Bitcoin Forum

I am new to Bitcoin's and looking to get into them.  What is the main advice you wish someone would have told you when you started with Bitcoins?

Try using bitcoin, not "investing" in bitcoin. While one can hold BTC and may see a rise in value, the real strength of it is utility. So don't waste time and money exchanging for fiat, instead just buy stuff when you want some profit taking.

Don't take or make loans.
Don't get side tracked with alt-coins or investment schemes. They are almost always a scam.
Don't use PayPal to buy or entertain any fantastic offers. Just set up an account at an exchange in your country and after buying move your bitcoins out of the exchange immediately. 

Storing bitcoins anywhere except your machine likely means that you do not really have bitcoins. Sole control of the private must be in your hands. There may be exceptions for small amounts in an online wallet. That allows you to use your phone to buy stuff, so it may be worth a small risk.

Lastly, Know that no one on Earth knows what the price will be in 10mins., much less next week or next month. Do not listen to people telling you it will go up/down. They do not know anything more than you do. They just have a bigger mouth. 

Welcome. :)


Never ever waste time on faucets.
It took me a few days to figure out I has been wasting hours on them for earning a tiny fraction of the minimum wage...

The first and foremost thing that I'll tell u is Dont get into Alt Coin, however lucrative it seems like.

If you are thinking about investing, understand this first;
you will look at it from one angle when you buy and own them, and from another point when u sell them, and you need to be able to controll yourself about that.
And make a plan on what you are going to do , when to sell , when to rebuy, and then stick to it, dont make panic decisions

good luck

You can make a shit load of bitcoin if your good at marketing  8)

Buy then hodl

Thanks for good advice.  I will be working up to a bitcoin now.

Read all the sticky threads in this forum, especially under the Beginners section.

watch out from scams

Don't store your bitcoin on hosted wallets (exchanges/gambling sites).
Don't risk what you can't afford to lose.
Don't trust others easily.
Use escrows when possible.

Remember that the bitcointalk accounts can be bought and sold.
Don't trust even the hero members but use always escrows if you want to trade something in the market.

Do not go into mining, you would regret..

Hello! Welcome to the world of bitcoin!
There are few things you must keep in mind before you start using bitcoin. You must know the do's and don'ts of bitcoin.
Do's
1. Always back-up your wallet
2. Stay away from shady offers and sites. These offers are usually the "too good to be true" offers that may end up scamming you.
3. Invest on what you can afford to lose.

Don'ts
1. Never give your private key to others because, well, that's just a dumb move.
2. Do not try to scam others because in the end, you'll regret on doing it,
3. NEVER EVER INVEST EVERYTHING THAT YOU HAVE IN BITCOIN BECAUSE THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES THAT YOU WILL END UP RICH LIKE THE OTHERS.

There are many other advice that I can give you but some are very technical to understand that I myself am confused to some of them. Remembering the simple steps on making yourself educated is a good start on using bitcoin.

Good luck sir. :D

Secure your computer
Spend some time trying different wallets
Backup your wallet
Be careful sending money to strangers or websites
Have a look in the services section on this forum for earning

And finally, spend a lot of time on these forums, there is tons of information  :)

Trust nobody on the forum  ;)

Wise to have a read of the bitcoin wiki and learn about computer security, generating secure paper wallets etc

If possible have a dedicated pc for storing your bitcoin that's only connected to the internet when your making a transaction.

Lastly, have a good read of this forum (especially the scam accusation sub-forum) to get a heads up on all the latest scams.

Always use cold storage for large amounts of BTC. Secure it with a strong passphrase, keep backups over a few different locations. Be wary of dealing without escrows and dealing with untrusted members. Always try to use escrow for every transaction. Get a good anti virus for your computer and do regular scans. Do not download suspicious software's. Do not cloudmine, they will never ROI and can run away with your money.

Unless you mine with your main objective being to keep Bitcoin's network secure and decentralized; these kind of miners are important, or in the near future ASIC companies will represent the vast majority of Bitcoin's hashrate.

When you get into Bitcoin, look at it, as a long term investment and not a "Get rich quick scheme"

Do not panic sell, every time the price dip a little. Wait it out, and buy when the price is low. {Like with any other stock and shares you buy}

If you want to get into "mining" make sure you calculate carefully ALL options. {Cheap mining equipment, is not necessarily the best}

Do not waste your time on faucets, if you have skills or experience, you could sell for BTC.

Secure the largest portion of your BTCs in cold storage {Paper wallets}

Good luck.

Try to use bitcoin as much as possible, try to understand as much well as possible, Get a bunch of bitcoins as your long term investement but also have bitcoins to spend when you need to, don't fall for scams as a lot of people try to scam where are new innovation like BTC or e- currency, just be careful and do all these thing with bitcoin.

There's a Newbie DO'S and DONT'S thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=672936.0) which has some pretty good stuff in it, you should take a look.

The best would be to get a bitcoin app for your phone, send like 0.25 to it and try to use it as much as possible.  Get used to how the transfers go, and how quick things are verified.  Experience always is the best.

Eh phone wallet apps are not very secure at the moment.  While I would encourage people to spend Bitcoin to increase adoption, for some 0.25BTC is almost a months worth of savings.

OP should just research more before trying out small amounts to online wallet or lightweight wallets and get more experience. No newbies would immediately buy $125+ for a thing they don't have knowledge about.

they don't have knowledge about or cant afford...

Buy a few coins and put them into cold storage. Come back in a few years.

Guess I should explore bitcoins fully before thinking of altcoins,

Altcoins can be a good way to learn about cryptocurrencies actually, since transactions costs almost nothing for many of them, and they are faster.

Don't trust any one or any site to hold your bitcoin (okay, maybe there are a few exceptions like those highly trusted escrows)

Hello everybody ,

We must to take time to understand bitcoin.

You can sometimes trust others to hold your bitcoin for you if you can reasonably determine that they are trusted, however you should only allow them to hold your bitcoin for short periods of time. Just because someone is trusted today does not mean they should or would be trusted tomorrow.

Understand you already missed 2009`s btc purchase - which most have so dont stress on that too much.

Focus on short term by making money for cash then buying bitcoin when its at a low point.

On the issue of trust, make sure you go through this thread.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=33835.0

Well said.
Also, the escrows may not have prepared a "dead man's switch" and your bitcoin could be lost if something bad happens to the escrows.

Welcome aboard.  Your in for one helluva ride I can promise you that! :)

Avoid investing in scams.  And the best way to do that is to simply buy and hold.  Cold storage or an uber-secure laptop that you don't do anything but bitcoin on.  Make backups of everything, private key's, pass-phrases, etc.

*Treat your coins as you would treat your own hard earned cash and don't give it to anybody you don't know just because he has "the next big thing" and because everybody else seem's to be doing it.

1. Be careful about online safety, back up your wallet and private key.
2. Never invest more than you can afford.

Welcome You are in the jungle, full of beast and cannibal , but there are also good bros here

if it looks too good to be true, it is
If its on the TOR network don't trust it
Store your wallet and back it up
Don't trust files from the internet and scan anything dodgy looking against virustotal

TOR network only promotes anonymity, not viruses. People looking for anonymity are usually bitcoin users. Some websites host their webpage on TOR nodes so both the user and the website cannot be tracked. The internet also cannot be intercepted, promoting anonymity. Virustotal isn't always accurate. There are custom viruses that can bypass anti virus detections.

Especially don't trust any file related to cryptocurrencies. So many fake trade bots have been posted online, which actually steal the user's wallets.

Not only trade bots, there are also malware in altcoin wallets, gambling bots, etc.
So, don't download any programs without checking the code, and don't run any programs without first testing with a sandbox.

Avoid online wallets

Trust noone on this forum

Faucets are only a wast of time

Secure your computer

Don't install or execute anything untrusted

The trust no one on this forum is a bit exaggerated. Yes, you shouldn't trust all the people with neutral trust but there are a few very trusted people with high trust. Their account will not be likely to be bought. If in doubt, you can always use an escrow.

Work for FIAT, buy Bitcoin, pray that it goes up.  ::)

Besides praying, one could try to contribute to cryptocurrencies in any way he can; like by selling things for coins, or doing publicity by making people realize how cool cryptos are, or simply by being generally knowlegable about them.

And spend your bitcoins, not hoard them.