Bitcoin buying guide: Difference between revisions
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===Step 1 - What do you want to buy?=== | ===Step 1 - What do you want to buy?=== | ||
[[File:Bitty step1.png| | [[File:Bitty step1.png|500px|thumb|left|Step 1 - Your requirements]] | ||
===Step 2 - Make the payment=== | ===Step 2 - Make the payment=== | ||
[[File:Bitty step1.png|500px|thumb|left|Step 2 - Make the payment]] | |||
===Step 3 - Wait for payment to arrive=== | ===Step 3 - Wait for payment to arrive=== | ||
[[File:Bitty step1.png|500px|thumb|left|Step 3 - Waiting for confirmation]] | |||
[[File:Bitty step4.png|500px|thumb|left|Step 4 - The Bitcoins are on their way]] | |||
Revision as of 14:58, 14 October 2013
Before you start with Bittylicious
There's only one thing you need before buying Bitcoins with Bittylicious - a wallet in which to store your Bitcoins. Bitcoin wallets enable you to send and receive Bitcoins with other users, and each user or business in the Bitcoin ecosystem has a wallet.
Wallets can be generated online (web wallets) or by running a Bitcoin client on your own machine (local wallets).
Web wallets
This is the easiest way to get started in the Bitcoin world.
Web wallets host your bitcoins. This means that you are trusting the company that hosts the wallet to look after it on your behalf. In many ways, this is more secure than looking after the wallet yourself, but it does mean that it is possible for them to lose your bitcoins following any incident on their side.
There are a few providers, but these are some of the biggest ones and we recommend these:
Note that these providers might also offer a way to convert money into Bitcons. You're welcome to do that, but you'll usually get a better price using Bittylicious. We recommend you just use the above sites for their wallet functionality alone.
Local wallets
These are more complicated to set up, but involve you being in full control of your Bitcoin wallet. This is great in many ways, but unless you're competent that your computers are secure and you're relatively tech savvy, we wouldn't recommend doing this. If all goes wrong and your computer explodes, you've probably lost your Bitcoins.
- bitcoin-qt - the full Bitcoin client. Takes a very long time to get synchronised but is considered the de facto Bitcoin client.
- Multibit - a secure, lightweight, international Bitcoin wallet for most popular operating systems.
- Electrum - easy to use,lightweight Bitcoin client for most popular operating systems.
- Armory - an advanced Bitcoin wallet for most popular operating systems.
- Android Bitcoin Wallet - an easy to use Bitcoin wallet for Android phones.
Buying Bitcoins
Now that your wallet is set up, you need to generate a Bitcoin address. Each wallet has its own way of doing this but it should be relatively straightforward. A Bitcoin address will look something like 19Qbest5y8t5qZhJ36PhUWNUYeDroL6BkF.
Step 1 - What do you want to buy?
Step 2 - Make the payment
Step 3 - Wait for payment to arrive
