Hi everyone,
Thank you for all the helpful suggestions, information and advice. I should have, perhaps, mentioned my reasoning when I first posted here. Since I didn't let me correct that now.
Background StartsI am a business owner, in the Caribbean. My customers, however are not restricted to the Caribbean, but come from as far away as Europe (Germany, Denmark, The UK), Australia, China, and New Zealand, and as close as Barbados, Jamaica, US Virgin Islands. For all that, we are still a small company and for what we do, we have no real wish to grow too much more.
I am now getting into a venture with my brother that will require a hefty investment of cash, in excess of U$500k. This is actually something that is actually a "no-brainer". However, before spending that kind of money, we realised that certain requirements had to be met. The foremost of those was for one of us get travel to the states and get trained to handle the machinery that we are going to buy. By "handle the machinery" I mean, learn how to take them apart, put them together and make sure they run as good as before. Learn about the weak and trouble spots, and how to anticipate what might go wrong and prepare for it.
All that takes time and so we decided that I can have an assistant manager, become a manager (I've known her for over 20 years) and she'll run my business while I try to bend my old half century brain into learning something new.
In the last 18 months or so, a number of customers, here in the Caribbean, but also from the US and Europe and Asia, have been asking me about Bitcoins.Some wanted to know more about them and how to use them, some asked if I accept payment. They all say that since I'm an IT person, I would be able to explain it to them and if necessary set-up the "system" in their businesses, some suggested that it's something I should be using, since it would drastically cut down on overheads incurred when transferring money.
So my educational trip to the US has just been expanded. I did a lot of reading and watching of documentaries (The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin) and came to the conclusion that the only real way to understand how Bitcoin works and can be used is to actually use it myself.
Background EndsMy thinking is that after spending about 12 or so months using Bitcoins in different places, situations, for buying or selling services, goods and whatever, I should have a decent grounding, enough so, to be able to explain to my customers how it works and the advantages and disadvantages of this currency. If this goes as well as I am hoping, I would later like to offer accepting payment from customers at both, my current and future business, and help those customers who are interested in offering their customers the extra service of accepting payment in Bitcoins.
My original question about the different wallets stems from previous experience, when my cell pone was stolen. I did have it long enough for me to have installed Android Device Manager and so could kill it. I woud think that everyone knows that once the phone is gone, the chances of getting it back are lower than low. Hence my question about having my Bitcoins (perhaps, as some have suggested, not all of them) on my cell phone, and the rest or all of them saved/stored/backed-up else where. That else where would be my Linux PC back in the Caribbean. However I was interested to find out that there were other possibilities, not least paper (I'm an old timer, one of them who still appreciate and know the value of paper
) and Trezor.
I hope knowing a bit of the background that lead to my question, helps you in educating me in this area.
I really do appreciate all of you, who have posted here and I look forward to learning more from you.
Thank you very much.