What are Bitcoins?
Bitcoins are a form of digital currency – a new form of currency 加密貨幣交易所 that is electronic and global. It allows people to send or receive money across the internet, everywhere, and anytime.
How does Bitcoins work?
Bitcoins are traded from one personal “wallet” to another. A wallet is like a bank account for bitcoins. Your wallet is unique to you and stored in a ‘wallet application’ on your computer. A wallet is like a key to your safe deposit box on the Blockchain. The Blockchain is a public ledger that records all transactions and shows each user’s total Bitcoin balance. So how to buy bitcoin? You can get Bitcoins either by trading other money, goods, or services with people who have them or by mining.
Bitcoins are a completely anonymous, decentralized, and (so far) fairly secure form of money. There is no central authority like a bank or government that can monitor your transactions and balances. You can buy goods and services with Bitcoins at various participating websites without divulging any personal information; it would be challenging to link your identity to the Bitcoin addresses you use to send and receive money.
How to Buy Bitcoins ?
You can save some money by buying bitcoins on your own, but you must be very careful.
The following are 8 DIY steps in buying bitcoins:
1) First, you will need to open a wallet through a reputable provider such as Blockchain.info or BitGo.com if you don’t already have one. Note: Don’t use the same address for receiving multiple transactions because it can confuse who is sending how much if you are receiving from various payers.
2) Make sure you get your wallet address right! If people send money to the wrong address, they can never get it back because no central authority or bank controls Bitcoin addresses.
3) After you have your wallet established, you will need to buy some bitcoins. Bitcoins are sold through bitcoin exchanges such as BitStamp.net, MtGox.com, and BTC-e.com, although many others are out there. The best way to find a reputable exchange is by searching through Bitcoin forums or simply googling it and looking for the first couple of results returned by the search engine.
4) After finding a reputable vendor, you must register with them and provide some personal information to establish an account. You can use any email address you want, but remember, once it’s gone, it’s gone forever, so choose carefully.
5) After you have signed up, log in and start the registration process for buying bitcoins. Most exchanges will verify your account by requesting some personal information such as a copy of your driver’s license or passport and even selfies with you holding your ID next to your face.
6) Add funds to your exchange account from your bank using whatever method is required.
7) After you have funded your exchange account with USD, go to the trading page and find the buy bitcoins section.
8) Enter the number of bitcoins you wish to purchase and click buy bitcoins. After a few days, your bitcoin should show up in your wallet.
Conclusion
Once you have your wallet, it’s very easy to buy bitcoins. Just make sure the seller has a good reputation on the Bitcoin forums or check their reviews online. Try to avoid sellers with no or little feedback.
The above steps are an easy and safe way of getting your first bitcoins. However, you have to trust an exchange with the security of your money and personal information.
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