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Recommended ways to buy Bitcoin?

I always think that by the time everyone’s talking about the next big thing, you’ve already missed the boat.

Agree with this. It's why I hardly every try to time a market.

In the case of Bitcoin I'm only interested in drip feeding an account for long term gains - it's just another asset class to diversify into.
 
If I want to have a play with Bitcoin, just to buy stuff, not for investment purposes, where do I start. Do I just need to get a wallet? Is there more to it? Which wallet?
 
Unless you can do a private transaction with someone who will send you the bitcoin then you'll need to use an exchange, and most of them will require ID to satisfy Anti Money Laundering and Know Your Customer legalities. Decentralized exchanges may not, but I haven't ever used one so can't comment on them.

An easy way in is to use the Crypto.com mobile app, but you will still have to give ID to them. It makes buying (at current price only - no specific price orders possible) quite easy.

I use that but mainly use Bitstamp, because they were who I first used, plus they allow specific price orders, so you can buy your coins when the price hits whatever you nominate it to be.

Unless you then keep your coins on the exchange you will need a private wallet to transfer them to. There are many around just as there are exchanges. FWIW I'm using Exodus.
 
Unless you can do a private transaction with someone who will send you the bitcoin then you'll need to use an exchange, and most of them will require ID to satisfy Anti Money Laundering and Know Your Customer legalities. Decentralized exchanges may not, but I haven't ever used one so can't comment on them.

An easy way in is to use the Crypto.com mobile app, but you will still have to give ID to them. It makes buying (at current price only - no specific price orders possible) quite easy.

I use that but mainly use Bitstamp, because they were who I first used, plus they allow specific price orders, so you can buy your coins when the price hits whatever you nominate it to be.

Unless you then keep your coins on the exchange you will need a private wallet to transfer them to. There are many around just as there are exchanges. FWIW I'm using Exodus.

Please forgive my ignorance but I need a very simplistic framework to help me build up an understanding from . What does Crypto.com do? And then, what does Bitstamp do?

(Words of one syllable please)
 
They are both exchanges - places where you can buy and sell cryptocurrencies. You'll need to join one to be able to (transfer it to your account and) exchange your fiat currency for them. As is the way these days these exchanges can be accessed via a web browser or a mobile app.

Think of it like buying shares. You need a broker / dealer / exchange who sells what you want to buy. Not all will sell all ccryptocurrencies, but almost all will sell Bitcoin.

Taking Crypto.com as an example and using your mobile you will need to

  1. Download the app
  2. Register and provide ID
  3. Wait for your account to be verified
  4. Transfer fiat funds to your account (you will be given a bank account to pay to plus your own unique account reference, that you must put on each payment)
  5. When the fiat has landed in your account use the app to buy your Bitcoin
  6. Either leave your bitcoin in that account or
  7. Download a bitcoin wallet to your computer/tablet/phone
  8. Transfer your bitcoin to that wallet
And then spend all hours watching http://bitcoinity.org/markets/coinbase/GBP :D
 
They are both exchanges - places where you can buy and sell cryptocurrencies. You'll need to join one to be able to (transfer it to your account and) exchange your fiat currency for them. As is the way these days these exchanges can be accessed via a web browser or a mobile app.

Think of it like buying shares. You need a broker / dealer / exchange who sells what you want to buy. Not all will sell all ccryptocurrencies, but almost all will sell Bitcoin.

Taking Crypto.com as an example and using your mobile you will need to

  1. Download the app
  2. Register and provide ID
  3. Wait for your account to be verified
  4. Transfer fiat funds to your account (you will be given a bank account to pay to plus your own unique account reference, that you must put on each payment)
  5. When the fiat has landed in your account use the app to buy your Bitcoin
  6. Either leave your bitcoin in that account or
  7. Download a bitcoin wallet to your computer/tablet/phone
  8. Transfer your bitcoin to that wallet
And then spend all hours watching http://bitcoinity.org/markets/coinbase/GBP :D
Excellent. Many thanks
 
What happens if you leave your phone on the train. Do the bitcoins in the wallet disappear with it or can you re-install the wallet on your new phone?
 
Glad it helped mate.

If someone knows your PIN/password to the phone app then they could transfer the bitcoin to their address and your bitcoin are gone. So yes, there are risks with using a phone*. Some folks use a separate phone to their main one that doesn't leave the house.

*which perplexes me as to log on to a web page takes a password and (usually) 2 factor authorisation using the phone, but using the phone app on its own is just a short PIN.

When you hold bitcoin they only exist on the blockchain, which is just a publicly shared ledger of which addresses hold bitcoins. Every transaction between addresses goes onto the blockchain, so at any time if you know the address you can see how many bitcoin it holds by searching on what are known as block explorer sites. Think of an address as a Swiss bank account - you have an account number and a password and whoever has both has full access to that account to do with it what they will. Just knowing your address won't allow anyone to access your bitcoin (just like knowing someone's account number won't allow you to access their account), but if you have the password too (called the private key) to an address then it will.

As has been mentioned upthread, with some wallet apps there is a PIN or password for it for daily use when logging on, but in addition to that there is a master password expressed as a series of 12 words that could be used to recover the wallet (via that app or others) should you lose the PIN/password to the app. You NEVER want to share this with anyone, and some folks go to extremes to preserve it, such as having it engraved onto a sheet of metal that is then held in a safe place**.

A wallet can and almost always does hold bitcoin using multiple addresses (that's due to how transactions on the blockchain work), so this main password/PIN/master password is in effect rounding up all the passwords (known as private keys) for each address within your wallet. Knowing the PIN or main password would only be good if someone also had access to the wallet app. Knowing the master password though would allow them total access to your wallet from within an app they control.

I know, it's confusing, but the addresses bit you can come back to. The important thing is - just like leaving your money in the bank versus cash under the mattress, or gold in a bank vault versus in your own private vault at home - if some other authority holds your account (like the bank does your money), then your money could get lost or stolen by error, hacking, theft etc etc. If you hold your bitcoin (well, the private keys to the addresses) in a private wallet on your PC (or on a hardware wallet, which is just like a USB stick that you only connect to your computer and the internet when you want to move coins to or from it) then someone has to get access to that to control it, just like they have to get into your house and go under the mattress to get your cash.

tl:dr

Take sovereignty of your cryptocurrency and protect it well. Very well.

** now if you were an unscrupulous engraver :eek:
 
What is Bitcoin, but a limited transaction medium? It might as well be beans or tulip bulbs or at worst something produced by the 'Franklin Mint' and sold on the back of a Sunday magazine. As used it's not even as useful as Paypal. As an investment opportunity I would sooner buy government bonds or established antiques and relax.

The majority of people chiefly acquire it using the government-issued tax-driven currency. Essentially giving away that perfectly redeemable medium which anyone will accept for a transaction or a tax payment, in exchange for something which has no stability and limited acceptance. Why would anyone do that? Often (as far as I've seen) because they think it's the digital equivalent of that much-lauded fiat currency hater's commodity - gold. Something else you have to convince people to take so they can liquidate it into whatever the actual currency is, because you can't pay taxes in gold either.

The key is 'tax driven'. You need dollars or pounds or Yen because you have to get them to pay taxes, and so does everyone else, which is why everyone accepts it from everyone else. Recently in Salvador they declared they would accept Bitcoin as taxes. This had the Bitcoiners rattling their victory sabres. It would mean Salvador accepting payment in a medium it can't even issue or use. Bitcoin is designed to be constrained, very much in accordance with the money-supply control ideologists back at the start of the 80s.
 
@Le Baron I think you might be overthinking it. There are the True Believers who think crypto will overthrow capitalism but for most people it's a speculative flutter they hope will return more 'government-issued tax-driven currency'.
 
It's not something to ignore though. Not because it's useful or meaningful, but because as with the case of Salvador people are mislead into thinking it's a good thing.

Why don't they just go down the bookie's?
 
What is Bitcoin, but a limited transaction medium? It might as well be beans or tulip bulbs or at worst something produced by the 'Franklin Mint' and sold on the back of a Sunday magazine.

There is a difference, and it is an important one. Bitcoin has a fixed, finite supply, unlike any previous form of currency known to mankind. There will only ever be 21 million of them, ever. Nobody can create new ones as the supply constraints are built into it.

So, unlike any other currency if you own 1 bitcoin you own one twenty-one millionth of the total supply and unless you spend or lose it that can't change. Nobody can create (or quantitively ease) more of it to diminish that fraction.

This has led to it being coined the hardest form of currency that has ever been created, so some people are investing in that idea on the basis that it will at some point become if not the world's reserve currency but a universally accepted benchmark to value things against.

The Bitcoin Standard is a good place to learn more https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1119473861/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21
 
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
I buy it using the Binance app nowadays, it’s really simple.

Wish I had kept my 5 bitcoins I got for £500 instead of selling them in 2013. Could’ve bought a house with them! o_O
 
Bitcoin has a fixed, finite supply, unlike any previous form of currency known to mankind. There will only ever be 21 million of them, ever. Nobody can create new ones as the supply constraints are built into it.
Are all these 21 million already in circulation or are some yet to be mined?
 
There is a difference, and it is an important one. Bitcoin has a fixed, finite supply, unlike any previous form of currency known to mankind. There will only ever be 21 million of them, ever. Nobody can create new ones as the supply constraints are built into it.

So, unlike any other currency if you own 1 bitcoin you own one twenty-one millionth of the total supply and unless you spend or lose it that can't change. Nobody can create (or quantitively ease) more of it to diminish that fraction.

This has led to it being coined the hardest form of currency that has ever been created, so some people are investing in that idea on the basis that it will at some point become if not the world's reserve currency but a universally accepted benchmark to value things against.

The Bitcoin Standard is a good place to learn more https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1119473861/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

That's what makes it a useless 'currency' (which it isn't anyway), not a useful one. For 4,000 years the concept of money of account has operated on the principle of pure accounting, not pseudo-metallism.

A currency that isn't elastic is utterly useless. Money supply control is a foolish and obsolete idea. The main currency issuer countries, even though they do daft things know this perfectly well and the idea they would ever adopt it or sanction it as a reserve currency is delusional.

I've been following Bitcoin since its inception. I won't be following any links to Amazon anyway.
 
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
18.8 million are circulating, so just over 2 million yet to mine, which will be over the next 120 years or so as the amount mined on each block of the blockchain halves every 4 years-ish.
 
It’s probably not a bad idea to have some Bitcoin as we watch the usual currencies get gradually drained of all value (the US dollar has already lost well over 90% of it’s initial value). At least bitcoin is finite, as mentioned above. At some point a lot of people are going to need to get out of fiat currencies. Don’t know when it’ll be but one day people will just not value the pound, dollar, Euro etc and they’ll de discarded.
 
There is a difference, and it is an important one. Bitcoin has a fixed, finite supply

Though there seem to be an almost infinite number of crypto currencies!

There are lots of finite things that aren't worth much. Just like old records, scarcity itself isn't enough. Society has to collectively agree that something has worth. In ten years time society might have decided that bitcoin is worth £10 or £10bn - no way of knowing that I can see. That doesn't mean it's not worth holding some and seeing what happens.
 


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