Explain to newbie how to transfer money to someone in Ukraine with bitcoin

[Fred99999]

I know nothing about bitcoin.

I've been trying to find a way to transfer money to a friend in the Ukraine.  I am in the U.S.

So far, everything I've tried, Western Union, Moneygram, Wise, PayPal, prepaid debit cards, has hit some roadblock.

I'm going to try to figure it out on my own.  But if anyone can give a simple step-by-step description of the procedure, I'd appreciate it.  Thanks.

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[OmegaStarScream]

I'll try to keep this as simple as possible:

1. Use an exchange to buy bitcoin. Since you're from the U.S, I would suggest you use Coinbase[1]
2. You then have one of the two options:

 a) If your friend needs the bitcoin, then you should ask him to install Electrum[2] and to give you his receiving address.
 b) If he wants to convert the BTC to fiat (UAH) then you ask him to make an account in KUNA[2] (a Ukrainian exchange)

3. Withdraw Bitcoin from your Coinbase account to either his Kuna's or Electrum's receiving address.
4. If he went with (b) then he can sell the BTC for his local currency.

[1] https://www.coinbase.com/buy-bitcoin
[2] https://electrum.org/#download
[3] https://kuna.io/en/

[Fred99999]

Thank you OmegaStarScream!

So...to do the actual transfer, I'm guessing that after he creates an account in KUNA, he lets me know his account number, and then there's some option in Coinbase for transferring the Bitcoin to him?   (Again, I obviously know nothing about Bitcoin or how it works.)

[OmegaStarScream]

Thank you OmegaStarScream!

So...to do the actual transfer, I'm guessing that after he creates an account in KUNA, he lets me know his account number, and then there's some option in Coinbase for transferring the Bitcoin to him?   (Again, I obviously know nothing about Bitcoin or how it works.)

Yes. He shouldn't give you the account number though, the bitcoin address is what you need.

Once he makes an account and verifies his identity, he should head to the assets tab and then choose "Deposit" for Bitcoin. I just made an account, here's what the deposit page looks like[1]

Note: I never used the platform myself so I really can't vouch for them but they look legit based on what I read online. I encourage you to do more research about them.

And If you want to know more about the platform (payment methods, etc.) you can reach out to the team from here[2].

[1] https://i.imgur.com/IO0cQTf.png
[2] https://support.kuna.io/en/support/solutions

[Findingnemo]

Thank you OmegaStarScream!

So...to do the actual transfer, I'm guessing that after he creates an account in KUNA, he lets me know his account number, and then there's some option in Coinbase for transferring the Bitcoin to him?   (Again, I obviously know nothing about Bitcoin or how it works.)

If your friend actually needs bitcoin and don't want to convert into fiat then ask him to create a wallet in Electrum then simply ask him to send his address then you send Bitcoin from your coinbase account. You also need to pay the transaction fee since you're making transaction from an exchange then you no need to worry they will charge whatever they want and send the remaining to the destination address.

[Fred99999]

Thank you Findingnemo.

Question:  My friend has an account in something called advcash and I know his account number (wallet).  But when I tried to register on that site, I couldn't because it said that Advcash is not allowed for U.S. citizens.  But would I be able to send Bitcoin from my Coinbase account to his advcash account?  Or would I be prohibited from doing that because I'm a U.S. citizen?

[Findingnemo]

Thank you Findingnemo.

Question:  My friend has an account in something called advcash and I know his account number (wallet).  But when I tried to register on that site, I couldn't because it said that Advcash is not allowed for U.S. citizens.  But would I be able to send Bitcoin from my Coinbase account to his advcash account?  Or would I be prohibited from doing that because I'm a U.S. citizen?

If you can't register there then you won't be able to send money as well but if you can find someone in LBC which is peer to peer trading platform then you can sell your bitcoin for advcash but I didn't really know anything about advcash I can't comment whether people can convert them into fiat or can receive it from other countries.

[OmegaStarScream]

Thank you Findingnemo.

Question:  My friend has an account in something called advcash and I know his account number (wallet).  But when I tried to register on that site, I couldn't because it said that Advcash is not allowed for U.S. citizens.  But would I be able to send Bitcoin from my Coinbase account to his advcash account?  Or would I be prohibited from doing that because I'm a U.S. citizen?

It should be possible. It's the same concept I explained above with KUNA. You should withdraw the funds from your Coinbase wallet to his Advcash deposit/receiving address.

You won't be able to use "account number" because that's only meant for users using the same service (Kuna to Kuna) or (Advcash to Advcash).

[DannyHamilton]

Thank you Findingnemo.

Question:  My friend has an account in something called advcash and I know his account number (wallet).  But when I tried to register on that site, I couldn't because it said that Advcash is not allowed for U.S. citizens.  But would I be able to send Bitcoin from my Coinbase account to his advcash account?  Or would I be prohibited from doing that because I'm a U.S. citizen?

The following is presented as general education on the use of Bitcoin and steps to consider to avoid loss of funds. Note, however, that if you are using Bitcoin to attempt to circumvent some restriction that is specifically intended to prevent the transfer of funds between the two of you, then doing so could potentially be considered "money laundering" in whatever jurisdiction you are currently in.  Since you have now posted in a public forum that you are attempting to accomplish this task, you have increased the probability that law enforcement officers may search you out and that you could be prosecuted.  As such, it is only advisable that you continue in this effort if you are either certain that you are not attempting to circumvent a law or that you are comfortable with the risk you are taking.

That being said:

If AdvCash is a legitimate service, and not a scam, (I don't know much about them) and if AdvCash provides a Bitcoin receiving address for your friend, then yes, you should be able to send Bitcoins from Coinbase to AdvCash.  Coinbase doesn't generally know anything about who or what service owns any particular bitcoin address. As far as they are concerned, a bitcoin address is a bitcoin address. As long as it is a valid bitcoin address, Coinbase should be able to send the transaction.

Note that if the bitcoin address is known to be associated with some criminal activity, then it is possible that Coinbase might refuse to send the bitcoins to the address.  Furthermore, if Coinbase does send the bitcoins and it turns out that AdvCash is a scam, then there is nothing that Coinbase will be able to do to recover the funds once they are sent.

Also, it is very important that the address you send to is the exact correct address.  If your friend has any malware on his computer or phone, or if you have any malware on your computer or phone, then it is possible for that malware during any copy&paste operation to substitute in a replacement bitcoin address that is not the one for your friend's AdvCash account. Double check with your friend and make sure that the address that you enter into Coinbase to send to is for certain the address that your friend sees in his AdvCash account.

[Fred99999]

OmegaStarScream, or anyone:

OK, I've created a Coinbase account, funded it, and bought a small amount of bitcoin as a test.  

Although I know my friend's advcash account number, I don't really know how to send to it.  In other words I'm not sure I know the proper syntax or whatever so that it actually goes to his advcash account.

I do know the reference code for the bitcoin that I bought.  If I send the reference code to my friend, can he then take it from there?  i.e. transfer it to his account?  The reference code is only 8 characters, alphanumeric.


DannyHamilton,

Thank you for your post.  I am absolutely positively not trying to do anything illegal.  All I’m trying to do is to send a friend money during an extreme emergency, to potentially save some lives.  

If I could have accomplished that via Western Union, Moneygram, Wise, PayPal, prepaid debit cards, etc., I would have, but there were problems with all of them.  If I could have feasibly just sent cash or a personal check, or done it anyway I’ve heard of or am familiar with, I would have.

Briefly, the Western Union website required me to choose a source currency and a receiver currency, apparently made the conversion, but when I entered my friend’s bank card number, it gave me a “currencies don’t match” error and would go no further.  I spent an unbelievably long time on that, including chatting with a customer service rap who was useless.

With moneygram, I gave it all the info I had about my friend and his account, but it wanted more obscure info that I didn’t have.  So that’s at a stalemate for now.

Wise asked me to take a picture of my ID and myself, something that seemed odd to me at the time since I don’t remember any online financial institution asking me to do that.  Nevertheless, I was willing to do it, but there was a webpage where I was supposed to select to have an email sent to me, which I did.  The email contained a “verify my ID” button, but selecting it only took me back to the aforementioned webpage asking me to have an email sent to me.  i.e. an infinite loop.

And I looked into prepaid debit cards (like e-giftcards) but apparently they’re generally good in the U.S. only.  There are supposedly some limited exceptions, but I couldn’t jump through the hoops.

I had never heard of advcash before yesterday, but from what I’ve seen so far, it doesn’t appear to be anything shady, but rather a legitimate site, but for Europeans only.  I could be wrong.  But at this point, I’m not positive about plugging the advcash account number into Coinbase’s Send function, and I don’t want to send it to the wrong place or oblivion.

When this is all over, I'm sure I'll realize that I "should have" just done "this, this and this," but right now, it's like trying to find all my classes and locker on the first day of high school, but worse.


Update:  I think it worked!  

My recipient created a wallet and sent me an address, which was a long alphanumeric string of characters.

Thank you all for your help.

I'm a little confused as to whether I need to get/download a wallet, or whether I have have a built-in wallet in Coinbase that will be sufficient.  In any event, I haven't yet been able to see what the address for my wallet is.  

[Findingnemo]

Update:  I think it worked! 

My recipient created a wallet and sent me an address, which was a long alphanumeric string of characters.

Thank you all for your help.

I'm a little confused as to whether I need to get/download a wallet, or whether I have have a built-in wallet in Coinbase that will be sufficient.  In any event, I haven't yet been able to see what the address for my wallet is. 

If you're going to send bitcoin to his address you can do this from the exchange itself because moving btc to wallet then moving again to his wallet is extra task which will consume more time and transaction fee. But make sure coinbase doesn't prohibit the transactions to third party since I gave up using coinbase years ago because they literally sucks.

[Darker45]

Update:  I think it worked! 

My recipient created a wallet and sent me an address, which was a long alphanumeric string of characters.

Thank you all for your help.

I'm a little confused as to whether I need to get/download a wallet, or whether I have have a built-in wallet in Coinbase that will be sufficient.  In any event, I haven't yet been able to see what the address for my wallet is. 

You don't need to. I guess what you have right now is a Coinbase.com account since you made your purchase there. You have a wallet there. You may decide to keep it this way. It's just that your funds kept in Coinbase.com is not under your full control. They are in custody of it. Whereas, if you decide to get a Coinbase Wallet, you have the full control of your funds. It is a non-custodial wallet where you and you alone own the private keys. Just make sure that you keep private your seed phrase.

Anyway, look for the deposit or the receive button. It will be where your address is.

[Distinctin]

My recipient created a wallet and sent me an address, which was a long alphanumeric string of characters.

Just want to add, make sure you know how to verify if the transaction went through, normally at least 1 confirmation is needed for the bitcoin you are transacting to reflect in your recipient wallet.

you can use this site to verify; https://www.blockchain.com/btc/blocks
just input the address and search.

[m2017]

I know nothing about bitcoin.

I've been trying to find a way to transfer money to a friend in the Ukraine.  I am in the U.S.

So far, everything I've tried, Western Union, Moneygram, Wise, PayPal, prepaid debit cards, has hit some roadblock.

I'm going to try to figure it out on my own.  But if anyone can give a simple step-by-step description of the procedure, I'd appreciate it.  Thanks.

Studying info about bitcoin in a hurry is not the best solution. Should have prepared for this ahead of time. But if it happened this way and there is no other option, then in the process of practical actions I recommend carefully checking everything, like your friend's bitcoin address.

Above you have already been given a list of possible solutions to your problem. On my own behalf, send the minimum amount first. Let it be as a test, in case you or your friend make a mistake somewhere. This is how you avoid loss.

p.s. You are a true friend, if you don't forget about him in difficult times and try to help.

[Smartvirus]

~snipe~

You know of recent whole using my local bank app to send money for a new account, I got a warning that stated the non refundable nature of my transaction and to ensure I'm transacting with the right account number and amount. It was cool but that's fiat.

On another account, the difficulty you go through now in trying to send funds to your friend is one thing that makes bitcoin unique. In one smooth move if you've got coin in your wallet, your friend is sure to be credited with the right fee.

All have been said already to ensure a successful transaction but I'll like to issue a note of warning.
Let this friend not be someone you just met online and have come to call a friend. That's how scammers come to gain your trust as a friend and eventually scam you. Tred carefully!

[Fred99999]

Thank you SmartVirus, if I'm allowed to thank you.

I had 2 posts deleted by moderators.  One was just a very short post saying how things turned out and thanking everyone for their comments.  That was bizarrely censored for being off topic.

The other was a response to the person who warned about doing anything illegal, in which I, in self-defense, said that I have no intent to do anything illegal and haven't. 

Sorry, I don't mean to break forum rules, no matter how unexpected or strict.

[pooya87]

I had 2 posts deleted by moderators.

They weren't exactly deleted, if you look at your previous post you will see them there. Those separate posts were consecutive so they were merged into one post by a moderator (you can see the last edit).

Next time when you want to reply to multiple posts, do it in one comment instead of multiple.

[tranthidung]

[2] https://electrum.org/#download

Electrum is a SPV (Simplified Payment Verification) wallet which is light in terms of storage. It's good to use if people don't have much priority on privacy.

Not only with Electrum but also with any wallet, don't trust, verify.

• [GUIDE] How to Safely Download and Verify Electrum. Newbies should read it to know how to verify Electrum in Mac or Windows. Newbies often don't care about verify wallet but it is very risky. For their safety, verify first, use wallet later.
• Recommended wallets. For advanced users, they can use Wasabi wallet

[GeorgeJohn]

This my advice is addition to what other's has rendered, since you find difficult to send money to the person and actually you have discovered a means to transfer or send the user money through Bitcoin wallet, since you don't know how to transfer funds to the person in questions, you can as well tell him to create Bitcoin wallet or USDT wallet by downloading binance app, then after doing that, you can look for bitcoiner and fund the person to fund exactly the amount of fiat currency value to the values of bitcoin it can purchase to the person in question you want to send to 

[Fred99999]

Thank you pooya87.  Glad to know my posts weren't deleted.  Something about this led me to believe they were: https://ibb.co/02DgNhp

Thank you everyone for all the other suggestions.  I'm starting to think that, if I use Bitcoin Wallet, then I don't really need to use Coinbase?  I have nothing against Coinbase, other than that they put a limit on my bitcoin purchasing and were unable to tell me if it was a "per day" limit or an account balance limit.  Other than that, it seemed fine, but I have nothing to compare it to yet.