How Do You Add Money To Bitcoin
After that, click on the arrow at the bottom of the form to select the method for receiving electronic money. As you can see, the process of replenishment with the help of a terminal is slightly different from how to put money in your bitcoin wallet through Yandex.Money. However, both options are not complex and can be performed within 5 minutes. In most cases, you cannot deposit money in a Bitcoin wallet. Instead, you can buy Bitcoin from exchanges or other platforms using cash and then load it to your Bitcoin wallet. Here are the steps to take to achieve it: Download a Bitcoin wallet. The first step to do is to get a Bitcoin wallet.
- How Do You Add Money To Bitcoin Wallet
- Can You Make Money On Bitcoin
- How To Send Money With Bitcoin
- How To Add Money To Bitcoin
- How Do You Deposit Money Into Bitcoin
Every so often at Coinmama, we get a question that makes us scratch our heads, rethink how we explain things, and go back to Bitcoin basics. Recently that question was “Can you tell me how to add money to Bitcoin wallet?”
The head scratching came from not being sure exactly what question was being asked. Was the user wondering how to buy Bitcoin or was he asking how to load his wallet with fiat (that is, with paper currency)? After some lively office debate over coffee and a few chocolate bars, we were reminded of something often repeated by teachers: if one person has a question, someone else is probably asking the same thing. And because here at Coinmama we like to think of ourselves as crypto teachers, we decided to tackle both questions and a few bonus topics as well.
First let’s rewrite the question:
Before you can ask “Can you tell me how to add money to Bitcoin wallet?” you need to ask, “Can I add money to my Bitcoin wallet?” The answer, much like our relationship with Coinpapa, is “It’s complicated.”
Let’s back up. A crypto wallet is a cross between your bank account and your mailbox for cryptocurrency—it’s the place where you can send, receive, and store coins, and it’s also where you can see a record of all of your transactions. But a crypto wallet is, by its very nature, for cryptocurrency.
So the answer to the question depends on what you mean by money. If by money you mean Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency, then yes! You can buy Bitcoins and send them to your wallet (we’ll cover that in a second). But if by money you mean fiat currency, such as a Dollar, Euro, or Yen, then the answer is no. While on some exchanges you can link your credit card or bank account, that link is to the exchange and not to your wallet. In other words, you cannot add fiat to your crypto wallet.
How do you buy Bitcoin?
If our user was actually asking how to add (or buy) Bitcoin to their wallet, well that we can easily answer!
Step 1: get a bitcoin wallet
You can’t get cryptocurrency without a crypto wallet, so if you don’t already have one, that’s your first step. There are many, many crypto wallets you can choose from. Some live online, some live offline, some can be used to store several different cryptocurrencies, some only one or two. Many experienced crypto buyers spread their coins out over more than one wallet. The key to choosing a wallet is to do your research: learn which wallets support each coin, read the reviews, and then download the wallet or wallets of your choice.
Step 2: place an order
If you’re registered with Coinmama, once you have a wallet you can easily buy Bitcoin with your credit card, debit card, or SEPA bank account. (If you’re not registered, you can do that here.) Simply choose the amount of crypto you’d like to buy, add your payment details, and go to step 3!
Step 3: enter your wallet address
Here’s where things get interesting. Every wallet has both a public key and a private key, or two very, very long strings of numbers and letters. The public key is what other people can see: it’s what appears on the blockchain, and it’s also what you can give out in order to receive cryptocurrency. The private key is the password to your wallet. (Don’t lose it, because it can’t be reset, and don’t give it to anyone you wouldn’t also give your bank password to.) In order to send (or add) Bitcoin to your wallet, you will need to enter your public key—or wallet address, so that Coinmama can send you your coins. Once you do that, your work is basically done! You’ll just need to confirm your wallet address by email before you can sit back, relax, and wait for the Bitcoin to be added (or sent) to your wallet.
Coinmama’s Takeaway
At Coinmama, we’ve been around crypto long enough that we forget some people are new to it. It’s nice to get a head scratcher every once in a while, to remind us that for many people, crypto basics are not so basic, and to give us an excuse to answer questions we don’t normally get to answer 🙂
Click here to read our Beginner’s Guide to Bitcoin and Crypto
A lot of people have gone through our training on how to make their first purchase of Bitcoin, and then how to use that Bitcoin to buy other specific altcoins.
But there is one last piece to this puzzle missing.
And that is how to add Bitcoin to your offline or hardware wallet.
This step is extremely important.
When you first buy any sort of cryptocurrency, you most likely are using an exchange to do so.
There are other ways to purchase Bitcoin, like using a Bitcoin ATM machine, but 99% of people will be using an exchange to get their hands on this digital gold.
But there is a risk to this.
The Risk Of Leaving Your Bitcoin On An Exchange
The risk is that you are leaving your Bitcoin open to attacks from hackers and thieves.
What you must understand is that when you sign up to an exchange, your account is associated with cryptocurrency public addresses.
This means that you have your own destination that you can share with others to send and receive Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
How to find your public address is pretty much the same for every exchange, so if you know how to find it on one, you’ll easily be able to find it on any other one.
So, as an example, here is how you find your Bitcoin public address on Binance:
You go to the top right corner and hover over “Funds.”
Then click “Balances”.
This then brings you to a page of all of the cryptocurrencies available for purchase on the exchange.
Assuming we want to know our Bitcoin public address, type in “Bitcoin” in the search bar.
Then click “deposit”.
Here is where your Bitcoin public address is.
If you bought Bitcoin through Binance, this is where your Bitcoin would be sent.
If you also bought Bitcoin on another exchange – let’s say Coinbase – and wanted to send it to Binance so you could purchase another cryptocurrency with it, this is the address you would copy and paste to do so.
But there is a problem with this.
The problem is that you only have access to this address: your PUBLIC address.
But you DO NOT have access to your PRIVATE address.
This is why you NEVER want to leave your cryptocurrencies on ANY exchange.
Think of your private address as the password to your bank account – if someone knows what it is, they can simply login in and drain your account.
I’m not saying that anyone at Binance has access to your private key, but what I AM saying is that your private key is stored online.
And YOU don’t even have access to it.
And this is a huge problem.
You should never store your Bitcoin, altcoins, or any other cryptocurrency in a wallet that stores its private key online.
Especially not an exchange wallet.
So what you have to do is deposit your Bitcoins into an offline (hardware) wallet.
The first step in doing so is to actually get yourself a hardware wallet.
Bitcoin Hardware Wallets That Are Safe To Deposit Your Funds
The 3 most popular, highly-praised hardware wallets in terms of safety in adding Bitcoin to are:
These wallets are top of the line and are the highest-security hardware wallets money can buy.
What Information Do I Need To Add Bitcoin To My Hardware Wallet?
Okay, so now you bought a hardware wallet.
Great!
The next step to secure your Bitcoin is to add it to your hardware wallet public address.
The wallet that I personally use is the Ledger Nano S.
So I will use this as an example.
Now, before we get into how to actually do this, let’s understand one thing:
Sending and receiving Bitcoin between wallet addresses is universally the same process.
What I mean by this is that depositing your Bitcoin from your Kucoin exchange wallet to your Trezor wallet is the same process as depositing Bitcoin from your Cex.io wallet to your KeepKey wallet, which is the same process as depositing your Bitcoin from your Coinbase wallet to your Ledger Nano S wallet.
This is because, in every instance, all you need are the same two pieces of information:
- Your login credentials
- The public address of the destination wallet
If you have both of these things, you can successfully add Bitcoin from your online wallet to your offline wallet.
Funding Your Bitcoin Account And Adding It To Your Wallet – The Entire Process
Now it’s time to figure this whole process out.
How do I go from having my money in hand, to buying Bitcoin with it, and then adding that Bitcoin to my wallet?
This is how you do it.
How Do You Add Money To Bitcoin Wallet
For this example, I’m going to use one of the most popular exchanges and one of the most popular hardware wallets.
We will be taking our Bitcoin from our online Coinbase wallet, and depositing it into our offline Ledger Nano S wallet.
1. Buy Bitcoin On Coinbase.
So, obviously, the first thing you have to do is actually buy the Bitcoin.
There are many places you can buy Bitcoin from, but for the purposes of this example, let’s say we use Coinbase.
We actually have a full, step-by-step walkthrough of exactly how to buy Bitcoin on Coinbase.
We will continue on, assuming you have gone and read this article.
2. Locate Your Ledger Nano S Public Address.
Now that we have actually made our Bitcoin purchase, it is now time to take it off of the exchange and place it in our safe, offline wallet.
To do this, we must find the public address of our hardware wallet.
Can You Make Money On Bitcoin
For the Ledger Nano S, this how you find it:
Go to the Ledger Wallet website and download the Ledger Wallet Bitcoin & Altcoins.
Then, plug in your Ledger Nano S.
How To Send Money With Bitcoin
When you plug the Ledger Nano S into your computer, this screen will show up:
Here, it will ask you if your Bitcoin address is Segwit or Legacy.
For fear of going too far down the rabbit hole here, simply select “I don’t know” for now.
We will explain the difference between Segwit and Legacy addresses in a future article.
How To Add Money To Bitcoin
Next you will see this screen.
Click “receive.”
Here, it will display your public Bitcoin address.
This is the wallet address that you will be adding your Bitcoin to.
How Do You Deposit Money Into Bitcoin
3. Fund Your Wallet By Depositing The Bitcoin To This Public Address
Now that you have the public address of your destination offline wallet, you have to go to Coinbase and send the Bitcoin to it.
Note that I have bought $100 worth of Bitcoin in order to show you how this transaction works (a little less because of the transaction fees and volatility).
On your Coinbase dashboard, go to “Accounts”.
You’ll see the total amount of Bitcoin in your Coinbase wallet on the left.
We want to send the Bitcoin from this wallet to our Ledger Nano S wallet.
Click “send”.
Here is where you copy and paste your Ledger Nano S public address.
Keep in mind that, as I said, this process is the same for all exchanges.
You simply find the specific cryptocurrency you are trying to fund your offline wallet with, and then click either “send” or “withdraw”.
Most exchanges actually saw “withdraw”.
But the option is the same.
Two areas typically pop up when you do this:
- The destination public address
- The amount you are sending
That’s all the information your have to put it.
You just need to know the public address of the wallet you are funding, and the amount you wish to send.
In this case, I’m just going to send the entire amount.
Click “continue”.
4. Confirm This Transaction Via Email
Depending on the exchange, there may be a verification email sent to you in order to confirm this transaction.
This is simply an added security feature in order to make sure it is actually you that is sending the money.
Once you find this email and click “confirm”, the transaction is final.
Now all you have to do is wait for the funds to be added to your wallet!
This can take anywhere from a couple minutes up to an hour.
So don’t freak out or stress if you don’t see your wallet funded right away!
The funds are on their way and will be deposited shortly.
If you prefer video, here is a great video detailing the steps of transferring bitcoin between wallets:
Adding Bitcoin To Your Wallet: Closing Remarks
And that’s it!
You have officially sent, received, and successfully funded your Bitcoin wallet!
That wasn’t so hard, was it?
Admittedly, I was on the edge of my seat the first time I did it, too.
With this whole world being so new to me at the time, it took a while for me to actually summon the courage to actively send my Bitcoin from one place to another.
But after the first few times, I got used to it.
And you will, too!
Just be sure to take your time and follow this guide step-by-step.
Before you know it, you will have safely added your Bitcoin to your offline wallet!
Good luck!