Step Two
Build the place your Bitcoin will live before you own any. Then prove you can get it back.
Setting the wallet up first sounds backward until you think about where your Bitcoin sits in the meantime. Buy first and it lands on an exchange, where it waits while you research wallets and work up the nerve. That gap is where people get comfortable leaving it, and where exchanges fail with everyone's money inside. Build the destination first and your very first purchase goes straight home.
A wallet does not hold your bitcoin. It holds the keys that prove the bitcoin is yours. Every wallet below hands those keys to you and nobody else, which means no company can freeze your funds, and no company can lose them for you. It also means the responsibility is yours.
No money required for any of this. Pick something from the lists below, then work through these three. Half an hour, start to finish.
Download from the project's official site or app store listing, never from a search ad. Fake wallet apps exist and they look convincing. When in doubt, ask at a meetup before you install.
The wallet shows you twelve or twenty four words. Write them on paper, in order, by hand. No screenshots. No notes app. No photo. Store the paper somewhere only you can reach.
Tap receive and look at the string of characters. That is where your Bitcoin is going to land. Knowing where that button is now means step three is just copy and paste.
That is the whole setup. Your wallet is empty and completely ready. The paper in your hand is now the only thing standing between you and losing access, so treat it accordingly.
Once you have made your first purchase and sent it here, prove to yourself you can get it back. Do this with twenty dollars, not two thousand. It takes about twenty minutes.
This is the part that feels wrong. Uninstall the wallet completely, with money in it. Your bitcoin is not in the app. It is on the blockchain, and your paper words are the proof it belongs to you.
Install the wallet again. Choose the recover or restore option instead of creating a new wallet, then enter your words in order. Your twenty dollars appears.
Run it a second time next week, and once more a month later. When restoring stops feeling scary and starts feeling boring, you are ready to hold real money.
If the drill fails, you just learned that for twenty dollars instead of your life savings. Check that you wrote every word correctly and in the right order, then start over with a fresh wallet. Nobody gets it perfect the first time, and that is exactly why we practice. Not there yet? Go buy your first Bitcoin and come back.
Where most people start. These run on your phone and keep your keys on your device. Good for spending money and learning the ropes.
Clean interface, supports both on-chain and Lightning, and lets you run multiple wallets side by side. A solid first wallet that you will not outgrow quickly.
Built by Blockstream. Offers single key and multi-signature setups plus optional two factor protection, useful if you want extra layers without buying hardware yet.
Connects to your own node so you can spend from home while you are out. Also runs an embedded node if you would rather not host anything. Pairs well with Umbrel or Start9.
Better for larger balances, hardware wallet pairing, and anything involving multiple signatures. More control over fees, coin selection, and privacy.
The one most of our members land on eventually. Excellent hardware wallet support, real coin control, and it connects straight to your own node when you are ready.
Been around since 2011 and still going. Lightweight, fast, and highly configurable. Only download it from the official site, since fake versions have circulated for years.
Built around multi-signature and inheritance planning. If you are protecting savings that need to outlive you, this is worth the extra learning curve.
Those twelve or twenty four words are the whole ballgame. Anyone holding them owns your bitcoin, no password required. Nobody legitimate will ever ask for them. Not a support agent, not a website, not a person at a meetup. Anyone who does is trying to take your money.
Wallet installed and words written down? Good. Now go buy something to put in it, and send it straight here rather than leaving it sitting on an exchange.
Step 3: Buying Bitcoin