How to Create and Use a Bitcoin Core Wallet

I'm talking about how to quickly create your own bitcoin wallet and protect it from hacking. 

What is Bitcoin? 

If you've been in a coma for the past 10 years, here's a quick reference: Bitcoin is the digital currency used to conduct transactions on the network. It is decentralized, does not depend on banks and, roughly speaking, belongs to the Internet community, allowing you to make any kind of money transfers, in any volume and across the planet.

Advantages of the currency

Monetary assets are yours, without any "buts". No one can track your transactions and understand exactly how you use your money. No one can freeze your account or resent excessive storage of finances. Everything is extremely anonymous and secure. Transactions are automatically controlled by the global mechanisms of the blockchain network (large-scale data storage and processing system). 

Disadvantages

Cryptocurrency exchange is subject to a commission, it is still difficult to buy something with it. And although money is protected from cunning banks and the same cunning fraudsters, it is not from hackers yet. Stealing a crypto wallet is very different from hacking a bank account. The police will not work, and they will not help. But, to be honest, she also does not often help with the theft of money from a bank account. 

Where and how to store digital money?

Cryptocurrency, although it differs in many aspects from the usual dollars with rupees, but it also needs to be stored somewhere. The difference will be that traditional currencies will be in the bank, and the crypt lives in specialized software wallets. Such wallets allow you to make transfers, store money, transfer it from device to device, etc. In general, everything is just like in "life". Unless the interface of such a wallet will be less attractive than the interface of modern fintech applications, and you will often have to work with it using only a PC. 

Bitcoin Core wallet

Bitcoin wallet is one of the safest methods of storing crypto coins. Bitcoin Core is a digital wallet that is installed on a computer and performs all operations related to bitcoin right on the device. 

This approach makes storing currency safer, because the wallet will not suddenly end up on a third-party storage, where it will be easier for attackers to get it. In addition, this is a great option for paranoid people who do not want to pay money to third-party services for storing the crypt. Such a choice will bring the general experience of working with bitcoin closer to the relationship with a classic bank. 

Bitcoin Core is the canonical method of storing bitcoins. 

How to install Bitcoin Core?

To create your own crypto wallet, you need to take into account a number of conditions:

• You need a smart SSD drive on your computer to handle blockchain procedures.
• You need a special application. 

If you already have an SSD drive that can quickly save the entire history of operations in the blockchain on a PC, then we do the following:

• Go to the official bitcoin website, go to the Bitcoin Core section.
• Download the Bitcoin Core application to your computer (for Windows and macOS these are ready-made packages, and in Linux you can use the package manager).
• Run the downloaded installer.
• Follow the instructions on the screen.

The installation process is not particularly complicated. You just need to correctly indicate the drive where the wallet will reside. The rest of the procedure boils down to persistent clicking on the "Next" button until Bitcoin Core is finally installed. 

After the first launch of the program, the wallet.dat file will appear on your computer. This is the wallet. It stores your precious bitcoins. The wallet is created instantly; when you turn on Bitcoin Core, you do not need to do anything else.

Basic controls

Bitcoin Core has no frills, you can figure it out on the fly. The main control panel has only 4 buttons:

• "Overview" - the balance of the wallet is displayed here, as well as all transactions made using the current wallet connected to the application.
• "Send" - an interface for sending funds to other wallets by account number.
• "Receive" - ​​an interface for generating special links or QR codes for receiving cryptocurrencies.
• "Transactions" - additional information about the transfers being made. 

You do not need to configure any additional parameters to perform basic operations.

Making transactions

There are two ways to manage money in Bitcoin Core: send and receive. 

To receive funds, you need:

• Open the "Receive" tab.
• Indicate the amount you want to receive and fill in any other fields. None of them are required, so you can leave everything blank at all.
• Then click on the "Request payment" button. 

The program will automatically generate a payment link, which can now be sent to a friend/customer or converted into a QR code and pasted on the counter of your store. The payment link will automatically redirect the user to a special interface for transferring bitcoins to your wallet. At the same time, all data remains protected. 

To send money to another account, you need to:

• Open the "Send" tab.
• Indicate the recipient's wallet number (he himself must generate it and provide you).
• Then you need to indicate the amount to be sent.
• Then you need to specify the amount of commission and click on the "Send" button.

Wallet protection

Only you can protect the Bitcoin Core crypto wallet, since no one else is responsible for it. This is the only storage for your money, and if it suddenly disappears or you forget your password, you will never be able to restore access. 

However, using a password is important because hackers are on the alert and steal users' wallets all the time. Therefore, one of the first tasks of a novice crypto investor is to protect their wallet. To do this:

• Opening Bitcoin Core.
• Click on the "File" menu item.
• Select "Encrypt Wallet" from the drop-down menu.
• We specify the password.
• We save the changes. 

It is also worth making a backup of your wallet. A copy of the wallet.dat file will appear with all the money.

• Opening Bitcoin Core.
• Select the menu item "File".
• In the window that appears, look for the "Wallet backup" submenu and click on it.
• Choose where the copy of the wallet will be stored (you need to choose a safe place such as a secure flash drive). 

Other ways to store bitcoins

You can store cryptocurrencies in third-party services. There are many online systems, but they are discouraged due to their susceptibility to hacks. I will not recommend specific platforms either. They put your data at risk by default. 

But for those who are especially frugal, there are special physical crypto wallets that protect bitcoins on two levels - physical (you need to type the pin code on the device itself) and software (the same Bitcoin Core is installed inside). 

Instead of a conclusion

Now you can create your own crypto wallet. It is a pity that the government is gradually limiting the ability to transfer money from bitcoin to rupees, offering banks to block the accounts of crypto investors. But while the "shop is not closed", and you can still save the bitcoins for the future. Moreover, this is a trivial task, easily accomplished even by those who are not versed in blockchain technologies and do not understand what bitcoin is backed by.