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Table Of Contents
When you trade with Bitcoin, there are certain facts that must be provided to the other side of a transaction.In case that you are receiving Bitcoins you must provide your BTC address to the people who are paying you
A BTC address contains 26-35 numbers and letters which are used in verifying your Bitcoin wallet. Addresses are case-sensitive and begin with number 1 or 3, that represents a certain destination for a BTC payment.
Addresses are commonly and publicly used for sharing personal info between users, and they are quite safe compared with the private key that you get. Finding your BTC address is relatively easy just click “Receive” or “Receive BTC” in your personal wallet or look in the settings of your account.
How to get a BTC address?
Getting a BTC address is a process you have to take in 3 basic steps.
1. Set up a new exchange account
2. Use online wallet
3. Use offline wallet
Exchanges
After creating an account on exchange you get a BTC address, that’s the case on most of the exchanges. It’s not recommended that you use this address for anything more than temporary storage because being online on exchange, can put you in danger and risk, of losing your data and funds. There is a number of malicious software and fraudsters.
Online wallets
Having a BTC wallet is crucial, without a wallet you can not send or receive transactions. Get your wallet by downloading, buying or creating it.
In order to get a BTC address there are numerous online wallets. Exoudus and Jaxx are two reliable choices using BTC as well as other digital currencies.
You can also make an account on Coinbase, which gives you a free wallet for using their system. The process is showed below:
- Sign up with Coinbase: https://www.coinbase.com/signup
- Go to the Addresses Section: https://www.coinbase.com/addresses
- Click ‘Create New Address’
You can make as many addresses as you like, which will be connected with your account permanently.
Beware of various risks, using these online services.
Offline wallets
Offline wallets are the suggested way to get an address to store your Bitcoin. You can choose hardware or paper wallets. If you pick hardware wallets, Ledger and Trezor can do the job, they are offline and much safer than the online wallets, on which you can be hacked easily. Ledger is working offline and making private keys that make your investments safe and secure giving you maximum protection to your funds. It generates 24-word seed, that can be used in case of theft, damage or loss. The entire wallet can be recreated with the seed. Trezor also generates keys offline, a 24-word seed and it has its own built in screen where it copies the seeds. There’s also an option of adding additional passphrase which makes it safer.
Paper wallets are free. They were the common method of cold storage untill the appearance of hardware wallets. Simply paper wallets are printed private keys on a piece of paper. The disadvantages of paper wallets are difficulties while creating them and printing new ones, every time when sending funds to cold storage. If you are interested in creating paper wallet visit bitaddress.org and print it out including your private key and your Bitcoin address.
