How to buy and send bitcoins?

On October 12, 2009, the first known sale of bitcoin took place, when two users exchanged 5,050 bitcoins for 5.02 USD via Paypal transfer, which corresponds to a price of about 0.001 USD per bitcoin. 10 years later the bitcoin is close to 50,000 USD (fifty thousand dollars!).

This was a pleasant surprise for some people who had bought a hundred bitcoins as a joke when bitcoin was created…

How to explain the soaring value of bitoin?

The increase in transactions between criminals is not the only explanation … there is also the increase in volumes in India, the safe haven (like gold) during the covid, the announcements of Elon Musk to buy 1.5 billion bitcoins, the craze of high school students who hope to become millionaires, the alternative to investments that do not yield almost anything, etc. …

But beware, this virtual currency very volatile upwards, can also be very volatile downwards.

Buy bitcoins on Kraken

There are many sites to buy and sell crypto-currency. Some are reliable, but not all… Kraken is one of the references in this field, with a level of commission for the lowest.

Kraken is a crypto-currency exchange site: an exchange. It was launched in 2011 by Jesse Powell, one of the pioneers in the crypto world.

On this platform it is possible to buy and sell digital assets (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.) directly in euros and dollars. The strong point of this exchange is cryptographic security; the company has an impeccable record and conducts regular audits to prove that it holds the exact amount of user funds it is supposed to hold.

You can subscribe to other crypto-currency exchange site, like Coinbase which also has a solid reputation.

How to send bitoins ?

The fist step is to get your recipient address (a friend, a shop, your ISP…). You can make a payment of a gift… And the receiver address will look like that:

bc1qar0srrr7xfkvy5l643lydnw9re59gtzzwf5mdq

Then you have to input the bitcoin amount. There might be some commissions to add (ex 0.00015 BTC) depending on your crypto-currency exchange site.

Remember to be extra careful, once the money is sent, there is no way to cancel the operation. So use copy/paste to avoid any mistake and double the amount in your own currency.

Tips

It is better to fund your account by wire transfer, rather than by credit card where commissions are higher.