As I pointed out before, the Bitcore coin (BTX) has a great ‘unique selling point (USP)’ that if you hold it you get 3% extra – effectively ‘interest’ – added weekly.
This week is the first time I’ve held enough BTX in my wallet (10 is the minimum quantity) to qualify for the airdrop. However, just like last week’s 25% one-off airdrop, it arrived on time and with no fuss.
Bitcore Weekly Airdrop received (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)
An added bonus is that in that week the value of Bitcore has gone up from $6 to $10 – so my £100 stake is now worth £227. Now maybe you can see why I’m a BTX fan!
If you have solar panels on your house you are eligible to receive free SolarCoins in proportion to how much energy you can generate (specifically each year you get your solar system’s capacity in kW multiplied by a fixed ratio of 1.314). I have previously described the process of installing a SolarCoin Wallet and shown how to register a claim for SolarCoins.
I went through these steps for the two solar arrays on my house (front and rear, installed at different times). Officially you should receive any coins you claim in the first week of the month following your claim.
I am pleased to confirm that my coins came through this week exactly on schedule. The amounts are almost exactly what I expected (the small discrepancies likely relate to whether you calculate the time the panels have been operating in years, months or weeks, for example).
First SolarCoin claim received (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)
The amounts I received were:
Rear roof: 33.9 coins (3.7kW x 7 years x 1.314)
Front roof: 18.6 coins (3.2kW x 4 years x 1.314)
The total came to 52.4775 SolarCoin which at their current value is worth about $18, so about £14.
I have been following Bitcore (symbol: BTX) for some months. It seems to be one of the more interesting new altcoins as it seems to have momentum. It has regular airdrops and community discussions which is more than most here-today-gone-tomorrow altcoins.
I first heard about it because it had an airdrop that allowed you to claim free Bitcore if you had Bitcoin in a private wallet on a specific date (26 April 2017). On that day I had 2.8 Bitcoin in my Ledger so I decided to claim. I assume this airdrop is still open so if you had some Bitcoin then you can still claim yourself.
The process is pretty straightforward – download and install a Bitcore Wallet from the Bitcore website as per the usual process (much like I detailed in How to Make a Bitcoin Wallet). You then need to sign a message using your Bitcoin Wallet to prove you own the Bitcoins, and then you register for the airdrop by providing the Receive address for your Bitcore Wallet, plus the message, on the Bitcore Airdrop page.
For me an additional complication was that my old Ledger Nano can’t sign messages so I had to import the account into Electrum and sign it there. I therefore didn’t make the claim until August.
From that original airdrop I received 2.8 BTX. They have held their value fairly constant at about $6 so that was worth $17 or about £13. Not as great as some airdrops (e.g. eBTC) but not bad.
I missed a trick, though, as Bitcore provides free airdrops weekly worth 3% of your current balance. That certainly beats the 1% per year you might get with a conventional fiat savings account! However, you only get the airdrop with a minimum balance of 10 BTX which, of course, I didn’t have.
Anyway, when I heard of proposed changes in BTX airdrops from 30 October I decided to do something about it. The airdrops would only be available to those who registered, but would start with a free 25% airdrop which seemed rather attractive. Therefore last week I bought £100 worth of BTX (so 19.77 BTX) – that brought my total to 22.6 which was more than enough.
My reasoning was that £100 was enough to be worth doing – since I would get about £25 free for the effort of registering – and that I didn’t have the nerve to do what I maybe should have done. Which was buy £10000 worth of BTX and make £2500 overnight. Of course, the latter would have left me open to big losses if BTX devalued quickly.
Anyway, I’m pleased to report the free 25% BTX (5.64 BTX so worth about £30) has arrived in my wallet. And the price has remained relatively stable so I should really have bought much more…
I plan to keep hold of my BTX for some time (whereas I usually sell airdrops fast) because of the weekly airdrops I should now get. Of course, Bitcore know that’s what people will do and I credit them with coming up with a very clever way of keeping their currency stable and with significant value.
If you own a solar array you can claim free SolarCoins. To do so you will need the MCS Installation Certificate provided by your installer (or equivalent) in electronic form (e.g. PDF or JPG).
Click on the Login / Register button to get to the Log in page, then select the Create new account tab. There enter your Email address and your preferred Username, and click to enter the prompted security code.
SolarCoin Create New Account screen (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)
You will then be sent an email to verify your email address – click the link in this email to activate your account. You will then be able specify a password on the site (as usual, I recommend creating a new one at PasswordsGenerator.net).
Login and you’ll see your My Account page. Click on the link to add a solar facility; this is also available as a menu item in the right sidebar – Add Solar Facility.
On the Create Solar Facility Registration page enter details as follows:
Facility identifier: this is just the name you want to give your solar array so you know what’s being referred to – it could just be ‘my solar’ or, if you have multiple systems, perhaps the property address and, say, ‘front roof’, ‘rear roof’, etc.
First Name, Last Name, Email address : these are self-explanatory. The Address is that of the property with the solar array.
Facility Nameplate Capacity: This is the power of the solar array in kW, and should be specified clearly on the Installation Certificate, typically as Declared Net Capacity. For most UK residential systems it will be between 2.0 and 4.0.
Facility Interconnection Date: This is the date the solar array started generating, and will be specified on the Installation Certificate.
Documentation: Press the Choose file button and navigate to and select your copy of the MCS Certificate, or equivalent supporting documentation. If you have an online system that monitors your solar array then you can also enter its website address here, but it’s not required.
SolarCoin Public Wallet Address: This is an address in your SolarCoin Wallet where you want your free SolarCoins to be deposited. To find it, start up the Wallet app, wait for it to synch, then press the Receive button.
Initially this will just show a single Address value – this is what you need so right-click it and select Copy Address. Go back to the SolarCoin website and Paste. Valid addresses begin with the number 8.
(NB: You can have as many receive addresses as you want, so if you have more than one solar array you can choose to press the New Address button and create more, one for each array. In this case you should also right-click in the Label column, select Edit and give each address a name to help identify it.)
Optional: Were you referred by someone to register with SolarCoin? (Click to open): Click on this to open it up – it would be appreciated if you could fill this in with my details. It won’t cost you anything and will earn me about 10p per referral.
Referral Resource Contact Email: Copy flipener@gmail.com and paste it there.
Referral Resource SolarCoin Public Wallet Address: Copy 8ccFy7EaMPziwwe2qH3SkfEtJB4k6qL9gt and paste it there.
The remaining entries can be completed or not as you wish. Click Save. Your solar array is now registered and you will have an entry in the right-hand sidebar under My Solar Facilities.
There’s an airdrop coming up on 30 October for the Bitcore cryptocurrency (symbol BTX). This airdrop promises 25% on top of your BTX holding, followed by 3% per week. That’s pretty generous!
I have a small amount of BTX from a previous airdrop (which depended only on you holding some Bitcoin on 26 April this year – more details here). This time I’ve decided to go in bigger and buy some BTX ahead of the airdrop date.
Bitcore Homepage (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)
BTX is primarily traded on Cryptopia so I registered there and transferred some BTC from my Ledger to my new Cryptopia account. I decided to go for £100 (0.0238 BTC) so the 3% would be worth something.
Cryptopia Homepage (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)
Although it was the first time I used Cryptopia the deposit was easy to do:
Depositing Bitcoin to Cryptopia (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)
It went through smoothly, though it took nearly an hour.
I bought the Bitcore and transferred to it to my wallet (which only took about 10 minutes), to join the 2.8BTX already there from the previous airdrop:
Bitcore Wallet (BItcoin Investors UK)
I registered my wallet address following the excellent detailed instructions put out by Hashers. They also cover downloading and installing the Bitcore wallet if you don’t already have one.
My Bitcore is now ready sitting in my wallet, with the address registered with the Bitcore site for the airdrop. Now I just need to wait for the free Bitcore!
Here’s a quick guide to how to get started with Bitcoin. You’ve heard about it, you like the sound of it, and you want to get your first Bitcoin or part of one.
Bitcoin (Image: Antana/CCBY-SA2)
If you just want to buy and own Bitcoin you just have to do the first two steps below. If you want to take it off the Internet and store it on your own computer and have full control over it, then also do the last two steps:
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:
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.]
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)
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.
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.
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.
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):
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.
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).
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.
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.
(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)
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.
Login and click on the Buy/Sell tab – you will then be asked to ‘complete your account’:
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:
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:
Order preview (Image: BIUK)
[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:
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:
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!
(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.
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.
