Guide: installing and using a bitcoin wallet (Electrum)
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Bitcoin is the most established digital currency available today. It provides a safe, anonymous way to send and receive a virtual currency everybody trusts. However, managing bitcoins is not quite as simple as managing a bank account. In this article I will explain how to manage your bitcoins using Electrum. Please note that in this article I will provide working knowledge of how to use Electrum, without entering the mysterious land of cryptography and technical details of Bitcoin.
First of all, I suggest you install the latest version of Electrum. Instructions will vary depending on your operating system. Once you have installed it, it will ask you what you want to do: For now, just chose to where to buy electrum a new wallet leaving the default options. Then, the second step comes along: Electrum will show you your "wallet generation seed", which is a list of 13 words you will absolutely need to save somewhere safe.
Once you're done, it will prompt you with a password request. You should treat it like you treat your Internet Banking password. Once you are done, you are finally good to go: Electrum will show by default a list of transactions you made. As you can see, there is obviously nothing here. When you want to receive bitcoins you will need to provide your where to buy electrum address": Each one of them is a valid bitcoin address you can use to receive bitcoins.
Pick the first one in the list: Exchanging Bitcoins into real money and vice versa is a tricky business. So, these where to buy electrum are very prone to fraud and money laundering. I would not use any service that is not listed here. As an Australian travelling through Italy, for the purpose of writing this article, I picked exchange. However, at the moment they do not cater for US customers. Changing real money into bitcoin can be a real pain!
However, it's well worth the effort. Generally speaking, be prepared to provide one form of official ID and an where to buy electrum bill with your address. Shortly after initiating your transactions, your bitclient will show a "pending" transaction; it will stay "pending" for a while: The details are a little technical; however, where to buy electrum remember that it will take around where to buy electrum minutes or so. Assume now that you want to send bitcoins out. Assume that you want to send half of the bitcoins you have on your wallet.
First of all, you will need to know the bitcoin address where you are sending your bitcoins to. Once you have it, go to the "Send" tab and enter the number of bitcoins you want to send.
Assume that you want to send a portion of the bitcoins you have. So, you where to buy electrum 4. Click on "Send", enter the address where you want to send your bitcoin, pick "3" as in, 3 micro bitcoins and hit "send".
You will be warned of a fee that will be automatically charged. Once you've agreed on the fee I recommend you leave the defaultyou are done. This can be confusing at first, but it actually makes a lot of sense: However, in order to send those 3 micro bitcoins, you actually sent the whole 4.
This will also preserve your privacy: Since that address now has a 0 balance remember, the where to buy electrum went into a "change" address! This happens in Electrum once an address has been used at least once and it has a 0 balance bitcoins received is the same as bitcoins sent.
The reason is simple: If you ever only use the same bitcoin address even to receive the "change" of your transactionsanybody able to associate that bitcoin address to you will have a very clear idea of your spending habits. This is why you are encouraged to have, and use, several addresses when sending and receiving bitcoins.
Since it's impossible to know who "owns" a specific wallet, you might in time receive large amounts of bitcoins, but all to different addresses; only you and your bitcoin client will know that those addresses all belong to where to buy electrum.
Recovering your where to buy electrum in case of disaster consists in recovering your bitcoin addresses. Where to buy electrum address is made up of its "public" component what you see when you run Electrum and a private component the super-secret private key associated to that address. Storing this information is tricky, because computers break, get stolen, and things can and do generally go wrong. While other programs will recommend to store your addresses "somewhere safe", Electrum has a much better approach: So, there where to buy electrum no need to backup your bitcoin data: The best spot for them is your own memory.
This article avoided any technical explanation about how Bitcoin works. If you are interested in a more technical view of it, I recommend How might we use blockchains outside cryptocurrencies? Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted worldwide, without royalty, in any medium, provided this notice is preserved. The initial screen Then, the second step comes along: The list of 13 words.
If you are serious about bitcoins, you should memorise them Remember: Electrum started for the first time When you want to receive bitcoins you will need to provide your "bitcoin address": Getting real money in Exchanging Bitcoins into real money and vice versa is a tricky business.
Your default wallet, just created. Each line represent a working bitcoin address This is the reason why: The transaction is still pending The where to buy electrum address the money was sent to is now showing the transaction Once the money is "cleared", it will appear as available in Electrum.
Once the where to buy electrum it's done, it's shown as done See how the receiving address now has a balance Once you have received the bitcoins, the receiving address will show a balance. Sending bitcoins Assume now that you want to send bitcoins out. If you look at your wallet after this operation, you will see that: The address you used to receive the bitcoins is under the "used" list. It's not recommended to use that address again. The equivalent of the "unspent" bitcoins is associated to a bitcoin address under "change" This can be confusing at first, but it actually makes a lot of sense: Recovering your wallets Recovering your coins in case of disaster consists in recovering your bitcoin addresses.
License Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted worldwide, without royalty, in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
