirmed in your new Bitcoin wallet, before you enter the old private key in a BCC wallet. This will protect your BTC funds from rogue/untrusted software.
The best way to get started is to get yourself a wallet and actually use it. I'd recommend one of the following wallets:
- Airbitz (iphone or Android)
- Breadwallet (iPhone or Android)
- Electrum (Desktop)
Once you get one of these setup, PM me your receiving address to the wallet you setup and I'll send you a small amount to mess around with and try it out.
For the umpteenth time:
Unless you're a vendor, or a very large and frequent buyer (like more than $1000/wk on an ongoing basis), tumbling coins is a waste of time and money. It is so much easier to investigate people using clues from the U.S. Mail system -- package profiling, controlled deliveries, etc -- rather than speculative blockchain analysis.
Wherever you get your coins from, just send them to a random private wallet that you own first, and then from there, send them to the DNM. Get a private bitcoin client like Electrum. Done.
They are not lost. Just copy and paste the address you sent your bitcoins to into blockchain.info search field and you'll see your balance there. The bitcoin-qt client just doesn't know about it yet, because it's out of sync.
If I were you, I'd export the wallet.dat to a text-file and import the keys into a brand new Electrum installation. Electrum has the advantage, that you don't have to synchronize the wallet and that you have an eternal backup by writing down the 12 word seed. Then just send your bitcoins to an address generated by Electrum (not an imported one).
Alternatively, you can also import the wallet.dat-file into the blockchain.info wallet and then send the bitcoins to an Electrum address, if the exporting-importing is too complicated.
You can export the wallet.dat into a text-file by doing the following:
- In bitcoin-qt, open the console: In the menu-bar, choose "Help" and then "debug window"
- In that windows choose "console" and type
walletpassphrase 'your_passphrase' 600This unlocks the wallet for 600 seconds - Then type the command
dumpwallet PATH_WHERE_YOU_WANT_IT/wallet.txt
Depending on the system you are on, the path where the text-file containing your addresses and private keys should be put varies. On a Linux system, you'd use /home/your_user_name/wallet.txt, on Windows maybe something like C:\
This is for anyone and can help you keep your Bitcoins safe. Download https://electrum.org/
Than go to https://electrum.org/tutorials.html and read "How to make offline transactions using your Master Public Key"
This will keep your private keys offline. Please keep all passwords long (> 20), symbols, numbers, mixed case. And most importantly something that will never show up in a google search. Or you may use http://world.std.com/~reinhold/diceware.html
Hope this helps someone.
So far the attackers concentrate on BTC as this probably give the bigger rewards but there are also some minor attacks to BCH (e.g. most onion BCH servers are probably malicious). To protect yourself, always download from official sites (electrum.org and electroncash.org) and ignore update links displayed in your client.
They can only attack old versions of electrum or electroncash but there are enough around. They also bought some of the domains listed in old clients as servers (I heard of 25 k$ figures) and are DDoSing the other domains listed there with > 3 Gbps sustained traffic, all to force old clients to connect to their malicious servers.
If you are a victim of this, you should definitely report it to authorities. Normally it is hard to trace bitcoins, but the criminals are leaving more and more trails by buying domain names and renting servers.
Electron Cash (for Bitcoin Cash, BCH) and Electrum (for Bitcoin, BTC) have command-line interfaces. u/narcisistapato
Was your Bitcoin stored on a "legacy" or "normal" account?
If "a couple of months ago" was after Aug 29 then your coins are likely on a SegWit address (bitcoin address starting with 3) which many other wallets like Copay and Multibit don't know how to handle yet.
You could download (the very recently released) Electrum 3.0 and restore your seed with these instructions
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
How are you not ashamed of calling it "Electrum Cash" while actuall Electrum project released even a statement warning about you guys trying to impersonate them (or at least try to imply Electrum supports this so called bitcoin cash)?
About Electrum Cash
The name "Electrum" has been visible on bitcoincash.org and electrumcash.org, with a modified version of our logo. The use of our name and logo constitutes a trademark infringement.
We have never enforced our trademark against altcoin versions of Electrum (such as Litecoin, etc), because we consider that users of these altcoins are well aware of the distinction between Bitcoin and their coin, and that they cannot be harmed by that confusion. However, we do not agree with the use of the Electrum name in the context of a Bitcoin fork, because it suggests that we endorse that fork, and that we also endorse that wallet.
Regarding the relicensing, from a paranoid due diligence standpoint, were steps taken to ensure that the change from GPL to MIT is legal? Particularly, does anyone know whether Electrum requires contributors (if there are any outside of Electrum) to sign an IP assignment? I see a lot of commits by different contributors, listed here.
The potential trouble arises if contributors provided code, that they own and continue to own, licensed under the GPL. Electrum does not automatically have the right to relicense that code with a more permissive license and anyone incorporating the supposed MIT licensed code into their own project and not complying with the strong copyleft of GPL could run into trouble.
Edit: Yes! It looks like they did take the necessary steps. Great job to the Electrum team!
I recommend taking some of your tips here and sending them to a real wallet to see what Bitcoin is truly all about. I would recommend using electrum wallet if you are on PC. If using a mobile wallet I would use Andreas Schildbach's wallet for Android, and bread wallet for i-phone.
500 bits /u/changetip
I want to figure out how to use Electrum for cold storage that I can still spend from. I read the documentation at: https://electrum.org/offline_wallets.html but I don't get it. What is mktx and where do I type it in? I thought I could just do it from the menu. This makes me a little nervous and the document isn't helping.
For more about these coins see here. This one can either be 1 btc or just blank as they sold blanks for people to load as they like.
The code should be a compact address for bitcoin. You can type that into an explorer to check if any btc are still on the coin.
If unspoiled then under the sticker there is a private key. Don't enter it on any web site. Install Electrum and create a new wallet. Then use menu Wallet, Sweep to move btc from the coin into your new wallet. You'll need to enter manually whatever key you find printed under the sticker. If it ends up being quite a lot then you should learn more about how to safely store the btc as a regular wallet like this on your computer is not very safe.
The Badger wallet and the Bitcoin.com wallet use different derivation paths.
I believe the Badger wallet uses m/44'/145'/0 as the derivation path, whereas the Bitcoin.com wallet uses m/44'/0'/0'.
This means your funds are safe, but you'll need to import your Badger wallet seed into a BTC wallet that lets you specify the derivation path (m/44'/145'/0). Electrum might let you do that.
There are specific instructions for Tails here.
Instructions for Linux distros in general here.
Windows and MacOS users should just download binaries from electrum.org.
coinomi is a closed source wallet, meaning we don't know what it is doing in the background with our data. I would not advice its usage.
not all addresses starting with a 3 are segwit. do your own research.
use electrum wallet + a full node + electrum personal server.
https://electrum.org is the official site. Beware anything else claiming otherwise.
You can check the signature of the downloaded file but if you have installed or run it then it is too late. The moment you run anything from a questionable source your system is potentially compromised. It can insert itself into any system components and requires a OS reinstall to be safe.
To check signature follow this:
If you are on Linux I can help but on the other OSes I would be stumbling around.
This guide is decent. It's for Electrum but the general concept still applies.
You want to move your BTC from the wallet(s) you've been holding them in to a completely new wallet with new private key (if it's Electrum you want to create a completely new wallet with a new seed phrase, not just send to a new address under the same seed phrase).
Some guides suggested sending a bit of post-fork bitcoin to your current BTC wallets before moving the full balance(s) to a new BTC wallet.
Then you can import the private key for the wallet(s) you just moved all your BTC out of into a BCH/BCC (I guess I still don't know what it's being called really) wallet and you'll have all your BCH safely separated from your BTC.
Then you can send you BCC/BCH to anywhere that's taking deposits if you want to trade it for something else. Confirmations were taking about 75 minutes each earlier but right now we're 3.5 hours since the last block mined.
Do not use wallets which run in a web browser.
https://electrum.org/#download Set it up, backup your seed words, transfer everything out of blockchain.info.
Electrum is easy and popular. There will be guides on how to get to BCH later.
Make sure you can view and copy your private keys. If you can't get your existing private keys, then you won't be able to get your BCC.
Electrum sent out a statement for getting the BCC into a new wallet: https://electrum.org/bcc.txt
BitX allows you to buy and sell using EFT from SA bank accounts. They also pay out funds every 24 hours (if you request a payout). You can choose to keep your bitcoins in your BitX wallet, online. If you insist on moving your coins to a more personal wallet, I prefer Electrum.
I've been trading on it for a few months and have no issues.
Electrum is what I use. I went with the advice to not use "online wallets" (such as Circle or Coinbase) to make payments to vendors. I guess they can also get a little weird about where you spend you money, and close accounts (not sure if that is true of nootropic vendors or not).
I never got Circle to work for me to even buy BtC. Coinbase has been solid for me though.
Download and setup Electrum. It's a little weird to use at first, but once you get a few transactions under your belt, it's really not that bad. It also kind of depends on the vendor you are using and what their BtC procedures are.
edit: Thinking this might not be too clear, because I said I avoided coinbase, then when on to say coinbase has been solid for me. What I meant was: I use Coinbase purchase the BtC; I use Coinbase to transfer the BtC to Electrum wallet; I then use Electrum to send BtC for buys. I'm new to it all.
>Is there some way to be able to accept and send bitcoin without having to jump through all these hoops?
Sure. Download and install electrum and you will have your own bitcoin wallet that you can use to send and receive bitcoin. You don't need to download 65GB of blockchain data or give out personal info just to send and receive bitcoin.
>Some want photo ID, home address, social, and a bunch of other personal information.
Governments regulate financial transactions involving their country's currency i.e. fiat (USD, EUR etc.). So even though bitcoin transactions themselves don't require you to hand out personal info, buying and selling bitcoin for fiat does.
One way to avoid this is to use localbitcoins and buy from other ordinary users. You will be paying a premium to do this though
One last thing all bitcoin transactions are public and can be viewed on a block explorer site like blockchain.info. So bitcoin is not an anonymous currency like you think it is.
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.
Yesterday we had Moronic Monday where all questions are welcome. This comment is a good starting point. Check out /r/bitcoinbeginners too. Bitcoin can be a steep learning curve, but as long as you're reading the questions and answers of others, you'll get to the point where you know what questions to ask.
Practice with small amounts until you understand what's happening. Here's 500 bits to get you started. See if you can withdraw it to Electrum.
Open Core
It should be downloading the blockchain and not able to send yet.
Click Help > Debug Window
Click the Console tab
(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
- 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.
You sign all transactions on your offline machine and transmit them with your online machine. So it will look like this:
1) create the transaction with your hot wallet
2) transfer the transaction to your cold wallet, probably with a usb stick
3) sign the transaction
4) transfer the transaction back to your hot wallet
5) submit transaction to network
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.
Kind of depends on your risk tolerance and how much money is in the wallet..
If it was me, i'd just buy a new ledger and install your backup words on the new nano.. If you don't have time for that, using an iOS device which is updated and patched is pretty safe. (i don't have one, so can't recommend which apps will take a backup phrase from you)
Another alternative would be to install ubuntu on a USB drive and boot from that and fire up electrum (https://electrum.org/#home)
If someone is paying you in Bitcoin you wouldn't need to use any platforms. Download a Bitcoin wallet like - Electrum - For Desktop, Bluewallet - For iOS/Android or Samourai Wallet - For Android.
These are open-source wallet softwares you can download to create a Bitcoin Wallet. Search YouTube for tutorials on how to setup a wallet using those applications. It's quite quick to do so. Once you do that, you can go to the 'Receive' section of your wallet and share your Bitcoin receiving address to the payer.
The payer can send you Bitcoins to the address that you've shared. It's as simple as that. If the payer denies to pay you despite suggesting them this, DO NOT use untrusted sources that they are going to suggest you to use. Be vigilant about it.
An open-source non-custodial wallet is better. Electrum is considered one of the best. https://electrum.org/ DO NOT CLICK THAT LINK. INSTEAD MEMORIZE IT AND TYPE IT IN AGAIN. IT IS POSSIBLE TO MAKE A LINK WHOSE TEXT SAYS ONE THING BUT POINTS TO A PHISHING/SCAM SITE. ELECTRUM IS POPULAR SO IT IS A COMMON TARGET FOR PHISHING/MALWARE ATTEMPTS, MAKE SURE TO TYPE IN THE electrum.org DOMAIN YOURSELF AND NEVER CLICK IT.
Honestly I just direct people to Electrum. There are few wallets with such an amazing track record. The coming releases of electrum will even integrate lightning!
I truly believe electrum was instrumental in popularizing HD mnemonic wallets.
/u/PurpleShizzle
​
First, let's try a recovery with Electrum Wallet. https://electrum.org/#download
​
Creating a new wallet > standard wallet > I already have a seed > options (mark both bip 39 seed and extend this seed with custom words) > put your 12 words in order (maybe with or without a space in the end of the last word) > put your passphrase > chose the type legacy (first option, no segwit)
Why did you not mention Escrow? Then You dont have to worry about a "lost Order" or scammer because you get your money back when the order doesnt arrive .
And Bitcoin isnt really insecure for a buyer. If you are so paranoid, use a bitxoin Mixer. And use a local wallet which you have on your pc or usb, like Electrum.
r/electrum
Hello eminemkh,
If you are looking to hold your bitcoin for a longer time it might be wise to invest in a hardware wallet. Think of proven hardware wallets such as Trezor or Ledger.
The official website for Trezor can be found here.
The official website to buy a Ledger can be found here.
It is wisest to use this in combination with the community recommended Electrum which can be downloaded here.
If your investment isn't high enough to justify the buying of a hardware wallet we recommend just sticking to the Electrum or BTC core wallet.
With kind regards,
The Anycoin Direct team
- Download Electrum Wallet
- Create new "standard" wallet.
- Import using public/private keys.
- Your bitcoin wallet is set up with the funds attached to the private key you used.
I use a Bitcoin wallet called https://electrum.org/#download. It's pretty easy to use.
Basically create a new wallet with a seed phrase it gives you. Save the seed phrase somewhere. The seed phrase is important, it allows you to recover your Electrum wallet if your PC is ever destroyed or stolen.
Then click on the receive tab, and you'll get a receiving address. Use Luno to transfer your BTC funds to that address. If you're unsure, transfer maybe half first.
I'd recommend setting up a bitcoin wallet. You might be surprised how generous the community can be.
There's the link if you decide to do it, and if you need any help I'm happy to help you get it set up.
> Reminder to download ONLY from https://electrum.org/#download and always verify signatures
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7a7i69/electrum_30_release/dp7qg13/
Instructions for verifying PGP keys in link.
You will need persistence enabled or have to download each time you boot up. Either way works but the first is less hassle. I'll just give a new step-by-step here:
Use Tor browser and be sure to visit correct https://electrum.org. Click downloads and scroll down to choose Linux version archive tar.gz file. Save it to your "Tor Browser" file (only choice really).
Open file manager and go to Tor BRowser folder. Open Electrum archive with archive manager (right click) and extract to your "Persistent" folder (if persistence enabled), or just to local folder if no persistence (in which case you have to repeat every new session).
You should have a folder named "Electrum-3.0.1" with a bunch of files in it. You can click on the folder and run the electrum program. With persistence enabled for Electrum it will find your "home" default wallet as normal. Without that enabled you will need to use File Open to select your wallet file wherever it may be.
If you have trouble running the program from file manager then open a Terminal (main menu, favourites) and
cd Persistent/Electrum-3.0.1and then run withpython electrumcommand.
5, Do not use the main desktop menu to run Electrum as that will run the old version. The menu cannot be easily changed in Tails without much mucking around. You can create a desktop icon for the new version but that's also a bit of hassle. For that you need "dotfiles" persistence enabled. If you want to do that then just ask and I'll give steps again.
Electrum doesn't fallow Bitcoin Cash because A) BTC transaction aren't valid on BCH blockchain due to mandatory replay protection, and most importantly B) BCH breaks Bitcoin's consensus rules by changing difficulty algorithm and therefore is not a valid chain according the Electrum. Which is a perfectly valid argument, a minority chain isn't Bitcoin.
>A new feature in Electrum 2.9 is Multiple Chain Validation (MCV). Instead of validating a single sequence of block headers, Electrum 2.9 validates a tree of headers, sent by Electrum servers that may follow different branches of a fork in the Bitcoin blockchain.
>The purpose of MCV is to detect blockchain forks that would otherwise be invisible to the classical SPV model, and to let users choose between branches of such a fork. In particular, this feature has been designed to deal with the BIP148 soft fork, or the Segwit2x block size increase.
>However, 'Multiple Chain Validation' still includes 'Validation'. In particular, it assumes that both branches of a fork are valid from the perspective of a SPV wallet, because they both follow the Bitcoin rules.
>Bitcoin Cash (BCC) is a hard fork that changes the difficulty rules of Bitcoin. Therefore, SPV wallets written for Bitcoin will reject the block headers of a BCC fork, and so will Electrum. This means that Electrum will reject block headers sent by Electrum server running Bitcoin Cash, and that users will not be able to send and receive BCC using Electrum.
Dude why not search first? Its been asked / answered 10 times/day since the fork. You could try to use electroncash.org but first read https://electrum.org/bcc1.txt and https://electrum.org/bcc2.txt
Use a clean VM to be safe.
How to redeem my BCC?
BCC wallets will require you to import your seed or your private keys, which can be exported from Electrum. Doing so will expose all your Bitcoin funds associated with that seed to the BCC wallet you decide to use.
Therefore, after the BCC fork, but before you enter a seed or private key in a BCC wallet, you should move all your funds to a new Electrum wallet, with a new seed. You will still be able to use the old seed or private key with BCC, because BCC has replay protection. Wait until your funds are confirmed in your new Bitcoin wallet, before you enter the old private key in a BCC wallet. This will protect your BTC funds from rogue/untrusted software.
TL;DR Send your bitcoins from you coinbase wallet to one pc based bitcoin wallet and then from that first pc based bitcoin wallet to the a second pc based bitcoin wallet. This should sufficiently anonymise any bitcoins to make them untraceable.
Anonymous bitcoin - First buy in your real name as it prevents fraud. Then transfer to Coinbase wallet to a pc based bticoin wallet. I use electrum because it doesn't need the entire block chain to work and hence is a small download. Electrum is not recommended for large amounts or long term term storage but it is good for what we want here. That really should be enough to anonymise the coins so that they are no longer "in your real name" and you can claim the payment went to "someone else" and there is very little probability of someone tracing it to you. However if you are more paranoid you can then send them from your first electrum wallet to a second electrum wallet. Personally I use a virtual machine for my two wallets but you can also use a second partition or second machine. I do all this from behind a VPN for each Virtual Machine.
Once you have done this don't be so stupid to use your anonymous electrum wallets to pay for things in your real name.
blockchain.info is not the standard recommendation. the community usually recommends using the Electrum bitcoin client which is built into Tails. this is a lightweight client that lets you do anything an online wallet would.
remember, if you use any online wallet (like blockchain.info) they are capable of stealing your bitcoins anytime they want if they're on their servers. always use a wallet that you control completely.
Many people recommend Electrum because it doesn't rely on the website mytrezor.com. But Mycelium (Android with OTG cable) or Multibit should work as well. Each of these is just as secure as the device itself, because the secret keys are stored on the device, and signing a transaction is always confirmed on the device's screen as well.
Do you mean mytrezor.com with "if your business decided to shut its doors"? As said above, you can use these options without the website. If everything else fails, you could even use https://dcpos.github.io/bip39/ to retrieve the private keys if the device itself fails using the seed that you write down and tuck away when the device is set up.
Get a personal desktop wallet instead of using an exchanges wallet. It's much faster (usually between 30 and 90 minutes, no BtC transaction is instant as at least 6 blocks have to be solved for the transfer to complete/an hour is the case like 90% of the time). Not only are personal wallets faster, they are the most secure way to handle and store BtC. Those big scandals everyone read about involving MtGox and other exchanges that stole millions worth of BtC? They were just like coinbase and the other competitors. You are storing your money on a wallet on their servers. You are trusting your Btc/money/CC info with a third party. They can be compromised/hacked and your wallet can be stolen or worse, theoretically they can pull a fast one and you'll lose it all. A personal desktop wallet can only be compromised via someone using your computer manually i.e. someone steals your computer. Even then they have to know a complex series of passwords you set up and break through encryption.
I personally use Electrum for my wallet. https://electrum.org/
PayPal has made TONS of money for eBay, by charging exorbitant fees for simple transactions. For a /r/millionairemakers $1 transaction, PayPal charges 40% markup. Bitcoin = about 2 cents in transaction fees, whether you send one dollar or 100 million dollars worth.
I've done a fair amount of business on eBay, and it always bums me out to see my profits chewed up by PayPal fees. I'm not against anyone making a reasonable profit, but eBay smacks us twice (since eBay owns PayPal, they make their commissions and fees plus the PayPal fees).
Anyway, you might want to download an electrum wallet for your home computer or a Mycelium wallet for your phone and do some transfers from your changetip account to either or both of your wallets. For that purpose, have another set of training wheels /u/changetip
>I dont have a USB on hand, and I luve in the middle of bum fuck nowhere
If you use Electrum on Windows, then you should start the Tor Browser Bundle first and then configure Electrum to route its packets through Tor.
From the Electrum window, select Tools > Network.
Check mark Auto-connect.
Set the following:
Protocol: SSL
Proxy: SOCKS5 localhost 9150
Hit OK.
Shut down Electrum and restart it.
Start a new wallet since the first bitcoin addresses it created may have been sent out over the network directly from your home IP address:
File > New / Restore
wallet_2
Hit OK.
Standard wallet
Hit Next.
Copy your seed words to a piece of paper. If you keep these words safe, then you can recover any bitcoins in your wallet even if your hard drive crashes.
Copy the seed words into the clipboard.
Hit Next.
Paste the seed words back out.
Hit Next.
Use a password to prevent others that may have access to your computer from spending your coins.
Hit OK.
The icon in the lower right corner should go from red to blue arrows to green.
I think there is a portable install of Electrum.
https://electrum.org/#download
Third one under Windows is portable. I run Linux so cannot vouch for if this works well, but it should.
Another option is to give him a USB boot of Tails. It includes Electrum now.
The problem with the link and Electrum may actually be your browser. I know for me Electrum opens links fine but in Firefox I had to manually add bitcoin as a link type that opens Electrum. There is info on the site.
You don't have to wait, much less wait 31 weeks!
Simply use electrum on your computer: https://electrum.org/
Or Mycelium in your Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mycelium.wallet
EDIT: This is the guide you mention: http://www.reddit.com/r/millionairemakers/comments/2td0ts/comprehensive_bitcoin_buying_guide/ Really good guide. Thank you for the info.
Awesome. Now all you need is your own wallet where you hold your own private keys for bitcoin. Maybe try out electrum if you are on PC. If you have iphone, bread wallet is usually recommended, or airbitz. Here is a good wallet for Android. Just make sure to backup your wallet.
Download a desktop wallet, aquire some bits to play with (like $10 worth) so if you fuck up and loose it or whatever you aren't out your entire investment. Best way to learn it is to use it.
You can send any fraction of 1 BTC up to 100 million units. I think the fee is 2 cents or something, no matter whether you're sending .0000001 USD or 50M USD.
I recommend electrum wallet to start (avoid downloading the 24GB blockchain, it will just confuse you and make you give up). https://electrum.org/
It's also possible with Electrum (using the "Bitcoin Core" offline wallet provider, as the format is the same), but requires a bit of command line hacking (see this page).
You can use Bitcoin without a bank:
Download one of many software wallets. for a computer (Mac, Windows, or Linux) I recommend Electrum https://electrum.org/download.html
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/
Search for "I want to BUY bitcoins" and type in your area. (aka San Francisco, California)
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.
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.
it's all good.
If you would like to set up a wallet, there are many choices for you out there.
One of my favorites is called "Electrum."
Download it here: https://electrum.org/download.html
Just download the executable for your OS, start a new wallet. (be sure to write down the passphrase it gives you. That passphrase will allow you to recover your funds in the event of your computer crashing etc.)
Once you start the wallet, write down the passphrase and set a password (note: the password will be used when sending bitcoins, the passphrase will only be used to restore a broken / lost wallet)
I would like to stress that you should DEFINITELY write the pass phrase down, and DEFINITELY choose a good password to lock your wallet.
Once that is done, click on the "Receive" tab, and right click the top address and click "Copy to clipboard"
Paste that all up on your website, blog, etc etc etc...
Then watch the bitcoins roll in.
Stay classy, man. :-)
Bitcoin Core, probably, but not sure how.
Electrum, yes. They're called bulk payments, and require you to set up a .csv file listing the addresses and amounts.
EDIT: Be sure to specify a change address when doing this, just to be safe.
The process doesn't yet lend itself to ELI5. It's not a polished, user-friendly process as yet. Here's Electrum's own guide if you haven't seen it already: