Your First Wallet

5 min read

#tutorial #bch wallet

Your First Cryptocurrency Wallet: A Comprehensive Guide

Embarking on your cryptocurrency journey involves setting up your first digital wallet. This crucial step might seem daunting due to the myriad of decisions to make, the technical jargon, and the need for secure backups. Moreover, the risk of losing your crypto assets due to a mistake can be intimidating. But fear not! This comprehensive guide will walk you through the process of setting up your wallet and executing your first transactions.

We'll cover the installation, setup, backup, restoration, receiving, and sending of cryptocurrency on both desktop and mobile wallets. For this tutorial, we'll use the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) blockchain, the Electron Cash desktop wallet, and the bitcoin.com mobile wallet. However, the principles we'll discuss apply to most wallets and cryptocurrencies.

Why Start with Bitcoin Cash (BCH)?

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is an excellent blockchain for beginners due to its long legacy, active development, diverse applications, expanding retail use-cases, and similarities to Bitcoin (BTC). Its low transaction fees are particularly beneficial for newcomers, allowing you to experiment with small transactions before committing to larger ones. This way, you can start using crypto confidently without worrying about high transaction fees or congested blockchains.

Choosing the Right Wallets

Electron Cash and the BitcoinCom Mobile wallet are full-featured Bitcoin Cash (BCH) wallets. They support all basic operations while offering privacy features, point of sale support, and other advanced features. Electron Cash is an excellent desktop wallet with strong privacy, advanced coin control, and flexible usage. The Bitcoin.com wallet is a versatile mobile wallet optimized for daily use.

Wallet Selection

While these wallets focus on specific blockchains, they offer a learning opportunity as they often have chain-specific features. Wallets that support multiple blockchains usually only implement basic features (send, receive) and rarely support the unique aspects of each blockchain.

Installing and Setting Up Electron Cash

Visit ElectronCash.org and download the latest version. Be sure to verify the URL to avoid phishing websites.
Verify the checksum to ensure the wallet's authenticity. This step may seem complicated, but it gets simpler each time.
Install the Electron Cash wallet.

Securing Your Wallet

Once Electron Cash is installed, you're ready to start your BCH adventure. Here's how to secure your wallet:

Select new wallet and give it a name.
Choose standard wallet and create a new seed.
Write down the seed phrase and keep it private. Seed phrases are typically 12 or 24 words long.
Confirm your seed phrase on the next screen.
Backup the wallet seed phrase and derivation path.

Seed Phrase

Always keep your seed phrases secret. They are all someone needs to gain access to your crypto wallet assets. Any addresses derived from a compromised seed phrase should be considered public and not used to store assets.

Restoring Your Wallet

If you need to restore your wallet, use the existing seed phrase. If the seed phrase was created from the same wallet you're restoring with, this should work seamlessly. If not, you may need to enter the derivation path the wallet was created with.

Getting Started with BitcoinCom

Now, let's get some BCH by using the bitcoin.com BCH faucet and installing wallet.bitcoin.com on your phone.

Install the mobile wallet and backup the seed phrase.
Follow the faucet steps to get your BCH.

Faucets

Faucets give away small amounts of a cryptocurrency, just enough to pay for 1-3 transactions worth of fees. This is a great way to start using crypto without any initial investment.

Your First Transaction

Open the Electron Cash wallet and go to the receive tab to see a QR code representing one of your receiving addresses.
Open the BitcoinCom wallet, go to the send tab, and scan the QR code in Electron Cash.
Send the transaction to your Electron Cash wallet. The transaction should arrive after a few seconds.

Congratulations! You now have two wallets ready to use, one for Mobile, and one for Desktop. You've successfully sent micro amounts of funds between them. With this same process, you can send any amount to anyone.

Exploring Advanced Features

Your wallets are capable of much more; we've only scratched the surface. Explore the menus to discover features like CashShuffle or CashFusion, spend individual UTXO (coin control), change the fiat currency conversion, turn on quick-send, claim a CashAccount, and more.

Viewing Your Transactions

Each wallet typically shows its current balance and transaction history. For more details on individual addresses or transactions, use a block explorer like Blockchair.com, Blockchain.com, or Etherscan.io.

Thank you for reading this guide. We hope it has given you a solid understanding of bitcoin wallets and the basics of digital cash. Follow us on Twitter at @BuyHodlSell for updates. If you'd like to suggest an improvement, correction, or anything else, please get in touch with us.