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How do you buy Bitcoins?

Beginner’s guide to Bitcoin

Buying Bitcoins Overview

One can buy Bitcoins from either exchanges, or directly from people via marketplaces. There are a variety of ways to pay for Bitcoins: from hard cash and debit and credit cards to wire transfers. Although there are a variety, it’s still not so easy to buy Bitcoins with a credit/debit card or PayPal, as it should be.

Get a Bitcoin wallet

If you want to buy Bitcoins, then you will need a place to store these Bitcoins. You can store Bitcoins in a Bitcoin wallet. Although they are called Bitcoin wallets, one should more think about them as a kind of bank account. Depending on the security levels you want, you will have to choose a different wallet. We can mainly differentiate from three options: a software wallet stored on the HDD of your PC, an online web-based service or a vault service that keeps your Bitcoins protected offline or a wallet that uses a number of different keys, so that your account is more secure. It is important to note, that most have their vulnerabilities. For example if you store Bitcoins locally, make sure to backup your wallet regularly in case your HDD decides to stop working for whatever reason. Online web wallets can have their vulnerabilities too. If you have a poor ID and password, it won’t be a big issue for hackers to pass through those authentications.

Do we really need exchanges and wallets?

If you want to engage in regular trading and speculation, then exchanges and wallets are the best for this ambition.

Warning about Bitcoin exchanges, wallets and banks

Although there are some identity requirements, one should remember that exchanges and wallets don’t provide the same protections banks do.

What else do we need?

First of all, you will need a Bitcoin Address. Bitcoin payments operate like bank transfers and each user has their own account, called Bitcoin Address. A Bitcoin address looks like this: 1AagqKEVKx4woeEGHaHXnn95RFvPENnVoC
Every user can have as many Addresses as he wishes and can store them in an electronic wallet, also known as the Bitcoin Wallet.

Online Wallets

You can get a Bitcoin Address very easy. You just have to register for a Bitcoin Wallet at one of the following sites: Blockchain, EasyWallet, ZenWallet, Instawallet, etc.

What’s next?

As mentioned before an Address is like a bank account. Before you can spend any money from your Bitcoin Address, you will have to put some money in. So you may ask yourself, how to get some Bitcoins. The easiest way to earn some Bitcoins is ‘mining’. Everyone can mine with a PC or even with just a powerful graphic card. The only problem is that time has brought more powerful devices, which were developed exactly for mining. These devices are called ASICs and most PCs and graphic cards can’t really keep up with them. Since mining these days isn’t as effective as it was a year ago, there has been a new option that is more efficient than the regular minning: cloud mining. With this option you don’t have to invest in expensive and fast-dating equipment. You just pay a company to use their data centres to mine on their behalf.

Conclusion: Buying Bitcoins

Nowadays buying Bitcoins isn’t always as easy as one might think. The good news however is that the number of options to buy Bitcoins is increasing as time passes by.

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