How to Purchase and Store Bitcoin on a Cold Wallet for Dummies

This guide is for people who absolutely have no idea how to buy and store Bitcoin(s). They just want to get on the boat as soon as possible. We all started from there!

A few things to learn before we start :

Wallet Address (SHARED ID) - This is like a deposit account; you can give this Wallet Address to anyone. They can send you money and it'll go right into this account (Wallet). You can also send BTC to other people's Wallet using their Wallet Address.

Secret ID (Private Key) - YOU DO NOT give this to anyone. You save it and only use it when you want to withdraw your bitcoins from the cold wallet, put them back online to sell or hold in an online wallet (Exchange wallet).

Cold Wallet - Digital currency held in a wallet that is offline. Hot wallet is the opposite. When you have a paper wallet or save your secret ID for the wallet on a flash drive, then that wallet is OFFLINE (Cold Wallet). If you leave your Bitcoins in an exchange wallet, then it's online (Hot Wallet)

Why save Bitcoin on a cold wallet? Simply because you don't want to hold your digital asset online in an exchange company. Although exchanges companies such as Coinbase.com are safe, but why risk even 1% losing your hard earned money to a hacker or a scammer when you can 100% save it on a cold wallet?

Let's get started:

1. Go to Coinbase.com, an exchange company to buy/sell digital currency.
2. Create an account, and verify your identity (Coinbase is regulated by the U.S government, so feel safe identifying yourself).
3. Purchase Bitcoins. You can use a debit/credit card, 3% fee and "instantly" receive your bitcoins. You can also use your checking account to purchase, 1.5% fee but takes a few days to receive bitcoins. REMEMBER, you don't have to buy a whole bitcoin, you can buy half a bitcoin, or .39, however you like.

Your Bitcoin purchase was successful, you have BTC in your online Coinbase wallet, and now you want to transfer to a cold wallet. Now:

1. Go to bitaddress.org using Chrome browser. This is a wallet generator.
2. Right click somewhere on the page and click "Save as..."
3. Save the file
4. Disconnect from the internet
5. Insert a flash drive
6. Move the file into the flash drive and open it
7. Move the mouse around until the percentage reaches 100%
8. Click on "Single Wallet", then click on "Generate New Address"

There you will have your BTC wallet. SHARED ID (Wallet Address) and SECRET ID (Private Key). Remember, your are still disconnected from the internet. Also remember SHARED ID and SECRET ID are shown in the same page. Now:

1. Open a Microsoft Word or Notepad and copy paste SHARED ID (Wallet Address) and SECRET ID (Private Key) that you just generated, and save the file on the flash drive.
2. Now open another MS word or notepad to temporarily save the SHARED ID, so when you go on Coinbase, you will have it ready to send the BTC into your new cold wallet that you just created.
3. Eject the flash drive
4. Connect back to the internet
5. Go to Coinbase.com and Log in
6. Go to "Send/Request" and then "Send" and paste the SHARED ID ( Wallet Address) into there.

Congratulations! You have now sent your BTC funds into the cold wallet that you just created. Save that flash drive somewhere safe and do not use it for any other purpose than storing your BTC. You don't necessary need a 32GB flash drive, even a 256mb Flash Drive is enough. I personally recommend saving your SECRET KEY and Wallet Address on TWO different flash drives just in case one of them dies. Why not? Flash drives are cheap.

Two years down the road, BTC is now worth 5x and you would like to take your money out of the cold wallet (The Flash Drive)

You need to go to Blockchain.info to setup an account. Blockchain is a public ledger of all Bitcoin transactions that have ever been executed. This is where you use the SECRET ID (PRIVATE KEY) to bring your BTC back online to sell it to cash out.

1. Go to blockchain.info/wallet
2. Create a wallet/account
3. Now that your account is created, you will receive an E-mail with the wallet ID. Unlike Coinbase, you can't use your E-mail address to log into Blockchain, you will need the wallet ID.
4. Copy Paste the Wallet ID, put your password and continue. You will receive an E-mail asking for authorization, so continue with that.

Okay so again, you need to disconnect from the internet, insert your flash drive, open the word/text file that contains your keys, copy and paste the SECRET KEY into a temporarily MS Word/ Notepad so you'll have it ready, then Eject your flash drive, connect back to the internet, and go back to Blockchain.info/wallet. Now:

1. Once on Blockchain's Wallet, Click on "Settings"
2. Click on "Addresses"
3. Click on "Import Address"
4. Copy and Paste the SECRET KEY on there
5. It'll tell you how many BTCs you can import
6. Click "Import"
7. On the top, click on "Send"

As of 2017, you can't sell or buy Bitcoin on Blockchain. So this means you need to transfer the BTC that you just imported on Blockchain, back to an exchange like Coinbase to sell it. Just like your cold wallet that you generated before, your Coinbase account has its own Wallet Address. Go to "Accounts" on Coinbase and click on "get bitcoin address". That is the same as the SHARED ID (Wallet Address) that you will send your BTC to from your Blockchain wallet. Continue with Step 11 and you will BTC will appear in your Coinbase account again, ready to be sold!