Since the beginning of 2017, the price of Bitcoin has skyrocketed from $1,000 to $68,000. In 2022, the price of Bitcoin has dropped again to around $18,000 (€18,915).
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How to earn, spend and mine bitcoins
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Do you want to get on board? Here’s how to buy bitcoins in the UK.
Buy Bitcoins in the UK
- Set up a bitcoin wallet to store your potential bitcoins.
- Visit a reputable website that will allow you to exchange your Fiat currency for bitcoin. Fiat currency is a term used for any legal tender whose value is backed by the government that issued it. In the UK, this applies to the pound sterling.
- Provide your wallet ID to a seller so an exchange can take place.
- Transfer money from your bank account to an exchange or seller.
- Wait for the bitcoins to arrive in the wallet.
- Go and spend.
1. Set up a bitcoin wallet
Before you rush out to buy some digital money, make sure you have a safe place to store it; That’s what your bitcoin wallet is for. There are many places to get wallets, and many cryptocurrency exchanges offer their own wallets for you to use.
While it may seem sensible to sign up for a wallet on the exchange you plan to do business with, this is not always the best decision as some are unstable.
You are much safer if you opt for a third-party wallet. These wallets also usually have the added benefit of allowing you to store different currencies in the same place, so if you get bitcoin fever, you have a place to store all those altcoins you feel like buying.
While there are many secure wallets to choose from, we recommend Coinbase thanks to its ease of use, clean interface and practical application for iOS and Android. In fact, Coinbase now also allows you to buy bitcoins from others.
2. Exchange your Fiat currency for bitcoin
Now you have your wallet; It’s time to ditch your common pounds, dollars, euros (or whatever currency you use) and invest in the future.
There are many ways to get bitcoins. You can buy them on an exchange, through a wallet service, in face-to-face meetings, at a physical bitcoin ATM, or you can try to mine some yourself.
Buying at an exchange house or wallet is a tedious exercise thanks to having all the bureaucratic procedures. However, if you want to not be anonymous and want to trade regularly, exchanges and wallets are a great option.
If you want to see which exchanges you can easily buy on, visitHow to buy bitcoins.infofor a list of all exchanges registered in your country.
Buying face to face or through an ATM gives you anonymity, but can be more expensive than through an exchange or wallet.
Visiting Meetup.comfind a public meeting to buy and sell bitcoins.Coindesk has made it easy to find a bitcoin ATM thanks to its bitcoin atm map.
If you are thinking about mining bitcoins yourself, don’t do it. The process has become too intensive for any home computer, and investing in the machines needed to mine the dwindling pool of coins is not profitable enough.
If you want an incredibly easy way to get bitcoins online, we recommend visiting Bittylicious. Despite the terrible name and basic web design, it’s a great place that connects buyers with sellers without you having to deal with anyone.
3. Provide your wallet ID to the seller
No matter how you decide to get bitcoins, you should send your bitcoin address to the seller or exchange to ensure that your bitcoins end up in your wallet.
This 34-character encrypted address is perfectly safe to share with others, as it only allows users to send money to you. No one can take money from you with this address or make purchases in your name. It’s just one way bitcoin manages to stay secure for everyday transactions.
If you go the bitcoin ATM route, don’t worry about your bitcoin address: all the information you’ll need to get your bitcoins will be printed out or sent to you automatically when you scan a QR code. .
4. Send to the seller or exchange your money
Each seller or exchange will provide you with banking details to transfer your Fiat currency to your account. All you need to do is set up a transfer from your account to theirs.
If you don’t feel like making a bank transfer, some services will allow you to pay by other means, such as by credit card. However, you should be very careful when doing this with a site you are not sure about. Bank transfer is actually the safest method for both parties, which is why only a few places allow alternative payment methods.
One of the reasons we like Bittylicious so much is that, for UK residents, it offers alternative payment methods such as PayM, Barclays PingIt, Natwest PYC and credit/debit cards.
If you plan to purchase at a bitcoin ATM, all you have to do is insert your money into the ATM.
5. Wait for your bitcoins to arrive
If you’ve followed those steps, all you have to do now is sit back and let the bitcoins come.
Using a bitcoin ATM means the money should arrive almost instantly, and exchanges and wallets will usually have the cryptocurrency waiting for you in no time.
Some services take longer, but you can see the progress of your transfer and you won’t miss them once the process has started.
Bittylicious guarantees a transfer within two hours or your money back; Overall, it usually doesn’t take that long.
6. Go out and spend
Now that you have your bitcoins, it’s time to spend them.
More and more retailers and merchants accept bitcoins and other altcoins.
How to buy Bitcoin in the USA
The instructions for US consumers are not much different from those in the UK. For example, you can still create your wallet account with Coinbase, Geminieither Kraken. By creating your account, you can add funds to purchase Bitcoin. But keep in mind that the verification process is quite long.
By adding the funds, you can buy Bitcoin directly from Coinbase or Kraken. You can also buy Bitcoin using PayPal, Venmo, or Robinhood. But you cannot take cryptocurrencies outside the platform. So it’s probably best to stick with Coinbase.
Bitcoin buyers unite
Have you bought Bitcoin recently? Let us know about it in the comments below!
To be hungry? Takeout.com lets you pay for your local takeout with bitcoin. How about a vacation? private flight allows you to pay in bitcoins for a private jet flight to the destination of your choice. Or you could just go to coin map and see all the businesses near you that accept bitcoins.
