Getting acquainted with bitcoin to fulfill a customer credibility requirement

[DoTheGeek]

There is a service I need to use, and one of their requirements of clients is that they know how to use bitcoin. While I like the idea of bitcoin, fulfilling this requirement is really the only reason I'm learning it for the time being. In other words, I don't necessarily want to use them for anything--not at this point. I look forward to breaking into the world at some point, but right now I just really need to be able to use this service. It's unclear whether the service actually accepts bitcoin exclusively or if they just require the know-how. I likely will not be privy to this information until I have proven my credibility.

So what I need is general advice on what to do to get generally acquainted with bitcoin. I've gotten wallet application; now what do I do with it? Would someone here be willing to make a few back-and-forth transactions with me just for the experience? Thanks in advance.

[mindfulmojo]

You should check out this site...

http://usebitcoins.info/

It will give you a good knowledge of bitcoin website world...

So you can say... "Oh, so this service is kind of like so and so"

My site is listed in the free bitcoin list...

[odolvlobo]

Now that you have a wallet, you need some bitcoins.

I recommend that you sign up with Coinbase.com if you are in the U.S. You can buy bitcoins there and transfer them to your wallet. Coinbase makes it very simple. The drawback is that you have to link a bank account and it takes 5 days to receive the bitcoins (for the first 30 days).

An equally good alternative is to buy bitcoins through LocalBitcoins.com. Buy them locally with cash so that you can ask the seller questions. Depending on where you are, you could have bitcoins in a few hours. You can have the bitcoins sent directly to your wallet, but I recommend that you use the site's wallet and then transfer them to your own wallet yourself.

[DiamondCardz]

To be honest, the best way to understand bitcoin is to have some of it to play with. If you need some easy, try the links in my signature (mainly bitvegas for free Bitcoins to test stuff with). You might also want to check out http://bitcoininformation.info.

[michagogo]

If you're looking to get to know the system and try it out, you could use the testnet. Download Bitcoin-Qt, and run it with the -testnet switch. Then, you can get free testnet bitcoins from http://tpfaucet.appspot.com and/or http://testnet.mojocoin.com. These testnet coins are worthless, so you don't need to worry about wasting or losing them. Also, if you haven't already, I'd encourage you to peruse the wiki, at http://bitcoin.it, where you'll find all kinds of information all about Bitcoin. Finally, you can join the #bitcoin channel on the freenode IRC network, where you can ask any questions you might have.

[DoTheGeek]

Okay thanks for the advice everyone. I've been earning bitcoin doing tasks and whatnot.

michagogo: question: can bitcoind be run with the -testnet switch too? Because I prefer anything that can be run in command line. I don't see anything about it in the documentation though.

Also I'm afraid I can't involve myself in anything based on Minecraft, as I am starkly against it.

edit:

An equally good alternative is to buy bitcoins through LocalBitcoins.com. Buy them locally with cash so that you can ask the seller questions. Depending on where you are, you could have bitcoins in a few hours. You can have the bitcoins sent directly to your wallet, but I recommend that you use the site's wallet and then transfer them to your own wallet yourself.

This looks like my best bet. I'm trying to free myself from any transaction involving a bank, credit, etc. so the cash in-person transactions sound like what I'm looking for. Thanks!

[michagogo]

michagogo: question: can bitcoind be run with the -testnet switch too? Because I prefer anything that can be run in command line. I don't see anything about it in the documentation though.

It can indeed. Note, however, that you will need to either specify "testnet=1" in the configuration file, or use the -testnet switch on each invokation of bitcoind (assuming that you're using bitcoind to issue RPC commands).