Want to learn how to send and receive Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies? Keep reading because I’ll walk you through the process in a way that’ll be easy to understand for beginners who are completely new to using cryptos.
Step 1: You first need to purchase your first allotment of crypto. If you don’t know how or where to do that, this article will guide you.
Step 2: Assuming you’ve made your first purchase, the next step will be get those coins/tokens off the exchange and onto a self custody wallet that you control. This article will teach you all about what to look for in a wallet.
For the sake of demonstration, I’ll use two different wallets – though the process of sending/receiving transactions is similar for all of them.
How to send and receive Bitcoin (and other cryptos) using a mobile or desktop wallet
The first is called Trust Wallet – which is a popular mobile wallet that can be downloaded here for free. Once you go through the intuitive setup process (where you will have ideally written down and safely stored your recovery seed phrase), you’ll see a list of coins under the “tokens” tab. Above that, you’ll see your total balance amount, along with 4 buttons – send / receive / buy / swap.
Step 3: To have funds transferred to the wallet, click “receive”, then select the coin/token you want. Once you do that, you’ll be presented with a screen that has a QR code and your public key. You can click “share” to forward that QR code to someone, or alternatively, you can click “copy” to copy your public key to paste where you need it.
Remember: You should never share your PRIVATE KEY or RECOVERY WORDS with anyone you don’t fully trust. Whoever has that information will have access to your funds. The PUBLIC KEY, however, is safe and necessary to share with people when you want them to send you funds.
When you send funds to others, they’ll also be able to view your public key. It’s safe, but keep in mind that when you share your public key with someone, they’ll have the ability to paste that into a blockchain explorer and view both your balance and transaction history. There are a few private blockchains, like Monero, that hide this information.. but most blockchains are fully transparent.
This transparency is one of the several reasons why it’s ideal to keep the bulk of your coins on a hardware wallet, then simply use a mobile wallet with limited funds on it for your day to day transactions. The last thing you’d want is for someone shady (and violent) to find out via your public key that you have 10 BTC or 50 ETH in your custody.
Anyway, moving on..
Step 4: To send some of your crypto to someone, click “send”, then select the coin/token you want to transfer. You will then be prompted to input the address and the amount. The address will be the public key of the recipient, or in rare cases, it’ll be what appears to be a domain name (.eth for example).
To input the address, you can either copy/paste it in, or you can use the QR code scanner, which will generate the public key for you.
Once you’ve pasted in the desired recipients public key, type in the amount you want to send and select “continue”.
The next page you’ll be presented with will allow you to review the details, and finalize the transaction.
If you want to send a large amount, it’s good practice to send a small amount first, just to test and make sure everything is working as intended.
How to send and receive Bitcoin (and other cryptos) using a hardware wallet
The process of sending and receiving crypto using a hardware wallet (get one here) is very similar to mobile and desktop wallets. The fundamental process is the same, the only difference is that when sending transactions, you’ll be prompted to verify it using your hardware device.
The most popular company making hardware wallets is called Ledger. To use a ledger, you can do so via an interface they developed called Ledger Live, or you can simply connect it to one of the numerous other software wallets that it’s compatible with.
For example, if you want to interact with Ethereum via your Ledger, you would first install the ETH app onto your Ledger device via Ledger Live. You can send/receive Ethereum using the Ledger Live interface, or you could connect your Ledger to 3rd party Ethereum wallets and conduct your transactions that way. MyEtherWallet.com would be an example of an Ethereum wallet that’s Ledger compatible. There are many others as well.
The process of interacting with MyEtherWallet.com via your Ledger couldn’t be any easier. Simply open the ETH app on your Ledger, then look for a tab that says “connect your hardware wallet” on the website.
Note: To install apps on your Ledger device, you’ll need to open Ledger Live and navigate to a tab that says “My Ledger”. From there, you’ll be able to install and uninstall apps onto your device.
Once connected to MyEtherWallet.com, you’ll be presented with a few of your ETH addresses (the private keys of which are stored on your Ledger device). Just select the one you want to interact with and whenever you facilitate a transaction, you’ll be asked to confirm it via your Ledger device.
Another example..
If you wanted to interact with the Cosmos ecosystem via your Ledger, you can do so via the Keplr browser app. It functions quite intuitively. Just install the Cosmos app on your Ledger via Ledger Live, then connect it to the Keplr wallet browser extension.
This process can be repeated for various coins. Just use Ledger Live or identify a wallet for the project that’s hardware wallet compatible. The only difference when using a Ledger is that you’ll need manually click a couple buttons to verify your interactions with the wallet.
Summary
Sending and receiving coins is a very intuitive process. The wallets I’ve tried all seem to be user-friendly. The main takeaways are the following..
- Never share your private keys or recovery phrase with anyone.
- Your public key is necessary to share with people when you want them to send you funds.
- A hardware wallet is ideal for security.
- This brand of hardware wallet is compatible with more software wallets than any of the others.
- Mobile wallets are useful for convenience, but aren’t ideal for storing the bulk of your coins if you have a lot.
