Why Choosing the Right Bitcoin Wallet is Important

By Tom Clancy

A few days ago Forbes ran a story about Olaf Carlson-Wee who has lived for three years using only bitcoin as currency. The 26 year-old works for bitcoin start-up Coinbase, so he obviously has a personal investment in proving the viability of bitcoin as a currency; even so it’s an impressive achievement. Carlson-Wee began his journey before bitcoin began to achieve its “trendy” image, and if he can do it then it’s certainly achievable for others, and likely to become more so with the introduction of products like the Shift debit card which was released by Coinbase.

Having said all of that it’s still going to be a while before bitcoin is completely mainstream. Although those people hunting for deals and bargains after the expense of the holiday season may be interested to know that more providers and retailers are starting to accept bitcoin as a method of payment. This is worth remembering when you are looking for bargain codes from cashback or voucher sites VoucherBin.co.uk for an instance. If you are looking to trade in bitcoin then you may be thinking about how to store your bitcoin safely. We are going to take a look at some of your bitcoin wallet options.

You may already be aware of what a bitcoin wallet actually entails, but just in case we thought it would be a good idea to provide a brief overview. Unlike an actual wallet that you think of which holds money, a bitcoin wallet does not actually hold your bitcoin. All bitcoin is stored in the blockchain shared record, so that is why you don’t actually have to open your bitcoin wallet to accept coins.

The thing is that you have to sign every bitcoin transaction with your private key, and which gets stored in your wallet. Basically opening a bitcoin wallet creates an address for you, with its own secure key so that you can then use the key to complete bitcoin transactions. Even though bitcoins are not actually stored in a wallet they are still protected by its use. There are several different bitcoin wallets on offer, but which one is right for you?

Which bitcoin wallet should you choose?

There are several bitcoin wallets around to choose from; mobile bitcoin wallets, desktop bitcoin wallets, bitcoin paper wallets and online Bitcoin wallets. We’re going to show you how each of these works.

Using a bitcoin desktop wallet

Anyone who uses bitcoin, and has already got bitcoin client (Bitcoin-Qt) installed already has access to be able to create a bitcoin wallet and complete transactions. Some of these desktop bitcoin wallets, such as Armory, are renowned for having advanced security levels. Other popular desktop bitcoin wallets include:

• Hive (OS X)
• MultiBit (Windows, OS X, Linux)
• DarkWallet (anonymity focused)

If you want high levels of security and you are happy with the physical limitation of having to use your desktop then this might be the right bitcoin wallet for you.

Using a bitcoin mobile wallet

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