How do I get started with Bitcoin?

You've heard about Bitcoin, and how people are making tons of money in something called "crypto" and you want to get a piece of the action.

This is not a Get Rich Quick guide. This describes how to go from being a "Nocoiner" to a "Bitcoin Maximalist."
Step 1:
Determine how much money you have to invest. No one has any money to lose, of course, but surely you have some money that you can put into an investment and leave it for 12 months. Figure out how much that is. How much are you comfortable investing in something you currently do not fully understand?
Step 2:
Open an account at an exchange. If you're comfortable with limit orders and other trading terms, you'll save money on fees by going with Coinbase Pro, Gemini Active Trader. If you're less familiar with investing, and stocks, and order books, have a look at River Financial, Crypto.com
You can also purchase Bitcoin through PayPal and Strike

This is going to be like opening a bank account. These companies are going to want a picture of your driver's license, and your social security number. It is going to feel invasive, but you have to realize you're establishing a financial relationship with this company, so they need to know who you are. They're going to verify your identity. So if you plan on using fake information, or someone else's info, you're going to run into trouble down the line.
  • This describes a controversial topic called KYC and many Bitcoiners will be upset at the suggestion that you comply with these privacy-destroying demands, but this is the easiest way to go from knowing nothing about Bitcoin to being a Bitcoin enthusiast/maximalist. It should be said that there are ways to obtain Bitcoin without going through an exchange, without giving up your identity, but those require more familiarity with how Bitcoin works than most people start off with.

Words of warning:
  • Don't open an account with an exchange that needs to be accessed with a VPN. If the exchange isn't available in your country, find one that is.
  • Don't buy/sell/trade on margin. You don't need to borrow money to buy Bitcoin. Only use money that you can afford to remain invested for 12 months.
Step 3:
Send money from your bank account to your new account. The details here are going to be specific to the exchange you chose, but hopefully you can figure it out. You're a smart person. We believe in you.
Step 4:
Buy a little bit of Bitcoin. You don't have to buy a whole Bitcoin. Actually, there are not enough Bitcoin for everyone to own a whole Bitcoin. If you want to own your fair share of Bitcoin (assuming there are 7.5 billion people on Earth) you should by 0.0028 BTC. Even if you cannot afford 0.0028, buy what you can. You can by more later.
  • Bitcoin can be broken up into 100 million smaller pieces called Satoshis, or sats. People will either quote amounts of Bitcoin as 10,000 sats, or use the decimal format, such as 0.0001 BTC. This is why it is fine to own less than one whole Bitcoin. By the time you want to spend your Bitcoin, you'll probably be paying in sats.
Should you buy as much as you can up front? Should you spread out your purchases over time?
This is a very personal decision. Guide your answer with this: If you think Bitcoin is going to go up in price quickly, buy all at once. If you think Bitcoin will go up slowly, or will go down, or will go sideways in price, buy a little bit each week.
Step 5:
Now that you've bought some Bitcoin, start to learn about why that was a good idea. Sure, you think the reason you did this was to get filthy rich. You think that is all you need to know, but now that you're invested it might be worth looking into why some people say they will never sell Bitcoin, or why they say Bitcoin will save the world.
Step 6:
Once you understand how separating money from government can produce positive results, you're probably ready to start learning about "self-custody." Did you come across Executive Order 6102 in your research about how Bitcoin will save the world? The TL;DR is the US government confiscated gold from all citizens one day. If you start to value your Bitcoin as something that protects your purchasing power from inflation, you might want to move your Bitcoin to somewhere that the government cannot confiscate it. This is called "self-custody."

Buy a Ledger, or a Trezor, or a ColdCard, or a BitBox Only buy these from the manufacturer.
These are called hardware wallets. They store something called your private key, which is used to sign transactions which send/spend your Bitcoin. Without the private key, no one can move your coins even if the government demands you give your Bitcoin to them. Look up "Bitcoin Boating Accident" for what could happen if the government told you that you needed to surrender your Bitcoin to them.

When you setup a new wallet with your hardware wallet, it will give you something called "seed words." These 12 or 24 words can be used on any hardware wallet to recreate your wallet. If you lose your hardware wallet in a flood, fire, or boating accident, as long as you have your seed words you will be able to recover your Bitcoin. In fact, anyone with your seed words can control your Bitcoins, so consider your seed words more secret than your social security number. Never tell anyone your seed words. Never type them into a computer. Write them down, and store them somewhere safe.
Step 7:
Get a software wallet for your computer. Try Electrum as a starter wallet. Only download this from their website.
There are good tutorials on YouTube for setting up Electrum.Which ever software wallet you use, you'll connect it to your hardware wallet. The hardware wallet keeps the private key inside. The software wallet creates the transactions to send or receive Bitcoin.
Step 8:
​You might be ready to take custody of your Bitcoin, but don't rush it. You need to understand the value of your seed words, and how to back them up. If you didn't learn about that when you setup your hardware wallet, then take time to learn about your private key and how it relates to the seed words your hardware wallet gave to you.

If you're ready to take full control over your Bitcoin, you create an address with your software wallet, you verify the address with your hardware wallet and you give that address to the exchange where you bought your Bitcoin. Double check the address you saw on your hardware wallet is what you pasted into your exchange. There are viruses which look for Bitcoin addresses and they change them at the time you paste. Also, if you typed the whole address by hand, because you couldn't copy/paste, or didn't want to, then double check the address because once the Bitcoin is sent there is no way to get it back. There is no manager you can speak to. No one can reverse the transaction. While that might scare you now, when the government wants to come get your savings, you'll be amazed that there is nothing they can do either.

If you're a little uneasy about this step, do a test transfer. Send 0.00001 to an address so you can get the feel for the mechanics. If you blunder it up, you're only out a few pennies. That's a lesson well worth the cost.
Step 9:
At this point you're a self-sovereign Bitcoin holder. You're probably still checking the price several times each day.
Maybe the price (in US Dollar terms) has gone up, maybe the price has gone down. Maybe the price isn't moving fast enough for you and you're thinking about buying one of those other coins that seem to be going up so much more. Here is one argument for why you should not dabble in those other coins, stick with Bitcoin.

While you're waiting for that magical day when you can tell your boss how little you care about the TPS reports, or whether the bathroom is stocked with paper towels, spend some time learning about why the CEO of Twitter & Square hopes Bitcoin can bring about world peace.
From here the next steps are: