Frequently Asked Questions

A rapidly increasing number of retailers, both online and offline, now accept payments in Bitcoin. You can buy anything from flights with Virgin Atlantic to Pizzas from your local pizzeria.

You can also have great fun playing the digital currency 'stock market' on one of the online exchanges.

For a long list of just some of the things you can do/buy, click here.

It is fundamentally important that you understand that a Bitcoin wallet is in no way similar to a 'real' wallet. It never contains Bitcoins at all. It is rather badly named! A Bitcoin wallet is in fact...
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For your first Bitcoins, the safest place for your wallet is on your own computer, encrypted. We do not recommend using...
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A very good question! And one which you must totally understand the answer to. Read this in conjunction with How do I backup my wallet?', the two questions are intrinsically linked....
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Another extremely important question, the answer to which is not as intuitive as you might think. If done incorrectly you can easily give your entire Bitcoin balance to a Bitcoin thief! Read this in conjunction with How do I keep my wallet secure', the two questions are intrinsically linked....
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It is vitally important to not break this simple rule...
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One of the fundamental features of Bitcoin transactions is that they are irreversible. What does this mean, and why is it important? This question is...
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This question is best answered with an example of one of the many reasons Bitcoin is such a good idea...

Imagine you want to sell your car to someone you've never met before. They arrive, have a look at it, take it for a quick spin (with you in the passenger seat of course) and decide they'd like to buy it.

How do they pay you? A few possible options exist:

1. Cash.
Do you count it in front of them? Did you count it correctly. Did you check every single note in detail to ensure it's not counterfeit? If it turns out to be counterfeit, what recourse do you have? These questions are not easy to answer.

2. Go with them to a bank and deposit cash over the counter.
But is the bank open right now? How do you travel there? Who pays for parking? What happens if the money is found to be counterfeit during the payment? What happens if the money is found to be counterfeit after you've left?

3. Direct Bank Transfer (BACS)
Sometimes a BACS transfer can take 3 working days to arrive. Did you also know that a BACS transfer can be reversed up until 5pm on the working day it first appears in your account?

4. Direct Bank Transfer (CHAPS)
Is only actually quick if done during working hours. Not guaranteed to arrive same day unless sent before 2pm on a working day. And, not a lot of people know this, but they can be reversed during the initial phase, after they have first appeared in the recipient's bank account.

5. Bitcoin Transfer
First appears in the recipient's account after 10 minutes. Fully cleared in 30 minutes. Absolutely completely totally irreversible. Free.

Just one example. There are many other reasons that Bitcoin makes so much sense - as soon as you start to use it you start to realise its world changing potential. How likely it will be to change the way things work in a very fundamental way.

The simple answer is that you tell the sender what your wallet address is (instructions follow) and then sit back and wait. But there's a slight complexity with privacy and security implications you should be aware of when telling someone your wallet address, or making it public. All Bitcoin transactions are...
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In your wallet application, click on the 'Send' tab, then paste the recipient's address into...
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At the moment, it's actually not that easy to safely buy Bitcoin at a rate anywhere near the current market price. Here's how we do it....
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There are many ways to do this. Some offering a rate much higher than that of the current market, some a little less than the current market. Risk of monetary loss decreasing as you move along the scale. The two brilliant ways we've found are...
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You need to set up an account on one of the many online exchanges. And you need to be careful. Some of them are not what or where they appear to be. More than one online exchange has vanished overnight, recently, with 1000's of defrauded site users, and a couple of champagne drinking millionaires laughing all the way to their own private island! We recommend the following exchanges and procedures:...
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Don't worry! They can't use it without your approval. When they try to redeem it, the authentication we perform will fail, and a security alert will be raised on our system. The voucher will be cancelled and we will contact you.

If you let us know it's been stolen before they try to redeem it, we'll cancel it and issue you with a new one.

Just pop over to our support section and post your question in there. We'll get back to you as quickly as we can. If it's a good question, we'll add it to the FAQ, if that's OK.