Bitcoin Forum

Greetings,

I just started mining and am currently running at 70/GHs

I wanted to start selling these BitCoins either locally (Burlington VT Area) or through the internet.

I wanted to know what your "safe" methods are for trading BitCoin to USD.


Currently I am dealing 100% locally and a transaction goes like this...
Once a time, location, and price have been verified, I will generate a new wallet with the requested BitCoin amount so that the buyer can verify that everything is there using a website like https://blockchain.info/.

During the face to face meeting, I will hand a paper over to the buyer with the private keys (and a QR code for those whom are lazy) that can be imported into a wallet so that they can assume control over the account and transfer the funds out to their primary wallet.

The above "paper" that I mentioned is a local copy of https://bitcoinpaperwallet.com


Dealing over the internet however seems to be far more complex, when it comes to trust. I do NOT want to go first, but I understand that I am new to the selling community. What is a good way to do this? Some sort of escrow service?

Why don't you use MT.Gox, BTC-e, Bitstamp, bitcoin.de...?

For selling locally I'd suggest localbitcoins or #bitcoin-otc

You can use the transaction service provided by localbitcoins.com and not even bother with the paper wallet. 

You could also just load the BTC onto a mobile wallet and when the person gives you the cash, you send the BTC to any address they want from your mobile device. 

If you do use a paper wallet expect to wait around while someone imports the private key into their wallet...could take some time.  I know its not possible to importprivkey with android wallet for example so they would need to have some experience using bitcoin.  Easier to use other methods.

This 360 minute post time limit is driving me nuts - How do we get it lifted?

In response to you, After reading the reports about how pretty much all android wallets have a increasingly high probability of being hacked, I would like to stir away from it.

On the other hand, I dont like the idea of a website like blockchain.info managing my funds either. Does bitcointalk.org have a favorite online wallet provider? inputs.io seems neat, I dont know if they are all talk though as they are pretty new. When all is said and done, offline wallets seem to be most secure (like MultiBit or whatever).

Yup the 360 minute limit is driving me nuts too.

Also never store your money online or on your android wallet. Its a big risk to take and not one you should take. Its only sensible to use it if you want to store a few dollars in bitcoin. Other wise its possible that the website would get shut down and bam. You lost hundreds of dollars.

So what is your setup?

What Client?

How do you trade aswell.

Currently my setup is as follows (Please let me know if you see holes in this)

Coins are sent primarily to an address managed by MultiBit Wallet. The .wallet file and everything else that the wallet generated is saved and read on a USB drive that is in a TrueCrypt container.

Every 25 BTC I earn, I then transfer to a "cold storage" wallet using https://bitcoinpaperwallet.com/ and store them in a ziplock bag in my fireproof safe at home.

When it comes time to trade, I open one of those guys up and work my way down till I need to open up another one.

EDIT: The private keys for my MultiBit wallet are backed up using their "password protect" option in their export menu in my Box.com account.

As the author of bitcoinpaperwallet.com I'm gratified by your trust! However just to make sure: are you downloading the ZIP file to run the generator on your local secure computer and network instead of running it straight from the website? (You should.) Also, if you want to be extra safe for long-term cold storage, check out synthetic papers like "teslin" and/or sprays like Krylon "Preserve It".

Good suggestions. I'd also advise to check out the faraday cage thread here, a forum member even sells the material.

Good stuff.

Yes the first thing I did was download the .ZIP

I wanted to know the risks of this though. I saw you had some problems before in other releases where that the private key didnt match up with the public key. How can I "decode" the private key OFFLINE to see what public key it links too.

Also, you mentioned that once I start spending the bitcoins on the paper wallets, there is a high risk of me loosing my coins if I dont transfer the entire amount. Is this a BitCoin technical thing out of our control? Or are you just pointing our the risk that someone can now over see the previously hidden private key and can take control over the wallet.

As far as teslin paper goes, thanks for the great idea. I will probably buy something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Inkjet-Teslin-Synthetic-Paper-Sheets/dp/B004PX7Z3S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378245612&sr=8-1&keywords=teslin+paper

Hi Epod. Sorry for the late response here. The post you read about where the private key didn't match up with the public key was when I was doing my initial folding wallet design mockups using photoshop -- this was before I actually integrated the bitaddress generation engine. It was a manual copy & paste error :)

The current version of bitcoinpaperwallet.com (as of Oct 1, 2013) as a feature which lets you enter in any private key and it will 1) validate the key, 2) show you the corresponding public key, and 3) let you print out a wallet with those keys if you like. This is a very safe way to "decode" a private key offline, whether it was generated using my software or some other service.

As for "losing coins if you don't transfer entire amount" -- the take-home message is that when you're ready to spend the coins, you have to import the entire balance to a live wallet. Afterwards, if you have a balance you'd like to transfer back to a paper wallet, transfer it to a new paper wallet. Destroy (or at least discontinue using) the old one.

All is good, just avoid Mt Gox.....

Use a trusted escrow provider (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=276897.0).


Yes.