How to Onboard Yourself to BitCoin
So you’ve recently learned of a peer-to-peer electronic cash system called BitCoin, congratulations! What’s next? How do you obtain some? How do you use it? What can you use it on?
This article will answer some of those questions as well as provide important official links and resources to guide you on your journey.
How To Obtain BitCoin (BSV):
The very best way to obtain BitCoin is to earn it – it’s one of the many unique characteristics of the BSV protocol and its growing society.
There are a number of applications that allow you to earn BitCoin. They can range from sharing content that you may already be sharing on traditional Social Media websites like Twitter or like Youtube to answering questions or even playing games such as BSV Dragon Hunt, Peer Game or BSV Run.
You can even sell or trade goods that you’re no longer using or don’t need on ClassifiedSV or put your freelance skills to work on Five Bucks.
For any of these options, you’ll need to have a BitCoinSV wallet to store your BitCoin safely. The two easiest and most frequently used wallets are HandCash and Moneybutton.
These wallets will not only store your BitCoin, but many times act as your identification or login for various applications and tools such as City-On-Chain, Baemail or Roundesk.
Although each wallet has it’s own account creation procedures, it is highly recommended that you back up your wallet – just in case you ever lose access.
This is typically done with a 12 word seed that you write down and store somewhere safe and will allow you to restore your BitCoin if needed.
Once you have your first wallet set up, try using a free faucet to send yourself a few “Sat’s” (short for Satoshi’s which is the smallest unit of BitCoin equal to 0.00000001 BSV).
Some new users will share online that they’ve just joined the BSV network and are surprised to receive a few sats from other users so that they can explore the growing ecosystem of BitCoin applications and tools.
Of course, you can also purchase some BitCoin from various sites, exchanges and within some wallets. Although as I mentioned from the beginning, it’s more rewarding to earn BitCoin for some of the things you may already be using or doing.
You Have BitCoin, Now What?
We’ve covered a few ways to earn and acquire BitCoin, but now that you have some, how do you use it?
Using BitCoin has never been easier with recent innovation of paymails and handles. Previously, sending or receiving Bitcoin would require one to copy, paste and share a long string of numbers and letters of a wallet address such as “17DLecfhiEtheVSAxcMhdHcKRsaJFbAam5”.
Paymail is a relatively new identity protocol that look very similar to a common email address. For example, you can send BitCoin directly to me by using Bryan@MoneyButton.com instead of the traditional string. It also can be used as a means of identity as like email addresses, they are unique.
Just as their name denotes, Moneybutton can also be a button that is swiped to make payment on a website or application – you can even use it as an identity to log in to various apps. All that is required is that you are currently logged in to your Moneybutton account. It looks something like this:
The popular Handcash wallet allows you to use paymails and handles. Handles are a user-friendly alias that refers to a unique receiving address. As an example, you can send BitCoin to my Handcash handle $bryan or my paymail, bryan@handcash.io.
Most BSV wallets inlcuding Centbee and RelayX now use a paymail and/or $handle system in addition to a QR code that allows you to scan and send to a specific address.
This makes sending and receiving much more user friendly and eliminates most mistakes with traditional long form addresses that are only now used in the background.
What Can You Use BitCoin For?
As I eluded to in the beginning of this article, there is no shortage of use cases and places to spend your BitCoin. Whether as a traditional payment system to send money to other users like you would with paypal or venmo- but at a fraction of the cost, to purchasing goods and services – even chocolate.
With each day that passes, more and more of these outlets grow and it’s not just online either. In some locations, you can spend your BitCoin at physical locations such as restaurants and stores.
One local New Hampshire store, White Mountain Vinyl allows you to purchase handcrafted signs and vinyl creations. You can even pay in BitCoin to move your family and belongings.
One of my favorite places to purchase clothes and other items at is at ZeroConfs, it is the go to shop of everything BitCoin.
Now that you know how to obtain and earn BitCoin, know how to send and receive BitCoin as well as understand that there’s really no limit to what you can do or use your BitCoin for, why not try out some of my favorite apps and tools to try it out for yourself!
I offer this content for free with no expectation for compensation, however, if you found this to be valuable, please feel free to show your appreciation with a tip in BSV at: $Bryan at HandCash or Bryan@Moneybutton.com.
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