Introduction and a few questions

[grampajack]

Hello, all, I'm wanting to ride the bitcoin train, and I have some questions.

So I'm looking to get set up to trade bitcoin. I do quite a bit of buying and selling on craigslist, and I thought maybe accepting bitcoin might entice some people to choose me over other offers.

The two wallets I'm looking at are Coinbase and Blockchain, as they seem to be the most commonly recommended. Coinbase seems to be more of a place to buy bitcoin rather than a wallet, is that accurate?

I'm not really interested in Ether or any of the others, so a wallet that doesn't have any of that fluff might be preferable. I just want to be able to easily pay and accept payment in bitcoin.

Second question, what's the deal with Paxful? Why would anyone pay those outrageous fees? I would prefer to use paypal rather than give up my credit card number, but I'm not paying 50% fees. Why would anyone in their right mind use those guys? Am I missing something here?

I just want to buy some bitcoin to have in my wallet so that I can pay for goods. Nothing crazy, maybe like $500.

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[sabbathhawk]

Hello, all, I'm wanting to ride the bitcoin train, and I have some questions.

So I'm looking to get set up to trade bitcoin. I do quite a bit of buying and selling on craigslist, and I thought maybe accepting bitcoin might entice some people to choose me over other offers.

The two wallets I'm looking at are Coinbase and Blockchain, as they seem to be the most commonly recommended. Coinbase seems to be more of a place to buy bitcoin rather than a wallet, is that accurate?

I'm not really interested in Ether or any of the others, so a wallet that doesn't have any of that fluff might be preferable. I just want to be able to easily pay and accept payment in bitcoin.

Second question, what's the deal with Paxful? Why would anyone pay those outrageous fees? I would prefer to use paypal rather than give up my credit card number, but I'm not paying 50% fees. Why would anyone in their right mind use those guys? Am I missing something here?

I just want to buy some bitcoin to have in my wallet so that I can pay for goods. Nothing crazy, maybe like $500.

Hello there

Yes, you are right! Coinbase is an exchange and that is not the best place to hold bitcoin. The best currently opensource wallet is breadwallet. Recommended to use
For best security you have to buy hardware wallet but that in case you'll have holdings that you are not ready to lose
No idea with Paxful

[kahc]

Hello, all, I'm wanting to ride the bitcoin train, and I have some questions.

So I'm looking to get set up to trade bitcoin. I do quite a bit of buying and selling on craigslist, and I thought maybe accepting bitcoin might entice some people to choose me over other offers.

The two wallets I'm looking at are Coinbase and Blockchain, as they seem to be the most commonly recommended. Coinbase seems to be more of a place to buy bitcoin rather than a wallet, is that accurate?

I'm not really interested in Ether or any of the others, so a wallet that doesn't have any of that fluff might be preferable. I just want to be able to easily pay and accept payment in bitcoin.

Second question, what's the deal with Paxful? Why would anyone pay those outrageous fees? I would prefer to use paypal rather than give up my credit card number, but I'm not paying 50% fees. Why would anyone in their right mind use those guys? Am I missing something here?

I just want to buy some bitcoin to have in my wallet so that I can pay for goods. Nothing crazy, maybe like $500.

Best wallet for desktop is Electrum, otherwise go for Breadwallet if you use IOS or Android devices.
Paxful is kind of a open offer trade market(just like craigslist), so stay away from that place until you get the hang of things.
As you mentioned, Coinbase and Blockchain are both safe and easy to use, great for starters.

[trifiz]

Hello, all, I'm wanting to ride the bitcoin train, and I have some questions.

So I'm looking to get set up to trade bitcoin. I do quite a bit of buying and selling on craigslist, and I thought maybe accepting bitcoin might entice some people to choose me over other offers.

The two wallets I'm looking at are Coinbase and Blockchain, as they seem to be the most commonly recommended. Coinbase seems to be more of a place to buy bitcoin rather than a wallet, is that accurate?

I'm not really interested in Ether or any of the others, so a wallet that doesn't have any of that fluff might be preferable. I just want to be able to easily pay and accept payment in bitcoin.

Second question, what's the deal with Paxful? Why would anyone pay those outrageous fees? I would prefer to use paypal rather than give up my credit card number, but I'm not paying 50% fees. Why would anyone in their right mind use those guys? Am I missing something here?

I just want to buy some bitcoin to have in my wallet so that I can pay for goods. Nothing crazy, maybe like $500.

No, coinbase and blockchain aren't good wallet, i advise you to use wallet where you hold your private keys, like breadwallet or copay
If you wanna buy by credit card use coinbase, but the fee is 4%

[grampajack]

Hello, all, I'm wanting to ride the bitcoin train, and I have some questions.

So I'm looking to get set up to trade bitcoin. I do quite a bit of buying and selling on craigslist, and I thought maybe accepting bitcoin might entice some people to choose me over other offers.

The two wallets I'm looking at are Coinbase and Blockchain, as they seem to be the most commonly recommended. Coinbase seems to be more of a place to buy bitcoin rather than a wallet, is that accurate?

I'm not really interested in Ether or any of the others, so a wallet that doesn't have any of that fluff might be preferable. I just want to be able to easily pay and accept payment in bitcoin.

Second question, what's the deal with Paxful? Why would anyone pay those outrageous fees? I would prefer to use paypal rather than give up my credit card number, but I'm not paying 50% fees. Why would anyone in their right mind use those guys? Am I missing something here?

I just want to buy some bitcoin to have in my wallet so that I can pay for goods. Nothing crazy, maybe like $500.

Best wallet for desktop is Electrum, otherwise go for Breadwallet if you use IOS or Android devices.
Paxful is kind of a open offer trade market(just like craigslist), so stay away from that place until you get the hang of things.
As you mentioned, Coinbase and Blockchain are both safe and easy to use, great for starters.

So what would possess anyone to pay those fees? Hell, I don't think money laundering fees are even that high. It's like these people think they're the bitcoin mafia or something.

[SrEasts]

Buy the bitcoins from coinbase and then store them on proper wallet like others said above so you're the one in control of your own money.

[grampajack]

Buy the bitcoins from coinbase and then store them on proper wallet like others said above so you're the one in control of your own money.

Is there any way to get around the 4% fee? I would preferably like to use paypal or a prepaid credit card. I'm not quite sure about giving my actual credit card to them. I thought that was the whole appeal of Bitcoin was the anonymity.

[kahc]

Buy the bitcoins from coinbase and then store them on proper wallet like others said above so you're the one in control of your own money.

Is there any way to get around the 4% fee? I would preferably like to use paypal or a prepaid credit card. I'm not quite sure about giving my actual credit card to them. I thought that was the whole appeal of Bitcoin was the anonymity.

Bank transfer(SEPA) is cheapest, I can't think of any exchanges that don't charge high fees on debit/credit card.
Another place that I know of that accept paypal is localbitcoins.com, but it's a open trade market, same as Paxful, so the seller can adjust the prices as wanted. Also, there is higher probability of getting scammed when dealing with seller 1-on-1.

And no, you won't be anonymous if you buy bitcoin with traceable payment methods.
There are ways that can make you more anonymous, examples:

• Meet with seller face-to-face and pay with cash.
• Tumble your bitcoin using multiple tumbling services.
• or Tumble through privacy cryptocurrencies like Monero(XMR).

+ at the same time make sure your true IP is not associated with any of those wallets.

[grampajack]

So if I'm using breadwallet and my phone dies or gets lost or whatever, does that mean my bitcoin are gone?

[jekjekman]

Hello, all, I'm wanting to ride the bitcoin train, and I have some questions.

So I'm looking to get set up to trade bitcoin. I do quite a bit of buying and selling on craigslist, and I thought maybe accepting bitcoin might entice some people to choose me over other offers.

The two wallets I'm looking at are Coinbase and Blockchain, as they seem to be the most commonly recommended. Coinbase seems to be more of a place to buy bitcoin rather than a wallet, is that accurate?

Coinbase.com and Blockchain.info is indeed well trusted wallet since it was created and started to serve the community and it is considered as an online wallet meaning you don't hold your own private keys so if there is any Hard Fork that will happen in the future you will not be entitled in getting free coins from that specific Hard Fork.

I'm not really interested in Ether or any of the others, so a wallet that doesn't have any of that fluff might be preferable. I just want to be able to easily pay and accept payment in bitcoin.

Second question, what's the deal with Paxful? Why would anyone pay those outrageous fees? I would prefer to use paypal rather than give up my credit card number, but I'm not paying 50% fees. Why would anyone in their right mind use those guys? Am I missing something here?

I just want to buy some bitcoin to have in my wallet so that I can pay for goods. Nothing crazy, maybe like $500.

You can try Electrum for a Desktop wallet that you will hold your own private keys and store it in your own computer if you really want a convenient local wallet of yours. Paxful is a platform of a buy and sell of different kind of giftcards, freebies, etc.. that accepts Bitcoin as a payment, some of them really put a big fees but they will be more trusted if they done than I think it is more convenient to use your credit card to buy straight Bitcoin instead of putting it on PayPal, you can buy Bitcoin with coinbase using your credit card though.

[grampajack]

So with Breadwallet I will be holding my own private keys, which means if my phone dies then my Bitcoin is gone. But if I hold my own keys, then I get free coins if there's a fork in the blockchain? How does that work?

And with Blockchain, I do not hold my own keys, which means if my computer dies I do not lose my coins, but I do not get free coins if there's a fork. If I'm only holding a few hundred dollars at a time, is not getting free coins going to be a serious amount of money?

Is this stuff really as complicated as it seems?

[Agetan]

Blockchain is my prefer and i will suggest you to try it. Coinbase just like other exchanger, if you to store bitcoin without trading just save it in blockchain.info

[grampajack]

So what's stopping a person from buying bitcoin on coinbase and then selling them for nearly double on Paxful???

[HabBear]

The two wallets I'm looking at are Coinbase and Blockchain, as they seem to be the most commonly recommended. Coinbase seems to be more of a place to buy bitcoin rather than a wallet, is that accurate?

Coinbase is a place to buy bitcoin (an exchange) and a wallet...it's not more of one than the other, it's equally the same thing. Coinbase is pretty good, just know that their customer service is challenging at times. So if you have an issue you might struggle to get it resolved. I've had good service with them, but others here have not been so fortunate.

[kahc]

So with Breadwallet I will be holding my own private keys, which means if my phone dies then my Bitcoin is gone. But if I hold my own keys, then I get free coins if there's a fork in the blockchain? How does that work?

And with Blockchain, I do not hold my own keys, which means if my computer dies I do not lose my coins, but I do not get free coins if there's a fork. If I'm only holding a few hundred dollars at a time, is not getting free coins going to be a serious amount of money?

Is this stuff really as complicated as it seems?

Yes, with Electrum or Breadwallet you will have full control over your own private key(s). Is really easy and practical once you have done it once. Also it is considered good practice to backup those private key(s) (for example to KeePass) or you can backup the encrypted wallet(with a strong password of course) to your dropbox/cloud.
Blockchain is also a single point of failure, if their server gets hacked you are fucked.

When forks occur you will get 1:1 amount. So if you have 1 BTC you will also get 1 of the new forked coin.
But don't worry too much, the Segwit2X fork is deemed to fail, even if rouge miners decide to fork it.  

So what's stopping a person from buying bitcoin on coinbase and then selling them for nearly double on Paxful???

The price is not regulated, so it can be set as high as the seller wants. But really, I don't think that many people are willingly to pay double of market price, unless the their funds came from shady business.

[grampajack]

So with Breadwallet I will be holding my own private keys, which means if my phone dies then my Bitcoin is gone. But if I hold my own keys, then I get free coins if there's a fork in the blockchain? How does that work?

And with Blockchain, I do not hold my own keys, which means if my computer dies I do not lose my coins, but I do not get free coins if there's a fork. If I'm only holding a few hundred dollars at a time, is not getting free coins going to be a serious amount of money?

Is this stuff really as complicated as it seems?

Yes, with Electrum or Breadwallet you will have full control over your own private key(s). Is really easy and practical once you have done it once. Also it is considered good practice to backup those private key(s) (for example to KeePass) or you can backup the encrypted wallet(with a strong password of course) to your dropbox/cloud.
Blockchain is also a single point of failure, if their server gets hacked you are fucked.

When forks occur you will get 1:1 amount. So if you have 1 BTC you will also get 1 of the new forked coin.
But don't worry too much, the Segwit2X fork is deemed to fail, even if rouge miners decide to fork it.  

So what's stopping a person from buying bitcoin on coinbase and then selling them for nearly double on Paxful???

The price is not regulated, so it can be set as high as the seller wants. But really, I don't think that many people are willingly to pay double of market price, unless the their funds came from shady business.

Wait, so everyone doubles their bitcoins every time there's a fork? How often are there forks?

Yea, that was my thought, was that anyone willing to pay nearly double must be laundering money.

[kahc]

So with Breadwallet I will be holding my own private keys, which means if my phone dies then my Bitcoin is gone. But if I hold my own keys, then I get free coins if there's a fork in the blockchain? How does that work?

And with Blockchain, I do not hold my own keys, which means if my computer dies I do not lose my coins, but I do not get free coins if there's a fork. If I'm only holding a few hundred dollars at a time, is not getting free coins going to be a serious amount of money?

Is this stuff really as complicated as it seems?

Yes, with Electrum or Breadwallet you will have full control over your own private key(s). Is really easy and practical once you have done it once. Also it is considered good practice to backup those private key(s) (for example to KeePass) or you can backup the encrypted wallet(with a strong password of course) to your dropbox/cloud.
Blockchain is also a single point of failure, if their server gets hacked you are fucked.

When forks occur you will get 1:1 amount. So if you have 1 BTC you will also get 1 of the new forked coin.
But don't worry too much, the Segwit2X fork is deemed to fail, even if rouge miners decide to fork it.  

So what's stopping a person from buying bitcoin on coinbase and then selling them for nearly double on Paxful???

The price is not regulated, so it can be set as high as the seller wants. But really, I don't think that many people are willingly to pay double of market price, unless the their funds came from shady business.

Wait, so everyone doubles their bitcoins every time there's a fork? How often are there forks?

Yea, that was my thought, was that anyone willing to pay nearly double must be laundering money.

Won't double BTC, because the new forked coin isn't valuated the same as BTC.
There have been quite a few bitcoin forks, but only Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold have been successful so far. The latest fork that was supposed to happen was SegWit2X, but it failed yesterday because of buggy codes and lack of community support.
There may be upcoming forks in the future, but no one knows, since we haven't heard anything from developers.

[coat47]

Don’t deposit a lot of money in the exchange like coinbase, kraken etc. (I prefer kraken)
Of course the definition of a lot money vary according to people. Once you've bought your coins, transfer it to an wallet that
you own private keys like Electrum or Breadwallet for btc, or Myetherwallet for eth and other token ERC20. Be carefull with the address. It’s https://www.myetherwallet.com/
Sometimes even if you use google search, you have in first link a fake address.
I always use the bookmark. When you will have a lot of coin, the good idea it’s to buy a ledger nano.