Day 4 – Thursday, November 7th, 2013
Mister B assumed (correctly) that I would want to get my grubby hands on some Bitcoin (BTC) ASAP. I remember back a few months ago when they spiked up to around $200 each, I miraculously found this old sheet of paper, folded once, still crisp from neglect. I was trying to find out how many Bitcoin he had given me back in 2011, and how much they were worth now. I wanted to cash them, at least some of them, out so I could, you know, pay my bills.
Unfortunately, when I opened the folded sheet of paper, I had no idea what I was looking at. It was a bunch of different random coded lines and QR codes. I didn’t even know what to Google to try to figure out what it all meant. Instead, I sadly folded my unknown possible fortune back up and hid it away. There must be a simpler way, I thought.
Assignment #2 – Research How to Receive Bitcoin. Make Two Online Wallets And Send Mister B the Addresses.
My help this time:
My suggestion is to set up a coinbase.com account and a blockchain.info [wallet]. Once you have set up the wallets send me the bitcoin addresses.
Well, you can’t receive Bitcoin without a place to have them sent.
I immediately typed in coinbase.com and blockchain.info into my browser. I was both excited and a little scared, maybe paranoid. The blockchain website looked scary and confusing, so I headed to Coinbase. The first thing I noticed on Coinbase was the price of exchange. My eyes widened. It was dancing unbelievably close to $250. (I wouldn’t realize until later that Coinbase’s value charts are usually always less than other sites like the Bitcoin exchange site, Mt. Gox. To learn about Bitcoin value, read this.)
Coinbase.com is a great introductory site for people wanting to ease into the world of Bitcoin transactions. It is a type of online “wallet” for your Bitcoin account. I didn’t need any prior Bitcoin anythings — no address, no account, no nothing — to get started. I just simply signed up for an account. It is the Apple computer of internet wallet sites.
Creating An Account
Register: After you’ve entered your email address and preferred password on the homepage, waited for and then clicked on the verification link in your email, and accepted the user agreement, you are taken straight to a Transactions page where a handy Quick Start Guide can walk you through linking Coinbase to your bank account, a necessary evil to buy Bitcoin or exchange it into regular spending cash.
Link Your Bank Account: I was a little hesitant at first to be linking anything to my bank account, but I figured I would have to take th
e plunge eventually and there’s no time like the present, so… I linked both my checking and savings account via the instructions in the Buy/Sell menu link. As of now you can link a checking, savings and business checking account to the site. I was even more hesitant to link my phone number, but I realized it was also for security purposes. Adding a phone number* allows for two-factor authentication which adds an extra layer of protection against people trying to gain access to your account. You can learn more about it here.
*I actually had an annoying time getting my verification code sent to me via text. I just wasn’t receiving the texts. However, once I requested a phone call for the verification code, it was smooth sailing.
Create a Bitcoin Address: So, you can’t do much without a Bitcoin address — which should be looked at as an account number. It’s the place your Bitcoins hangout and wait to be spent or jump up and down in value. Coinbase makes creating an address super simple, so even though I had some crazy confusing address on that sheet of paper from years back (and since I had no clue how to get it inside the computer), I created a new one. That’s one of the beauties of Bitcoin — you can have as many addresses as you want. Make one for everything you do if you want, juggle as many as your nimble arms can handle, if you want. Since I’ve never been great at juggling, I decided to start with just the one.
On the left menu, under Account Settings, I clicked under the obvious tab of Bitcoin Addresses. There was a bunch of stuff on there that I ignored (like the “callback urls”) because I figured I should wait to use them until I knew what they were for. So, I settled for clicking the +Create New Address button. 
And Bam! I had a Bitcoin address. Show me the money.
If you are an organization enthusiast or generally nosey, clicking the Details button to the right of the Bitcoin address will pop open a screen that allows you to label your Bitcoin address. This is highly recommended to keep track of your accounts. No one wants to stare at a string of random letters and numbers, trying to remember which one is which.
The only weird thing I notice so far with Coinbase is that I’m not quite sure where my private key is. And this worries me. But more importantly, I copied my shiny new address into a BitMessage and patiently waited to receive my first transaction.
Update: Your private key is like the password to your address. It is required to spend your Bitcoin. You should never share this information. And unfortunately, some sites, like Coinbase, keep this information stored on their server — whether or not you create your address with them — causing your wallet to be less secure.
Learning Bitcoin: BitxBit 