Bitcoin Forum

hello and thanks for helping a newbie.

i am wanting to use a paper wallet to buy and spend bitcoins.

i am having a hard time trying to find good guides for this.

please help

thanks much,
david

It's not your best option. Paper wallet should be used to store funds and not for everyday paiements.
I advice you to use Electrum (https://electrum.org/#download); it's safe and friendly use for newbies. You can find a lot of simple guides on how to use it.
Here a simple video guide on how to use Electrum desktop version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGUAl2ENdGM

You can always choose another client suitable for your device from this list: https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet?step=5

If you intend to store bitcoin and spend it on daily/occasionally/online shopping I would recommend not using paper wallets it will give you a hard time spending it and would risk to malicious attackers when importing to other devices/wallets. Paper wallets are best for keeping bitcoin for a long time.

Mobile wallets such mycelium, blockchain green, electrum, and coinomi are handy and good for sending smaller amounts for shopping or etc and its user-friendly. While using desktop wallet such electrum will be good for keeping and spending your bitcoin though I would say it's not newbie-friendly. And having hardware wallets such ledger nano and trezor is your best bet as the most secured wallets for having cryptocurrency.

But whatever you choose, as long as the owner is irresponsible and careless, losing funds is always probable.

For depositing and spending BTC, get Electrum, generate a wallet and use that one. Paper wallets are only good for long term storage.

If you did not know yet, there are also "change addresses" for Bitcoin. Basically, in order to make blockchain analysis harder and to improve privacy, if you deposit 1 BTC on a wallet and then spend less than that, there is a chance that the change (the remaining amount) is sent to a "change address". As paper wallets only contain private keys and not seeds, if you send only part of what your paper wallet contains, chances are the change will disappear into an address you don't own.

If you still want to go for a paper wallet, you can follow part 1 of this tutorial (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5190702).

If not, do you have an older laptop or PC? My advice is to install on an old PC a free Linux distro and use Electrum on there. Keep this PC just for Btcoin purposes. If you do not have an older device you can use, get a Hardware Wallet or flash Tails OS on a USB stick, open up Electrum (it's preinstalled), create a wallet (important: write down your seed!!!, Tails is amnesic which means everything you do on there will be automatically forgotten by the USB upon shutdown/reboot) and use that as a temporary crypto OS.

If you wanted to use paper wallet to buy and spend bitcoin then it is not for you. If you create a paper wallet it will only have one private key and a single address. So if will defeat the purpose of having one if you are going to spend it right away. So it is meant for storing bitcoin for long term holding. I suggest you look at a better wallet for your purpose, like Electrum. And just remember to always back up your private key and your seed phrase.

Don't use paper wallet as your medium of payment in kiosks or any other stores that supports it. Some (or rather most) wouldn't accept it because directly sending on the wallet is much convenient than accepting papers that could be lost, torn apart, or burnt. Always remember that Paper Wallets are only good for gifting purposes and not a wallet for holdings.

But it's too obvious that you haven't look it up on Google. I've searched it and found an article on how to make paper wallets. See the link here:
https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-wallet/paper/

Be careful of using paper wallet. Lots of newbies failed to maintain using it which result to loss of bitcoin.
[1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Paper_wallet

Just a heads up, I would advise you to follow the previous reply if you want to spend your bitcoin on a day to day basis ;). Still, here are the definitive guide about using it.
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1uefzJJ6nM
[3] https://coinsutra.com/make-bitcoin-paper-wallet-spend-bitcoins/

Paper wallets are usually just for long-term holding, and A LOT of people are incapable of creating one in a secure manner in the first place. If you're planning on frequently spend your coins, just download a reputable software wallet like BlueWallet[1] or Blockstream's Green[2].

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[1] https://bluewallet.io/
[2] https://blockstream.com/green/

https://www.bitaddress.org/ is good old one. you should read ann thread bitaddress.org; [ANN] bitaddress.org Safe JavaScript Bitcoin address/private key (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=43496.0),

Generate it offline without conect to internet or safe it usb and generate it using cd live linux

Also you have to carefull about Phishing bitaddress (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5203290.0).

And don't use paper wallet > walletgenerator.net/ (https://medium.com/mycrypto/disclosure-key-generation-vulnerability-found-on-walletgenerator-net-potentially-malicious-3d8936485961)

Hey  Buddy, using paper wallet is for storing bitcoin for a long term purpose, that's not the purpose of using it based on your question, there are plenty of wallets that exhibit day to day transactions which are best for you to transact and also contains private key and seed phrases, make sure such keys are saved properly or written on offline paper. Electrum, mycerium are the best wallets for sending daily transaction.
Check on this for more details about wallets and how to secure it by Charles Tim. [How to secure wallets]
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5235930.0

Before use paper wallet you should learn how it's work. To learn about paper wallet you should google or youtube. Paper wallet is a cold wallet and it's difficult for newbei to use. If you don't learn about paper wallet working method you could lose your fund.

I'd argue most YouTube videos and articles on YouTube wouldn't even put enough emphasis on how to create a paper wallet securely. Most of the surface content will probably be 1) go to bitaddress.org and 2) print. The guides that will teach you how to use tails for the paper wallet creation would probably be buried.

You can use a paper wallet to buy for and spend bitcoins but first you'd wish to understand the thanks to using the wallet we've to be very careful to keep Bitcoin plenty of valuable currencies and money it is a light-weight, flat case that helps keep paper coins credit cards and identification papers photographs transit pass visiting cards and other paper or cards also as small personal or necessary tools. However we'll determine all the knowledge through the YouTube video  In the case of newcomers they can easily understand everything by watching videos and analyzing different sites of the forum.

Frankly, I think that what you are thinking is very bad and completely wrong because it is bad to store the money that you want to spend the next day inside the paper wallets. The paper wallets are good for storing money for long periods, so if you want to use and spend your currencies on a daily basis, it would be better to use the Internet-related wallets like the Blockchain wallet

I agree with you. It is a personal favorite and it seems we have same thoughts on Youtube videos. Tbh, I'd like to read documents in texts, on books, on websites, blogs, articles because I can mark important points or highlight them and come back to read later if I need to confirm what I remember.
I'd also like to read paper books rather than ebooks. Ebooks are great when we are moving around but if I am at home, I will use paper books.

Youtube videos are cool but somewhat such things can not helpful in some cases.

Good practice would be to buy a Ledger hardware wallet if you can afford it. Otherwise, the best option is to use an electrum SPV wallet. So you will not in risk of losing your fund due to the change address. If you aren't familiar with change address then read my thread here, What is "Change" address on bitcoin wallet? read to know! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5190841.0). Also, there is a risk to choose the best and perfect paper wallet creator.

Why going for paper wallet when we have BLOCKCHAIN, luno, and so as many bitcoin wallet out there that are safe and secure depending on your security level on any of those accounts.

Webwallets should be avoided like a plague. They are custodial and/or leave too much attack surface compared to software, hardware and cold storage wallets.

Now, OP, if you still want to have a paper wallet after reading this thread, consider creating an Electrum wallet in offline and isolated environment and write down the seed on paper. For receiving addresses, you'll have a few options - you can take them right after creating the wallet and save on your online machine or print out, or you can take you master public key, and use it on your online machine to have a watch-only wallet. This is known as a cold storage setup (https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/coldstorage.html?highlight=usb), it gives you all the benefits of paper wallet while avoiding many of the negative sides.

Don't go too far when it comes to wallet we have lots of them but my most recommended is imtoken which have been using for years Now. Also we have trust wallet and all of these can be gotten from Google Play store, just search on the names you will see them. I can still edit this post again with the links Below. ✌️

Well paper wallet is not best suited for buying/spending. I mean its ease of use is limited.
Paper wallet better suits hodling so keeping Bitcoin for longer periods of time.
Anyway you can use it how you like in the end, there are really nice looking paper wallets out there :)

both of your suggested wallets are terrible in general and specifically for someone who is looking for a bitcoin cold storage.

for starters they are both mobile wallets and this category of wallets are always far less secure than a desktop wallet.
secondly they both are token wallets first and then have some bitcoin wallet options. which means they are only good if you want to store garbage in them not bitcoin.
and finally which is the most important factor, both of these wallets are closed source so you literary have zero security when using them. (TrustWallet has some source available but not all)

Not a good suggestion & solution. Web & custodial wallet isn't a good idea to store your funds for longer. Web or custodial wallets would block or hack easily, it's not a secure way to hold your assets. Although I am using a web wallet to spend my fund temporarily, I just hold funds there less than a day and of course amount less than $250. All my big funds I hold on Electrum (although I don't have right now). So it's better to do good practice always, just use a non-custodial open-source wallet like electrum. Remember, your keys means your funds.

Mobile wallet will be a good choice for buying and selling bitcoin or other coins instantly and will be very easy to do, instead of having to use a paper wallet. But you must be careful when choosing a mobile wallet because many artificial wallets contain phishing links that will steal private keys. You can download the Blockchain mobile wallet application for Android at this link.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=piuk.blockchain.android

for iOS
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blockchain-bitcoin-wallet/id493253309?mt=8

Or make your wallet on the official blockchain website
https://www.blockchain.com/wallet