# Educate me on using Bitcoin **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 24, 2016, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996 "2016-03-24T00:19:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/1 "2016-03-24T00:19:27Z")
I want to use Bitcoins but I’m unfamiliar with it. I’m told it’s easy once you get used to it but I’m not yet used to it and I want to avoid beginner’s mistakes. So, what should I know? What are the best practices? I’ll like to be able to protect the Bitcoins I have even if the exchanger\* disappears into thin air, cancels my account etc. Can Tor be used with Bitcoins? Does mixing the two create disadvantages like much longer latency? \*or whatever the service that facilitates the exchange is called ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/2 "2016-03-24T05:50:04Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > I’ll like to be able to protect the Bitcoins I have even if the exchanger\* disappears into thin air, cancels my account etc. That was always my big concern as well, and was somewhat vindicated/exacerbated when Mt. Gox (at the time by far the largest/most used BTC exchange) went up in smoke and billions of dollars worth of BTC just “disappeared”. Can’t answer your questions, but am also curious what prevailing opinions are these days as to how secure the exchanges are and if your money is protected/protectable. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/3 "2016-03-24T07:50:03Z")
I’m not a Bitcoin pro. I know enough to think that it’s probably not worth getting into at the moment because no one person can compete with the Chinese Bitcoining farms. You can join farms of your own, but the return is low. Also, there’s some ongoing kerfluffle atm where the Bitcoin blockchains have been all mined out and people are dragging their feet about how to proceed. Start here - and then do more reading before you invest money or time into Bitcoin. > **[The resolution of the Bitcoin experiment](https://blog.plan99.net/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-experiment-dabb30201f7?gi=3527d672d15f)** > > I’ve spent more than 5 years being a Bitcoin developer. The software I’ve written has been used by millions of users, hundreds of… As for security concerns you mention - all mined Bitcoins are stored in Wallets. The Wallets are hosted somewhere on the web. What you’re asking is, is there a hosting site that you can trust to not raid your Wallet and/or go tits up. I don’t know the answer. If I was going to get into Bitcoins now, I’d probably look into the histories of the current farming groups and see where they host. But let’s be honest. The whole point of Bitcoin is that it’s an unregulated currency. Regulations exist to protect investors. Bitcoin, by design, lacks those protections. Bitcoin is an experiment. Sometimes experiments work out, sometimes they don’t. Get in if it interests you but don’t bet your rent money on it. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/4 "2016-03-24T14:46:04Z")
Is the OP’s intention to earn money as a bitcoin farmer, to act as a bitcoin bank, or to simply change some ordinary money into bitcoin & watch it sit in some bitcoin “bank”. Or to buy and / or sell real-world or game-world stuff using bitcoin? Very different answers for very different questions. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/5 "2016-03-24T15:07:36Z")
True, I should have added this detail to my OP. I want to make a purchase and the vendor only accepts Bitcoin as payment. ---
**Author:** ![Iamnotivan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Iamnotivan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iamnotivan)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/6 "2016-03-24T19:43:14Z")
Drugs ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/7 "2016-03-24T19:54:46Z")
> [@Iamnotivan](#): > > Drugs Drugs are bad. Don’t do drugs or any activity which is illegal in the US. I’m asking about using Bitcoin to make a purchase. If you have no information to contribute to that, your contribution is not relevant to this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/8 "2016-03-24T20:41:52Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > True, I should have added this detail to my OP. I want to make a purchase and the vendor only accepts Bitcoin as payment. Oh, well if you just want to make a few purchases, ask your Vendor where he keeps his Wallet and how to get started. Make sure you have some damn fine anti-virus protection and firewall security before you download anything, though. ---
**Author:** ![Ennui](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ennui/32/3396_2.png) [@Ennui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ennui)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/9 "2016-03-25T02:42:22Z")
Not strictly bitcoin related but just a general warning about anything “bitcoin like” with a MLM type opportunity attached to it. A recent trend in the internet ponzi scheme world has been creating some sort of alt coin preying on bitcoin’s popularity and the general public’s ignorance of bitcoin. “Imagine if you bought bitcoin when it cost less than $15”? “Does your money appreciate while you sleep”? “Do you want to earn money by educating people about cryptocurrencies”? Several significant schemes along these lines have already gone tits up and one of them (OneCoin) is very likely past a trillion in over all investments and showing signs of being in it’s terminal stages. Bitcoin is bitcoin, there is an agreed upon value that is not dependent on any one individual or organization, you can exchange value and buy actual things with it. The same is not true of these various fraudcoins. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/10 "2016-03-25T02:50:04Z")
Forgive my assumptions, but the OP is asking in such a dilettante way that I wouldn’t recommend getting involved in Bitcoins at all. His questions are phrased like someone twenty years ago asking, _“What’s this whole internet thingy all about? How do I invest in Internet?”_ The get-rich-quick heyday of Bitcoins is looong since past… ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/11 "2016-03-25T11:04:23Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > True, I should have added this detail to my OP. I want to make a purchase and the vendor only accepts Bitcoin as payment. find another vendor. Given you’ve admitted knowing little about Bitcoin, all I can foresee is trouble for you here. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/12 "2016-03-25T11:14:57Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > find another vendor. Given you’ve admitted knowing little about Bitcoin, all I can foresee is trouble for you here. Perhaps I should have phrased my OP as “presume I know nothing about Bitcoin”. I’ve read up on it but since my goal is to find out about unknown unknowns, there’s little point describing what I know. You can look at my past threads and see the pattern of asking questions in a purposefully broad & naive way to avoid biasing the replies towards particular answers even when I’ve got a good idea of the subject matter: the best example probably being this thread: [How much would an airplane's performance be reduced if it were enclosed in a fairing? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=757155) Surely everyone who now uses Bitcoin was at some point unfamiliar with it. Yet here they are using it. If you have used it, can you take me through what you did and what might have been useful to know which you learned later? ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/13 "2016-03-25T12:10:08Z")
So can we look forward to your “how can I get an anonymous mail drop,” “tell me about using disguises,” and “who here has successfully represented themselves in court” threads, or will you just roll those questions into this one as events progress? ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/14 "2016-03-25T12:39:49Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > So can we look forward to your “how can I get an anonymous mail drop,” “tell me about using disguises,” and “who here has successfully represented themselves in court” threads, or will you just roll those questions into this one as events progress? Shan’t be a problem as the vendor will deliver by tracked & signed post. My wanting to use Bitcoin is because that vendor has the best prices/availability I know of and insists on it. I’m not breaking my jurisdiction’s criminal laws. Now, Bitcoin? ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/15 "2016-03-25T15:02:20Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > If you have used it, can you take me through what you did and what might have been useful to know which you learned later? I have not used it, I avoid it like the plague because the concept of it and the people driving it skeeve me out big time. Since that doesn’t give you info you’re looking for I will drop the subject. ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/16 "2016-03-25T15:48:58Z")
Dude, look. If you’re asking what I think you’re asking, start [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarketsNoobs/wiki/bitcoinsandtumblingcaftu) and [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/darknetmarketsnoobs). ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/17 "2016-03-25T22:36:20Z")
> [@Ennui](#): > > “Imagine if you bought bitcoin when it cost less than $15”? I did that! Now I get delightful emails every few months from a Japanese bankruptcy trustee 🙂 OP, I suggest Coinbase. It’s fairly easy to use and well-regarded. As far as making sure you’re protected if all sorts of things happen? Good luck with that. Do be aware that if you’re contemplating using bitcoin for less-than-legal purposes, it is _not_ anonymous. Not a great idea. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2016, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/18 "2016-03-27T05:22:36Z")
Bedtime reading. [Follow The Bitcoins: How We Got Busted Buying Drugs On Silk Road’s Black Market](http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/09/05/follow-the-bitcoins-how-we-got-busted-buying-drugs-on-silk-roads-black-market/#c35422389a8c) ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2016, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/19 "2016-03-27T06:03:47Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Bedtime reading. > > [Follow The Bitcoins: How We Got Busted Buying Drugs On Silk Road’s Black Market](http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/09/05/follow-the-bitcoins-how-we-got-busted-buying-drugs-on-silk-roads-black-market/#c35422389a8c) Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2017, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996/20 "2017-05-25T20:16:26Z")
I thought I would bump this thread rather than starting a new one. It looks like bitcoins continue to increase in value since the time of the last post on this thread. For those in the know, how risky might investing in bitcoins be? If we had another event like the 2008 recession, would bitcoins likely go up or down? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-using-bitcoin/749996.md?page=2)