Getting a BitCoin wallet
The first step to getting started with BitCoins is to get yourself a BitCoin wallet. Just like
a real wallet, this is where your BitCoins are stored. It is far more tangible than money
stored in a bank account – the wallet file you create is a file just like any other
document. It can be moved around and stored on different devices. You can even
duplicate it to have multiple copies (obviously this doesn.t duplicate the money
inside, though!).
Your BitCoin wallet is comprised of two parts: the wallet file, which stores the BitCoins,
and the wallet application (also called the BitCoin client), which opens those wallet
files. This means that it is possible to store the wallet file on a USB drive (for example)
and open it on any computer that has the wallet application installed. As there is a
version for most operating systems, it.s possible to open the BitCoin file pretty much
anywhere.
You can download the official client from the BitCoin website (www.bitcoin.org).
There you can get the right version for your operating system.
For Windows and OS X, installing the wallet application is just like installing any other
application for your platform. I.ll assume that you already know how to do this.
Opening the application will generate the wallet file and assign you your first
receiving address (more on this in a bit).
For Ubuntu, downloading the client gives you a .tar.gz file which contains four
different versions: the main application and the windowless server in both 32-bit and
64-bit flavours. You can put this folder anywhere and then click on bitcoin to start
the program.
Alternatively, instead of installing the BitCoin client, you can choose to use an online
service such as Instawallet (www.instawallet.org). This site generates a wallet file and
ties it to a specific URL which you can save as a bookmark. This allows you to access
your BitCoins from pretty much anywhere, but means that you have to trust the
service with your BitCoins.
Have a look at the BitCoin client window. This is the Mac version, but like most cross
platform applications it.s pretty much the same for every version.
That.s all there is to it. Pretty simple, right?
