Bitcoin wallet checker

Following my first attempt at setting up a Bitcoin wallet I decided that having provided my email address this didn’t make me anonymous enough so I started again.

I had considered using the Tor network to make it “totally” anonymous but figured this was totally over the top so I just opened an incognito window and signed on without providing an email address. The downside of this level of anonymity is that it becomes much harder to recover a lost password so there is an element of risk.

Everything has to be written down on paper and not kept on your PC. I don’t have a printer hooked up to my PC so I couldn’t even print any password details. I can email the home printer but that would send the info via Gmail and then via HPs own email server which is not trusted. Neither is Gmail really even though it is encrypted.

It wasn’t just a complex password that had to be written down. Bitcoin addresses, wallet IDs and the mnemonic that have to be recorded are all extremely long and with my handwriting prone to mistakes. I had to differentiate between upper and lower case text by underscoring the lower case to make sure that a “b” for example wouldn’t be mistaken for a six in future. I backed up the wallet recovery file somewhere secure.

Once set up I bought a Bitcoin from Dan Howitt in the office next door. nt here. Dan transferred one Bitcoin, priced at £292 (E352) to my Bitcoin wallet and sent me an invoice. I then sent Dan’s business the cash via internet bank xfer. We were both happy.

The acquisition process was not as simple as one might imagine but when you think of it if you buy foreign currency you usually hand over cash one way or another in exchange for travellers cheques or notes. It isn’t usually a purely electronic transaction. Also I think that not having a direct link with a bank account is a good thing here considering the nature of the beast.