Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles In the last few weeks, bitcoin crossed 40K dollars. That's twice bigger than its 2017 peak when it turned into a bubble. If you were smart enough, you probably bought a lot of bitcoins when bitcoin crashed and was floating around 3K dollars. If you invested in bitcoin just two years ago, you could have easily grown your money by at least ten times. But the question is, how do you buy bitcoins? I get it, there are a lot of videos on the internet explaining how to buy bitcoins, but let's be honest, Most of these videos don't answer basic questions. How do I buy bitcoins safely? Where do I get my private keys? Why do I even need a private key? Where do I store my bitcoins? How do I know that it's safe? Why do they always get hacked? And a million other questions that most of these videos do not answer. So here is your step by step on how to start investing in bitcoin safely. I did my best to write this script as soon as possible, but it will take forever for this video to be published because our motion designers are going to take forever to make these cool animations. So show them some love by giving this video a thumbs up. Before you buy bitcoins, you have to find a place to store them. When you have a few hundred dollars, you can keep them in your wallet. If you have a lot of cash, you might need a safe, or you can simply keep them in a bank and use your debit card to access that cash. Cryptocurrencies work exactly the same way. But to create a wallet, you need to download the entire history of bitcoin transactions. Since it's a decentralized system that cannot be hacked, you need to have the entire history on your computer or hard disk, which you can get by going to bitcoin.org. Chose your operating system and install over 300 gigabytes of blockchain. Good luck! Once you install it on your computer, it will automatically create a file called wallet.dat, which is going to be your wallet. If you open it, you will find a randomly generated code, which is your address. If someone wants to send you bitcoins, they can do that through that address. Theoretically, you can create unlimited number of these wallets within that file. You can open that file on any computer anywhere, and your bitcoins will always be with you. No one can track you, you can travel carrying millions of bitcoins, and no one will know. And that's one of the greatest advantages of bitcoin. However, there is nothing perfect in this world. Everything comes with some strings attached. If you don't have a password on your wallet, then anyone can access it and easily steal your bitcoins, so you must always have a really strong password. But if you forget that password, there is no way you can restore your bitcoins. It's not a bank whom you can call to help you out. And that is both its advantage and disadvantage. When you use a bank, they manage your money, but in return, they have full control to your money and can even decline your transactions. But if something goes wrong, they are responsible! However, when it comes to bitcoin, no one knows how much money you have! You can send them to whomever you want, and no one can freeze your account. Your money is safe, but YOU will be managing your money now and not the bank, which means, if something goes wrong, even if you accidentally send bitcoins to the wrong person, you can't fix it. If you forget your password, there is no one you can call to help you out! If someone steals your password, you can't call the bank to block your account. You become the bank of your money, and you can't blame anyone but yourself if something goes wrong. And that's why we have 2. Online wallets Online wallets are exactly like banks for cryptos. All you have to do is sign up, and you will automatically be given an address and a private key that consists of 12 words. You can use that address to send or receive bitcoins instantly. You can download the app on your phone and start sending and receiving money with a few clicks. You don't have to download the entire history of bitcoin transitions like in the first case because that online wallet does everything for you. It's even easier than opening a bank account. But there is a catch. Everything that's easy always comes with a catch. In the first case where you had to download the entire bitcoin blockchain, you were the only one who had access to your wallet, but in the second case, the online wallet belongs to that company, and you are only given access to it exactly like banks. When you keep your money in a bank, you don't own that bank. The bank simply opens an account for you and gives you access to that account. Which means the bank theoretically can block you, freeze your account or even steal your money. But because banks are heavily regulated, at least compared to online crypto wallets, it's very unlikely that any major bank would do something like that. Unless you are going to do some shady business. And keeping your money in an online wallet is pretty similar to keeping them in a bank since that online wallet has full access to your wallet. Blockchain is definitely extremely difficult to hack, especially as the system grows bigger and bigger. However, online wallets are connected to an online server, which means hackers can hack that server, get access to user's wallets and then steal their bitcoin, which actually happened with multiple wallets such as Coincheck, , Jaxx and many others. Does that mean there is no way to store bitcoins safely? Luckily, there is! Have you ever seen bitcoin ledgers in the form of a USB drive? They look cool, aren't they? They are called hardware wallets, and they seem to be the future of cryptocurrencies. Instead of downloading the entire bitcoin blockchain or keeping your bitcoins in an online wallet that's vulnerable, you can get one of these ledgers that already has the bitcoins blockchain. Once you get one, you active it, the ledger will randomly generate a private key that consists of 12 random words. And then you have to set up a pin-code. The only way to send bitcoin is to connect that ledger to a device like a computer, enter your pin-code, and you are the only one who will have access to your private key, unlike online wallets. The most famous hardware wallet is the Ledger, which link I have left in the description. It's an affiliate link, which means we will get a few dollars if you use that link, so if you want to support us to make more similar videos, you can use that link to get your ledger. how to actually buy bitcoins Once you have determined where you want to store your bitcoins, it's time to find out how to buy bitcoins. Cryptocurrencies are traded like stocks. You need a broker that can help you to find out someone who is willing to exchange his bitcoins for a certain amount of US dollars for examples such as the Coinbase or Gemini. There are a lot of them, but these are the most trusted ones as far as I know. Again I have left an affiliate link for those who want to support us. You just have to sign up and use your bitcoin address when buying bitcoins. Pay attention to the fees because based on the method you want to use to pay for bitcoins, fees could be from a tiny percentage to a decent amount. You don't want to end up paying a fortune in fees. So pay attention to the fees. But the question is: should you use an online wallet or a hardware wallet? The answer is both! Hardware wallets are a better option if you want to buy a lot of bitcoins and hold them for a long time, while online wallets are much comfortable for day to day transactions. If you are just starting out and want to play around, start with an online wallet. If you want to get serious and want to invest heavily in cryptocurrencies, then it's much safer to spend a hundred bucks and get a ledger just to make sure that your bitcoins are safe. But remember that if you forget your private key, you will lose your bitcoins forever. A lot of enthusiasts are going to dislike this video because I have missed a lot of things and shed some light on the disadvantages of cryptos, but my job is to make sure that I present to you both the positive sides and negative sides and let you decide what you want to do. For gods sake, don't believe the scammers who are going to use our name to ask for money or scam you any other way. If I am the one who is replying to you, remember, my name will be highlighted with a tick beside it. Cryptocurrencies definitely have a future but remember that this technology is still at its early stage and has a lot of flows. That's the nature of any new technology, it will take us some time to fix all the issues, and make it both safe and easy to use. It's like the internet in the 2000s. Bitcoin price could reach 100K dollars or even 200K dollars, but it also can crash to rock bottom and worth pennies. I am not discouraging anyone but if you decide to invest in bitcoin, remember that it's a risky investment, which means, if it succeeds, you will get generously rewarded. If it doesn't, you can end up losing your entire investment. It's impossible to explain everything in a 10-minute video but I hope this video answered your major questions about how to buy bitcoins, where to store your bitcoins, and how safe these wallets are. if you want to support our channel, you can do so by using our affiliate links in the description, and remember that you can track my investments by joining my Patreon and get four free stocks from Webull if you open an account and depot 100 bucks Thanks for watching and until next time.
B1 bitcoins wallet bank online private key ledger How To Buy Bitcoin SAFELY in 2021 - Step by Step 10 1 Summer posted on 2021/02/01 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary