Bitcoin Forum

I'm pretty new to Bitcoin and I have a question about receiving Bitcoin. I am putting some things on Craigslist and I will accept cash or Bitcoin for them. What is the best (i.e. easiest to execute and to confirm) way to accept Bitcoin from someone in person? Should I just give them my address, have them send Bitcoin using their phone/laptop, and then check my computer that it has arrived before handing them the product?

I have both a wallet on my PC as well as a Coinbase account, if that helps.

Feel free to point me to a thread that already addresses this; I could not find one in my searching.

Thanks!

For someone to send you bitcoin you will need to give them an aaddress of one of your wallets. Each wallet can have one or more addresses as you know. Once they send you the bitcoin you open the wallet and in a short while you should see the amount received in your balance.

I'd say that when meeting in person, you bring a laptop or a means to check your wallet balance and any unconfirmed incoming amounts. From there, have the person bring a laptop as well and watch them make the transaction to your wallet address.

No clue how long it would take, but I'd wait until the unconfirmed amount shows up on your end before parting ways.

You can do everything on phones these days ;d

Thanks for the replies. I know I can give him my address and then check my computer to confirm I received it, but I was wondering if there was a more efficient way than just giving him my obviously long address. No worries if not, just trying to make it as painless as possible.

If you and him are both using smartphones with wallet apps, giving him the address would just boil down to letting him scan a QR-code of your address from your smartphone screen (which can include the payment amount as well). It would be a matter of a few seconds to see that he has sent the transaction to the bitcoin network. Waiting for at least one confirmation so you know the transaction has been accepted by miners might be a good idea if the transaction is more than a few dollars worth. Waiting for more confirmations is overkill if you don't have reason to fear a double spend attack (which is highly unlikely given the extraordinary amount of effort and orchestration to stage such an attack).

Onkel Paul

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