Bitcoin Forum

First of all, thanks to the founders of this forum.  This site seems to be the best starting point for all that is Bitcoin.  I'm jumping in after seeing all the hype on TV here in the US.  After spending time here and reading through all the threads, I've come to the conclusion that Bitcoin will be a worthwhile medium to long term investment.

I have seen many threads of what you should not do when jumping in as a newbie.  What I don't see much is firm concrete steps of what you should do.  Where do I start?  I got a wallet from blockchain and then opened an account with coinbase.  So now I have 2 wallets?  Can I physically transfer my wallets from blockchain and coinbase to my pc?  I just bought 2 whole coins from coinbase which will take 4 days to get to me and now I have seen so many alternatives, makes me wonder if I did things right.

I hope this thread will help guide us newbies specifically from the US.

Thanks in advance for your replies!!

Hello,

You probably know that, but you should never have bought any btc.

That said, you can send them whenever you want. A btc address is basically 2 keys: public key and private key. public key for receiving coins, and private key for sending them.
You can create a paper wallet here: https://www.bitaddress.org (or somewhere else). Just send your btc in the public address, and keep the private address to use them when you need to.
Blockchain or coinbase are not safe: if you don't own (and only you) the private key, you don't really own the bitcoins.

So what is the best way to acquire coins if you don't mine?

If you are looking to purchase coins, the easiest way is to likely find a local bitcoin seller and just use cash. It will be faster and save you a potential headache that can come with using other channels.

https://localbitcoins.com/ (https://localbitcoins.com/)

Already looked at local bitcoin for sellers, closest to me is 75 miles. Maybe the next way to acquire is to sell something for auction or something like that.

Can try https://www.canadianbitcoins.com/ if you don't mind delivering it using an American Service
Not to sure what the US has for exchanges besides coinbase
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Fixed_rate
https://blockchain.info/wallet/sms-phone-deposits

I think Coinbase is safe enough to buy, especially if you're just going to transfer money out of it later on into a wallet you control.  It's what I used to buy my first bitcoins, although I think I'm going to switch to a cheaper platform later on (CampBX).  If you're wanting ease of use though, Coinbase is probably better than CampBX.

My recommendations now that you've bought bitcoins.

1) Install Armory and create an offline wallet.
2) Transfer your bitcoins to an offline address in this wallet.

Be aware that Armory relies on bitcoin-qt, which needs the full blockchain, and it will take several days for this initial download to happen.  It took me three days, and that was back when it was a 7 GB download.  (It's now 9.83 GB.)  You only have to do this once, however, after that it only takes ten minutes or so every day for it to catch up with the new blocks.