Get Your Bitcoin Cash - Store you Bitcoins Safely!
If you have Bitcoin right now, you need to consider a number of things to make sure you get Bitcoin Cash when the hard fork happens on 1st August .
Just a note - the ticker BCC is already used on some exchanges for BitConnect which will almost definitely add to the confusion for those new to this space .
Letting Exchanges Do The Work:
If your money is in an exchange that will NOT be supporting bitcoin cash, you will need to move it to an exchange that WILL be supporting Bitcoin Cash and has a policy to credit YOU directly with Bitcoin Cash.
Exchanges that will not be supporting Bitcoin Cash: GDAX, Coinbase, ItBit, BitMex and BitStamp.
Exchanges that will be supporting Bitcoin Cash and will credit you accordingly after the hardfork: Bittrex, Kraken
Putting YOU in control
The safest option for storing bitcoin is being in complete control of your own Private Keys. When you transfer Bitcoin to someone or to an exchange, you send the bitcoin to an address. This is the public address and is a deposit only address. If you have access to the private key for that address, you can also send the Bitcoins at that address to another address.
Why is this important? Well, if you own your private keys, then once the fork happens, the private key will work on both version of the chain.
So, if you use the private key on the Bitcoin chain, you get access to your bitcoins and if you use the SAME private key on the Bitcoin Cash chain, you get access to your Bitcoin Cash.
To create a private key is really easy.
Move the cursor around for 30 seconds or so to generate a random sequence
When done, you will see a page that shows you:
A "Share" key - this is your new public address that you can safely share and use to transfer Bitcoins to this address.
An example of this is: 12rkqkCZKA6q2FJzSdPx8eKKe5uR4YpX8z
A "Secret" key, and you should in NO WAY whatsoever share that with anyone. Sharing this will give anyone direct access to any bitcoins sent to this address.
An example of this is: KzFAFLUT92axnhfL1T7kSv5jVnV6QZfopm3UmDva72i1DiwEMy2c
You need to save this key by printing it off - and ideally keeping it a multiple SAFE locations. If you lose the Private key, you lose your bitcoins. There is NO WAY to get them back if you do.
There are additional tabs on the website that allow you to generate pretty pages - but its the Keys that are important.
If you a tech savvy, you can also go to the Github repository (https://github.com/pointbiz/bitaddress.org) for bitaddress.org and download the project as a zip file. You can then unzip the site and run the html file locally on your PC - totally disconnected from the Internet. This is the preferred way!
Getting You Bitcoins Back:
Once deposited, you may eventually want to get the bitcoins back to send to others or trade on an exchange.
To get your bitcoins back, you can import your private keys into a wallet like Exodus, or setup an online wallet on a site like BlockChain.Info.
Once setup, you can then type in your private keys into the Import Private keys screen, and this will then offer to move your bitcoins from your private address to the wallet.
Once in the wallet, you can then transfer or spend your bitcoins at will.
It is NOT recommended you spend a portion of your bitcoin when not in a Wallet unless you know what you are doing as you could lose your coins!
To claim you Bitcoin Cash coins, you will need to do that same process, but with a wallet that supports Bitcoin Cash.
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