While you can hold your Bitcoin on the exchange that you purchased it on, we always recommend withdrawing your Bitcoin to your own wallet. This guide will help you get a wallet set up to truly own and hold your Bitcoin, without trusting any other company or person with your funds.
Step 1: Choosing An App
We recommend Blue Wallet!
Step 2: Creating A Wallet
Don’t forget to safely store your seed words!
Step 3: Double Checking
Attempt to restore your wallet from scratch!
Step 4: Be Your Own Bank
You’re all set to start using Bitcoin!
Step 1: Choosing An App
There are many different wallets to choose when deciding where to hold your Bitcoin. A great introduction to this space are the hot-wallets that you are able to download directly on your mobile device or desktop computer. As a Bitcoin-focused company, we recommend Bitcoin-only wallets, as they cut out all the unnecessary extra bells and whistles that most other crypto wallets tack on. Each wallet app can vary in terms of fit and finish, so definitely try a few out to see which one suits your style best! BlueWallet is a great option that we love to recommend.
Note: If you are looking at storing a large amount Bitcoin on your wallet, it may be worth while to invest into a Bitcoin hardware wallet to keep your Bitcoin in cold storage! These start at around $100 depending on your chosen model, but is recommended for large sums of Bitcoin!
Step 2: Creating A Wallet
Great! You’ve downloaded the application of your choice, next up is creating your wallet. Each app may vary slightly in the set-up process, however under the hood they are all interchangeable and the same.
Wallet Standards: You may see options like BIP39, BIP44, Legacy, and Segwit when setting up your wallet. This is the wallet standard that is being used to create your wallet file. We recommend using Segwit as this will help save you some transaction fees down the road! Please make note of what type of wallet you have for future reference.
Seed Phrases: This is the MOST IMPORTANT part of this entire process! Your wallet will provide you with a list of 12 or 24 English words. write down these words on a piece of paper and keep them somewhere safe. Losing these words will make your wallet impossible to recover and your funds may get lost forever. In addition to this, anyone with access to these words can gain access to, and ultimately steal your Bitcoin.
DO NOT share these words
DO NOT store them online
DO NOT keep them on your person
DO NOT enter them onto a website.
Most importantly, DO NOT lose them!
We recommend keeping them somewhere you can be certain that they will be safe, for example, keeping them inside an actual safe.
Step 3: Double Checking
Through the information you recorded in Step 2, your wallet file is now fully recoverable in the event that you lose your phone, delete the application, or if you just need to recover your funds on a new device!
You can make sure that you have everything recorded correctly by deleting the app, downloading it again, and selecting a “restore from seed” or similar option during the wallet set-up process. Enter your seed words and if everything was correctly recorded, you will now have regained access to the same Bitcoin wallet as before.
Note: These wallets are interchangeable with apps. BlueWallet seed words do not necessarily need to be entered onto BlueWallet to be recovered, and can be used on any app/device.
Step 4: Be Your Own Bank
Congratulations on your newfound Bitcoin freedom! You’re now all set up to hold your own Bitcoin and are able to receive your first transaction.
Extra Notes:
Each wallet has more than one Bitcoin address that can be associated with it. Do not panic if your Bitcoin address changes periodically when sending/receiving Bitcoin! This is done for privacy reasons, but rest assured, your wallet file controls the Bitcoin associated with all these addresses.