Have Wallet, Will Buy, over the counter

[robertbruce]

heya' all, first post and a many thanks to the masters and mods and posts here.

I have some technical questions about buying btc. Some of the goals of these questions are to familiarise myself with btc in its different methods including buying from different sources using different methods.

From spending a tonne of time through these and other pages my best option atm is to hold. I'm prolly a bit late for mining on my sons old 2GBgpu SLi rig although I may still do that just for the exercise.

I am using paper-wallets

Question 1.
Am I correct thinking when I buy over the counter in Australia I only need to take in my public wallet address?

Question 2.
My printer has run out of ink, how do i take my PK in now? (I would rather spend money on bc than ink)

Question 3
I have several wallets saved on a usb and i have several public key address from the first usb's wallets saved on a separate usb. I did this with a live disk on a machine that is not used for internet, has no network connections. Do i take the usb text file for otc transactions? I could also save the QR code as an image on the usb but this seems to involved using graphic programs and so forth...

Question 4
Even if i had ink and printed the wallet it would print with the private key. How do i go about trusting when handing that over to a teller or atm and keeping the pk key hidden?

many thanks for any help... i feel im not "getting this" but can see how some ink would be beneficial...

[robertbruce]

heya' all, first post and a many thanks to the masters and mods and posts here.

It's five hours later, another "Thanks" to you all, from reading here i've slowly got my head around it...

I have some technical questions about buying btc. Some of the goals of these questions are to familiarise myself with btc in its different methods including buying from different sources using different methods.

OK, so I jumped into the deep end of mining, then climbed up the learning curve of wallets and I can see the view a lot better now...

From spending a tonne of time through these and other pages my best option atm is to hold. I'm prolly a bit late for mining on my sons old 2GBgpu SLi rig although I may still do that just for the exercise.

yep, that is still on the cards

I am using paper-wallets

probably the safest way to go...

Question 1.
Am I correct thinking when I buy over the counter in Australia I only need to take in my public wallet address?

Yes, probably, maybe, perhaps... it depends on how you buy OTC.
You cannot buy them directly from a bank or WU (almost anymore) but more likely you can depoist funds to an account of an escrew, trader or local person even. Once they confirm the cash transaction they will then send the BTC to the public bitcoin address portion of your wallet you have made previously. To check your btc is going through, you can check online.
Trusting the merchant is essential. Sometimes a merchant requires that you have an account with them, be aware of the ones that don't allow you your private keys.
When you buy from a merchant that requires an account don't leave the coin in your merchant wallet. Create some paper wallets and use the merchants interface to send them to you paper wallet.

Question 2.
My printer has run out of ink, how do i take my PK in now? (I would rather spend money on bc than ink)

Get some ink! orrrr rip the defunct sim and disable all networking on that old smart phone of mine and copy one of the paper wallets over then use that phone to display the QR code when I need to do that. Including when I need to do it online to blockchain.info wallet.

Question 3
I have several wallets saved on a usb and i have several public key address from the first usb's wallets saved on a separate usb. I did this with a live disk on a machine that is not used for internet, has no network connections. Do i take the usb text file for otc transactions? I could also save the QR code as an image on the usb but this seems to involved using graphic programs and so forth...

see question 2

Question 4
Even if i had ink and printed the wallet it would print with the private key. How do i go about trusting when handing that over to a teller or atm and keeping the pk key hidden?

using 3rd partys there will always be the element of trust involved. There are some stayers and Im prolly not going to be that active trading them or anything

many thanks for any help... i feel im not "getting this" but can see how some ink would be beneficial...

Get my stake, recover, then look at bitcoin core...sure, it's a huge download involved but it seems to be getting into the essential spirit of the whole thing...

[HabBear]

Question 1.
Am I correct thinking when I buy over the counter in Australia I only need to take in my public wallet address?

Yes, give the public key (address) to the person or entity whom you are buying the Bitcoin from.

Question 2.
My printer has run out of ink, how do i take my PK in now? (I would rather spend money on bc than ink)

You go to the store and buy your printer more ink! A bit of joking here, but do you already have your private key? If so, you'll only need it when you want to send your bitcoin to another address (owned by you or someone else). If you're trying to print out your paper wallet now you'll need to have ink in the printer to print the private key clearly on the paper wallet. If you don't want to buy an ink cartridge can you go to a library or friends house to print it out?

Question 3
I have several wallets saved on a usb and i have several public key address from the first usb's wallets saved on a separate usb. I did this with a live disk on a machine that is not used for internet, has no network connections. Do i take the usb text file for otc transactions? I could also save the QR code as an image on the usb but this seems to involved using graphic programs and so forth...

The QR code image is really all you need to receive funds, but that depends on the technology used by the person sending you the bitcoin. If they can read a QR code you're all good. If they can't you'll need to give them the public key. But you don't need to use the txt file unless you don't have your public key written down some where...in which case you'd access the txt file with the public key, copy the public key, and paste in the email or bitcoin payment request form (depends on how you're trying to receive the payment)

Question 4
Even if i had ink and printed the wallet it would print with the private key. How do i go about trusting when handing that over to a teller or atm and keeping the pk key hidden?

Whoa, important question. When you print out that wallet you should be able to split/separate the private key portion from the public key portion. If so, you keep the private key portion stored safely somewhere. If you cannot separate the private key with the public key you keep this entire paper wallet safely somewhere and just write down your public key in a separate place for use with incoming transactions.

[odolvlobo]

Am I correct thinking when I buy over the counter in Australia I only need to take in my public wallet address?

In order to receive bitcoins from someone, you must give them a bitcoin address (I believe that is what you mean by "public wallet address").

My printer has run out of ink, how do i take my PK in now? (I would rather spend money on bc than ink)

You can write it down on a piece of paper, but entering a bitcoin address by hand is a pain.
You can take a photo of the QR code and let the sender scan the photo.

I have several wallets saved on a usb and i have several public key address from the first usb's wallets saved on a separate usb. I did this with a live disk on a machine that is not used for internet, has no network connections. Do i take the usb text file for otc transactions? I could also save the QR code as an image on the usb but this seems to involved using graphic programs and so forth...

If you store the bitcoin addresses (I believe that is what you mean by "public key addresses") on a USB stick, then a person sending you bitcoins could copy/paste one of those addresses.

Even if i had ink and printed the wallet it would print with the private key. How do i go about trusting when handing that over to a teller or atm and keeping the pk key hidden?

Do not carry the private keys around with you. You must protect them. If you lose a private key, you lose the bitcoins stored at its address. If someone gains a private key, they can take the bitcoins at its address.

[robertbruce]

If you cannot separate the private key with the public key

many thanks for your post HB.... Separating the keys is one of the things that tricked me up. That old lappy and old live disk i used where so old thier pdf formating could not keep up with the bitaddress.org script. As a result, to seperate them I was going to have jigsaw cut my way through them and I kept thinking, "nahhh, this can't be right, i've done something wrong". Iv'e now revisited bitaddress and can see proper formating from the script so im going to have to update that live disk to something a bit more current. Thanks for posting, it has helped....

[robertbruce]

You can write it down on a piece of paper, but entering a bitcoin address by hand is a pain.

i've been trying to avoid writing it down by hand, my hand is a bit gummy being sligtly carpal....
What are you thoughts keeping stuff on an old smart phone that's been diconnected from it's networks? Not with a apps, just the print-notes and possible a spreadsheet to keep stuff organised....even if it was stolen, the thief is very unlikely to able to use any of the docs on it...
thank-you for our post, it has been a help....