How to Send Bitcoin to a Wallet

October 22, 2017 flippener 3 Comments

Online Platforms and Wallets

Once you’ve bought Bitcoin on a cryptocurrency exchange or other online platform it is advisable to transfer it to your own wallet.

If the currency has low value then you could take a chance and leave it online, but there are three risks to be aware of:

The exchange could collapse (it has happened before, e.g. Mt Gox).
You can’t get access to your currency as fast as you need it (e.g. to sell in a falling market). Currently Poloniex can take 24 hours for a withdrawal to go through, Bitfinex 12 hours.
The exchange gets hacked and a third party withdraws your Bitcoin.

Here we’ll cover the process of moving your Bitcoin from an online platform to your own wallet. It will be similar on most platforms and wallets – here we’ll assume:

Bitcoin has been purchased on Coinbase and is sitting in your Coinbase account as described in How to Buy Your First Bitcoin on Coinbase.

You want to move it to your personal Electrum wallet, created as described in How to Make a Bitcoin Wallet.

Receiving in Electrum

Start Electrum and select File -> Open and choose the wallet you created previously. Enter the password you recorded at the time:

Electrum Password Screen (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

Electrum will open the wallet and the History tab will show all transactions so far – none in this case:

Electrum Wallet Screen (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

Each wallet owns a series of Bitcoin addresses where coins can be deposited. Select the Receive tab to show the first address available in your wallet, listed as Receiving Address.

[A quick detour into addresses: Note the subject of addresses is quite a complex one that we don’t need to go into here – just be aware that most wallets will manage a series of addresses for you. For example, many wallets will use a different address for every transaction for enhanced security. Also, since a sending address may contain more Bitcoin than is sent from it the ‘change’ may get sent to a third address. You don’t need to worry about this, you just rely on using the addresses the wallet suggests. If you want to see the addresses that are being managed ‘under the bonnet’ have a look at the Addresses tab to see the various Receiving and Change addresses handled by your wallet.]

Electrum Receive screen (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

Copy this address to the clipboard: you can either select it and copy or click on the Copy icon at its right-hand end. Enter a Description, e.g. ‘Initial transfer from Coinbase‘. With that done we are ready to receive Bitcoin to the copied address in this wallet.

Note that the sending platform is in control of the transaction, Coinbase in our example. It doesn’t matter how much Bitcoin you want to receive, you’ll only receive what is sent – so the other items here (e.g. Request amount) are irrelevant for our purpose. By all means click Save to record your description of this transaction, but otherwise it isn’t necessary.

Electrum Receive screen after saving (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

Sending from Coinbase

Go to Coinbase and login to your account. Click on Accounts. This should show the Bitcoin you bought previously.

Coinbase Accounts screen (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

Click on the Send button under BTC Wallet. to bring up the Send BTC screen. On the day I wrote this it had a message about delays in sending Bitcoin – you may or may not get that.

Paste the address copied from your Electrum wallet into the Recipient box. Check that Withdraw From shows the BTC Wallet. Under Amount click in the BTC box – this will bring up a Send Max button. Click on this to transfer out all your Bitcoin in this account (the fee is shown at the bottom). Add a Note such as ‘Transfer to my Electrum wallet‘. Press Continue.

Coinbase Send BTC screen (Image: Bitcoin Investors.co.uk)

Next you’ll see a Confirm Send screen. Check that all the fields are correct. You may need to enter an SMS code depending on your account settings.

Coinbase Confirm Send screen (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

Press Confirm. You should then get a brief confirmation message saying the transaction is going through. Go back to the Dashboard and you should see the transaction is listed under Recent Activity as Pending.

Coinbase Send Pending (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

Transaction Confirmation

Now you have to wait. You may get an email confirmation from Coinbase that it is going through.

A transfer can take from minutes to hours depending on how busy the network is and how much Coinbase spent on fees to transfer the money (they probably default to a low fee). A transaction has to be confirmed by a number of different nodes on the blockchain and these transactions will come through one by one. If you click on the transaction in the Coinbase you can see how many Confirmations have gone through.

The first sign that the transfer is definitely happening may be seen in Electrum on the History tab. With luck this will show the transaction as it is confirmed, with the Description that you entered above and saved.

Electrum History screen (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

If you double-click on the transaction you can see the confirmations counting up.

Electrum Transaction detail (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

As the confirmations come in the ‘Unconfirmed’ message changes to a clock face that fills in segments and goes from red to green.

Electrum Transaction Being Confirmed (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

When the transaction is complete it will show a green tick (you can see the details on the Addresses and Coins tabs and by double-clicking the transaction line):

Electrum Transaction Complete (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

It will also be shown in Coinbase as no longer pending (and if you double-click it there under Recent Activity it will be marked Completed).

It’s done. Your Bitcoin has been successfully transferred from your Coinbase account to your private Electrum Wallet. There it can only be transferred out using your private seed or password, otherwise there is no way for anyone to access it.

Blog, Electrum

How to Make a Bitcoin Wallet

October 22, 2017 flippener 2 Comments

There are lots of ways to hold your Bitcoin but they can mostly be divided into exchanges and wallets. If you put your Bitcoin on an exchange like Poloniex, Bitfinex, Bittrex or Kraken then really you’ve handed your Bitcoins over to the exchange provider to look after.

If, however, you want complete personal control over your Bitcoin then the only way to ensure that is to create your own wallet and hold your Bitcoin there. The difference from an exchange is huge – only you can deposit and withdraw money there because you’re the only person who knows the passphrase or seed (like a complex password). Whereas with an exchange you have to ask the exchange provider to deposit and withdraw money – you can’t be sure they will, though they usually will, and it’s up to them how long they take to carry out a transaction.

Electrum Home Page (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

Here I’ll explain how to create a Bitcoin Wallet that is entirely yours to control. The example I’ll use is Electrum which is one of the biggest and most respected. Like most Bitcoin Wallets (and related software) it’s a software app that’s free to use.

To download the software go to https://electrum.org/#download and choose the most appropriate version for your device. I’m on Windows and have gone for the Windows Installer for the Latest Release (2.9.3 at time of writing). You could instead choose the standalone executable if you didn’t want to install it (you could then put it on a USB stick, for example).

Download the Electrum Wallet software (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

Once downloaded run the installer as appropriate for your device (note that if you have an older version of Electrum installed it’s clever enough to upgrade the program without losing your data).

Electrum Installer completed (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

When that’s complete, close the installer and run Electrum (e.g. in Windows via an icon on your desktop). Then select File -> New/Restore. Choose a suitable wallet name (or accept the default if you plan to only ever have one). This will create a new wallet (the option to Restore only applies if you’ve previously created an Electrum wallet and want to reuse it).

Create a new Electrum Wallet file (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

Next you will be asked ‘What kind of wallet do you want to create?‘:

Standard wallet
Wallet with two-factor authentication: this requires a second device, typically your smartphone, as an extra security layer
Multi-signature wallet: this is where two people are required to confirm a transaction (a bit like joint signatures on a bank account)
Watch Bitcoin addresses: this allows you to monitor a Bitcoin address elsewhere (e.g. in a hardware wallet) but not make transactions with it

Choose Electrum Wallet type (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

In most cases you should choose Standard wallet. If you are going to hold a lot of Bitcoin in this wallet you could research and choose Wallet with two-factor authentication. Here we’ll go with Standard wallet.

Next you’ll be shown the wallet generation seed. This is like a complex password, one that is made up of 12 individual words. Record this as it is the key to your wallet – lose it and you could lose the Bitcoin in the wallet.

If you are only going to hold small amounts of Bitcoin in this wallet then you may choose to store this seed electronically, e.g. copy the words to a Word document. However, if you are going to hold any significant amounts in this wallet then take the advice on the screen and write the seed on a piece of paper.

Electrum Wallet Seed (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

This avoids the risk of your device being hijacked (e.g. by malware) and your seed – and all the money in the wallet – being taken (an interesting property of Bitcoin is that if someone has your seed they don’t need to access your wallet – they can create a new wallet on their PC containing your money). Keep that piece of paper very safe – it could be far more valuable than your passport, bank cards, etc.

On the next screen you type in the seed so Electrum can confirm you really did record it! A bit painful, but a valuable check.

Once you’ve done that you have to enter a password to encrypt your wallet. I recommend you don’t make one up yourself (humans are very poor at creating passwords that can’t be cracked by computer). Instead go to Passwords Generator and create a new one with the following settings:

Random Password Generator settings (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

Press Generate Password then write down the password and the mnemonic below it (to help remember and confirm it). You can write this on the same piece of paper as the seed since in most cases your Bitcoin can be accessed with either.

Type in the password (not the long mnemonic) – don’t be tempted to copy and paste it (what gets used by Electrum needs to match how you read what you’ve written down). Leave Encrypt wallet file ticked and press Next.

There is a brief ‘Electrum is generating your wallet addresses‘ message then Electrum opens on its main view. It will default to showing a History tab listing transactions on the wallet – at this point it will be empty.

The bottom status bar will show the current Bitcoin value – if this is showing in dollars (USD) you can set it to pounds (GBP). Go to Tools -> Preferences -> Fiat -> Fiat currency and select GBP:

Electrum Preferred Fiat Currency (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

That’s it – you now have a Bitcoin wallet up and running ready to receive, store, and send out your Bitcoin. Its various features and the methods to send and receive Bitcoin will be covered in future posts, e.g. Receiving in an Electrum Wallet, and Sending from an Electrum Wallet.

Bitcoin Gold (BTG), Fork, News

Bitcoin Gold Fork Coming: How To Double Your Bitcoins

October 21, 2017 flippener 1 Comment

It has been only 9 weeks since the Bitcoin Cash hard fork, and we are again discussing another Bitcoin hard fork.

In this article, I intend to cover everything you need to know about the upcoming Bitcoin hard fork and how to prepare and benefit from it by doubling you coin holdings.

Wowowow… double!!

Some of you may think this is a good thing as your value will also double!

Note: Doubling of coins does not mean doubling of value, because after a hard fork, the value of both versions of coins are determined based on user sentiments and demand/supply in the market.

So keeping that point in mind, let’s get started…

New Bitcoin Fork – Bitcoin Gold (BTG)

Bitcoin Gold is a new, would be cryptocurrency denoted, as of now, as BTG or “bgold”. It will be a fork of the original Bitcoin that Satoshi Nakamoto invented in 2008.

How to Buy Your First Bitcoin on Coinbase

October 20, 2017 flippener 3 Comments

(Author’s Note: It’s been a few years since I wrote this post. I have recently updated the main screenshots – November 2020 – and the general procedure should still be similar)

Go to Coinbase.com and open an account as described in How to Open a Coinbase Account.

Here I’ll describe the buying process for when you are ready to buy your first Bitcoin. Don’t forget, by following the referral link above you’ll get about £7 ($10) of Bitcoin for free so long as you buy at least £80 worth.

Coinbase: Add a Payment Method (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

Click on the Add a Payment Method button. Next you will have to choose between adding a Bank Account or a Credit/Debit Card.

Choose the Payment Method (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

Choose Credit/Debit Card for now as it’s fast and easy. Later, if you want to buy larger amounts of cryptocurrency, you may want to add your bank account.

Add a Debit Card (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

Fill in your debit card details as usual. Press Next.

Once you have a payment method set up, when you click on Trade you will see this screen:

Coinbase Buy/Sell/Convert (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

Check that Buy and Bitcoin are selected (you can also buy other cryptocurrencies here – but they’re for another day). Your debit card or bank account should be showing as Payment Method.

On to the amount. This is up to you but I suggest £100 for your first purchase so you get the free £7 from Coinbase. Obviously if you’re keen you could buy a lot more, but as ever you shouldn’t risk more than you can afford to lose – bitcoin pricing is volatile.

Enter the amount you want to spend in the £ box, alternatively click the up/down arrow symbol to the right – that swaps over so you can now enter how much Bitcoin (symbol BTC) you want to buy. Leave the buying option set to One time purchase for now. Press the Preview Buy button to see more details on the transaction:

[A quick detour into fees for those interested. The most obvious fee is that Coinbase charges about a fee on your purchase if you buy £100 you get £96 worth of Bitcoin – more details here. However, like at a foreign exchange desk you are also having to accept Coinbase’s view on what Bitcoin is actually worth at the moment you buy it which can be higher than the market rate. If you look closely in the screenshot you can see Coinbase is quoting a slightly higher BTC price in the Price row compared to the live value visible in the main dashboard, the background.]

Check you’re happy with the summary and press the Buy now button.

Coinbase may ask you to confirm and authorise the transaction.

A short time later the Bitcoin will appear in your account. The subject of how Bitcoin is transferred and how long it will take is a big topic in its own right (essentially the speed depends on how large the fee is that Coinbase spends on the transaction). Suffice to say it should arrive within 10 minutes but may be much faster. Conversely, if there’s a lot happening in the Bitcoin market (e.g. the price is changing fast and lots of people are buying and selling) then it could take longer.

Anyway, go to the Portfolio tab and which will update to show that the transaction was successful and you now own some bitcoin:

Dashboard - success (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK) — Portfolio – success (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

The percentage figure just tells you how much of your ‘portfolio’ is in Bitcoin. Since you haven’t yet bought any other currency in Coinbase it will say 100%.

If you want to review a transaction in detail, such as your first purchase, you can click on it in the right hand column, for example:

Review Coinbase Transaction (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

It shows how much BTC you got (note, all cryptocurrencies are recorded to 8 decimal places, though not all decimal places are always shown), how you paid, the fee, etc. The Completed status shows that the transaction is confirmed, initially this may show Pending until it has fully gone through.

That’s it – you are now the proud owner of some Bitcoin! There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin in existence so you own something that no-one else can own (that’s part of the reason why its value is trending upwards).

Further blog posts will cover how to securely store, lend and trade Bitcoin. Welcome to the crypto community!

Bitcoin (BTC), News

Bitcoin Breaches $6,000 for the First Time

October 20, 2017 flippener

Bitcoin soared to another milestone Friday, as the digital currency breached $6,000 for the first time to put its gain in 2017 to more than 500 percent.

As bitcoin continues climbing, Twitter users are speculating that the rise could be driven by everything from a cash shortage in Zimbabwe to an increase in margin trading. If one thing is for sure, it’s that speculation has a part to play in the top digital token’s latest surge.

The push higher comes just three days after bitcoin suffered its biggest one-day drop in a month on rising concern that regulators are increasingly targeting digital currencies. It’s added almost $500 in value in the past two days alone while reaching a record high.

How to Open a Coinbase Account to Buy Bitcoin

October 19, 2017 flippener 2 Comments

(Author’s Note: It’s been a few years since I created my account and wrote this post. I have recently updated the main screenshots – November 2020 – and the general procedure should still be similar)

This is an introduction to buying Bitcoin for those new to cryptocurrencies in general and to Bitcoin in particular. The first step is to open a ‘wallet’ – a software app or website – to hold your cryptocurrency.

Here I’ll show you how to do this in Coinbase. This claims to be “the world’s most popular Bitcoin wallet” and is certainly very well known. As well as being popular it is also very easy to use. It is not the cheapest nor the most fully featured wallet and so we’ll look at other wallets later for those more experienced with cryptocurrencies. It is, however, perfect for newcomers.

Go to the following website: https://www.coinbase.com/join/59e7d9f9cca2f100d9a1a773

Note this is an referral link – this means you’ll get about £7 ($10) of free bitcoin when you buy your first bitcoin and so will I. Your first purchase needs to be worth at least $100 (about £75) so I suggest you buy £80-£100 to be sure you get the free money.

When you follow that link you’ll see a webpage like the following:

Opening a Coinbase account (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

Complete the form (First Name, Last Name, Email and Password), and confirm your age and acknowledge the User Agreement and Privacy Policy. Click Create Account. A good place to get a password is PasswordsGenerator – choose a length of 16 characters and include symbols, numbers and upper and lowercase characters. Make sure at this point that you have record the password somewhere, e.g. a new document. You will need a lot of passwords when dealing with cryptocurrency and the general rule is that if you lose the password you can lose the money! Get into careful organisation now.

A Coinbase account will be created for you and you’ll see a screen that says ‘Verify Your Email: We sent a verification email to <your email address>. Click the link in the email to get started!’

Go to your email inbox, find the Coinbase email and click on the Verify Email Address button/link. Return to Coinbase and you’ll see a new Coinbase screen with a popup message that says ‘Your email has now been verified. Thank you!‘ Close the old Coinbase screen.

The new Coinbase screen will say ‘Welcome <first name> – Let’s get started > Complete the following steps to get your first bitcoin or ethereum!‘ Select the Individual button unless you’re working on behalf of a business. Press Next.

On the next screen choose your country (if it’s not already set) and enter your mobile phone number. The number is required for security – Coinbase will text you a ‘2 Step Verification’ security code to login with. Press Next.

Enter the code Coinbase sent to your phone on the form on the next page. Press Verify Phone Number.

Once that’s passed you come to a payment method screen. You can return to this later – for now Press Skip, I’ll do this later. You’re now into Coinbase.

You’ll see the main Dashboard, as show below.

Coinbase Dashboard (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

This shows a chart of your portfolio balance, i.e. a total of all your cryptocurrencies in £ Sterling (zero at this point). You can change the timescale to 1 hour, day, week, month, year, or All time. There are also rows below where you can get more detailed information on Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies offered by Coinbase.

Below left you’ll see your account status, with the value of all non-zero currencies (again, zero if you’ve just created your account). Below right you will later see a list of your recent transactions.

Before you’re ready to buy your first Bitcoin you need to Verify your identity. To move to this step you can click on ‘Complete your account‘ bottom left, or just attempt to Buy (on the top menu) or add a payment method.

The screen will show ‘Select ID type‘, choose whatever you want (e.g. Driver’s License).

Choose your ID type (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

You will need to take a live photo of your ID so you are asked to choose to do this with either your mobile phone’s camera or your PC’s webcam, it’s up to you. I found it easiest to use the phone – once you select this you get messages on your phone to take you through the process.

I chose to photograph my driver’s licence – I did this with care in good lighting on a plain surface (white paper on a kitchen worktop) otherwise it can fail. Once you’ve taken front and back pictures on your phone control goes back to the PC. You get a message confirming that the ID is being verified:

ID is being verified (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

Once it’s complete you’re back at the Coinbase Dashboard and ready to buy your first Bitcoin.

Next: How to Buy Your First Bitcoin

Bitcoin Gold (BTG), News

The Bitcoin Gold Hard Fork Explained

October 18, 2017 flippener

Bitcoin Gold (BTG/Bgold) is an upcoming hard fork of the Bitcoin blockchain that’s scheduled to occur on October 25th.

Bitcoin Gold (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)

Bgold has nothing to do with the yellow metal, so it shouldn’t be confused with BitGold, the gold investments and payments firm. Bgold is equally unrelated to both the previous hard fork, Bitcoin Cash (BCH/Bcash), which occurred on August 1, and the upcoming SegWit2X (S2X/Bizcoin) hard fork, which is scheduled for mid-November.

Why Bitcoin Gold?

Bitcoin Gold will alter Bitcoin’s proof-of-work algorithm from SHA-256, which is currently dominated mostly by Chinese ASIC miners, to the Equihash algorithm. Equihash is employed by the Ethereum, zCash (Classic), Zencash, and Hush cryptocurrencies. Equihash is mostly mined by graphics cards (GPUs).

A Bitcoin Beginner’s Guide to Surviving the Bgold and SegWit2x Forks

October 16, 2017 flippener

It looks as if Bitcoin will experience at least two more “coin-splits” soon, which (more accurately) will result in the creation of new coins.

On October 25, Bitcoin Gold (Bgold) will split off from Bitcoin to create an ASIC-resistant cryptocurrency. A few weeks later, a significant group of Bitcoin companies wants to hard fork according to the SegWit2x plan as defined in the “New York Agreement” (NYA), which will probably result in yet another new coin.

If this all plays out, there could be three distinct blockchains and three types of coins within about a month of publication of this article. One blockchain would follow the current Bitcoin protocol; for the purpose of this article, that coin will be referred to as “BTC.” The second blockchain will follow the Bgold protocol; in this article, that coin will be referred to as “BTG.” The third blockchain will follow the SegWit2x protocol; that coin will be referred to as “B2X.”

The good news is that each BTC will effectively be copied onto both the Bgold and the SegWit2x blockchains. If you hold Bitcoin private keys at the time of the forks, you should be able to access your BTG and B2X coins as well.

The bad news is that such forks can be somewhat messy and risky. If you’re not careful, it’s easy to lose your BTC or B2X, and maybe your BTG.

Current Airdrops – October 2017

October 14, 2017 flippener 5 Comments

There seem to be a lot of airdrops going on around now, so here’s my take on which ones are worth getting. My primary references for upcoming airdrops are BitcoinTalk and AirdropAlert.

If you do decide to join any, I’ve given a rundown of the basic process on my Airdrops page.

The following are the main Active Airdrops as listed on AirdropAlert (though they changed around even as this was being written):

Spectre (BT): Fairly popular (BT is up to 24 pages). No exchange or Whitepaper. Easy to register. Result: Tried to register, 1st airdrop complete, 2nd not yet open.

Etrust fund (BT): The coin supply is so large (1 trillion) I just can’t see this having any meaningful value. No exchanges listed or pending, no Whitepaper. Result: No action.

420 Tokes: Airdrop closed.

Copy Trader (BT): Has website and Whitepaper but no exchanges. You need to join their Telegram to comply. Result: No action.

Greenbit (BT): Not very popular (17 pages). No exchange or Whitepaper. Looks unprofessional. Result: No action.

eBTGold (BT): Not very popular (11 pages). No exchange or Whitepaper. Looks unprofessional. Result: No action.

iEthereum (BT): Doesn’t pay out until 14 November (‘becouse [sic] of spammers’). Doesn’t look very professional. No exchanges listed or pending, no Whitepaper. Result: Undecided.

YajuCoin (BT): Not very popular (13 pages). Has exchange (CoinsMarkets) but no Whitepaper. Looks unprofessional. You need to download special wallet Result: No action.

Ethernem (BT): Airdrop on 25 November – will return to this one.

POStoken (BT): Looks popular (BT is up to 200 pages). Has exchange (EtherDelta) and Whitepaper. Result: Registered.

eReal: Currently only for Brazilians.

eBit (BT): Reasonably popular (BT is up to 80 pages). Has exchange (EtherDelta) but no Whitepaper. Result: Registered.

Marvel Coin (BT): Reasonably popular (BT is up to 60 pages). Has no exchange or Whitepaper. Lots of spelling mistakes and I suspect there has been no licensing of Marvel imagery. However, registering is easy so there’s little to lose. Result: Registered.

CoinsMet (BT): Not very popular (12 pages). No exchange or Whitepaper. Need to follow on social media to get airdrop. Result: No action.

FujiCoin: Requires joining Bittrex Slack Team. Result: No action.

eDOGE (BT): Fairly popular (24 pages). Has exchange (EtherDelta) but no Whitepaper or website. Easy to join. Result: Registered. Update 21 October: it now looks like a scam.

Ethereum Cash (BT): Reasonably popular (BT is up to 70 pages). Has exchange (EtherDelta) but no Whitepaper. Multiple airdrops with very small time window to claim. Result: Tried to claim but failed.

Ethereum Blue (BT): Evidence of this airdrop, and even the coin, appears to have been deleted.

Botacoin/Adbota (BT): Fairly popular (25 pages). No exchange or Whitepaper but have website and a roadmap. Result: Registered.

ILS Coin (BT): Fairly popular (19 pages). No exchange, Whitepaper or website. Result: No action.

BTCMoon (BT): Airdrop closed.

iBTC (BT): Airdrop closed.

Evolution DASH (BT): Fairly popular (37 pages). No exchange, Whitepaper or website. Easy to join. Result: Registered.

LitecoinStake (BT): Fairly popular (50 pages). Has exchange (CoinsMarkets) but no Whitepaper. Requires downloading and installing a special wallet, and airdrop has low value (about £1). Result: no action.

MyCash (BT): Fairly popular (38 pages). Has Waves exchange but no market exchange, website or Whitepaper. Requires downloading and installing WavesWallet.io. Result: Undecided. Update 21 October: Missed airdrop.

BitcoinG on Waves (BT): Reasonably popular (BT is up to 80 pages). Has Waves exchange but no market exchange, website or Whitepaper. Requires downloading and installing WavesWallet.io. Result: Undecided. Update 21 October: Looks dubious, no action.

Blog, SolarCoin

Installing a SolarCoin Wallet

October 14, 2017 flippener 2 Comments

Go to the SolarCoin website and download the SolarCoin Wallet – for most people it will be the link ‘Download SolarCoin Core 2.1.8 for Windows’. Once downloaded, run the installer.

SolarCoin Windows Installer Initial Screenshot (Image: Flippener)

Press Next to go through the various steps of the installation (accept the terms of the License Agreement, select the install folder, install elements, etc.) accepting the defaults. On completion it will run the SolarCoin Wallet (SolarCoin-qt.exe). Initially no wallet will be found so select No (to import a wallet) and it will create you a new, empty wallet.

As often with an install (at least on Windows) you may be asked about allowing access through your firewall. With Private Networks only selected, click on Allow Access.

At this point the SolarCoin Wallet will launch. The first thing it will need to do is synchronise to the SolarCoin blockchain.

SolarCoin Wallet Synching (Image: Flippener)

That will take some time to complete (about an hour, depending on your system and Internet speeds). You will then need to enter a password or phrase to continue – for example, you can get a good 16 character password from Passwords Generator. Record the password, then enter it into the SolarCoin app. As it says, if you lose the password you will lose access to your coins.

SolarCoin Wallet - Enter Password (Image: Flippener) — SolarCoin Wallet – Enter Password (Image: Flippener)

Once entered, the app will restart and ask you enter the password/phrase. It will then open up on an Overview page showing your current balance – zero (‘Unconfirmed’) at this point. It will likely be continuing to synchronise at this point (showing ‘Syncing…’ in the bottom status bar) so just let it run.

SolarCoin Wallet - Overview (Image: Flippener) — SolarCoin Wallet – Overview (Image: Flippener)

When it is finished (it may only take a few minutes) the status bar will read ‘In Sync’.

Next: How to Claim SolarCoins

Bitcoin Investors UK

Monthly Archives: October 2017