Get some bitcoins with any of these methods:
Buy small amounts of Bitcoin online. If you are buying under $2000 of Bitcoin or are new to crypto currencies try one of the combined wallet / bitcoin traders to get rolling. Examples include Coinbase and Xapo. These sites will allow you to buy a small amount of Bitcoin in exchange for an approximate 1% service charge. Like a bank, they will also store your bitcoin for you on their servers.
Buy large amounts of Bitcoin via a trading exchange. If you are buying over $2000 of Bitcoin, you will want to take advantage of the lower commission rates offered on an exchange. These exchanges operate like a stock market with bid / ask spreads changing 24 hours a day. Creating an account at an exchange is a similar process to opening a new bank account, you will likely need to give them your real name, contact information and send them money. Different countries and currencies have different Bitcoin exchanges that are best to use in each geography:
ake money out of a Bitcoin ATMs. Many cities around the world offer a bitcoin ATM where you can trade cash for bitcoin. These ATMs usually charge a 5-8% fee for doing the trade. An up to date list of bitcoin ATMs can be found at CoinATMradar.com.
Buy bitcoin from a live person offline. All over the world it's possible to give someone a wad of cash and have them load some bitcoins onto your phone. Please only trade small amounts of money till you trust your trading partner. See LocalBitcoins for an offline bitcoin dealer near you.
Earn bitcoin. Look for other companies that are willing to hire people in exchange for bitcoin. Or open a store on OpenBazaar (the bitcoin version of eBay) and sell your stuff in exchange for coins.
Mine bitcoins. Download and run a "mining" program (CGMiner, for example) on a custom computer that turns math equations into bitcoin. While profitable mining was possible for individuals in the early days of Bitcoin, it's now in the domain of specialized companies.
Set up your first Bitcoin wallet. If you don't feel technically competent, it's perfectly acceptable to ignore the next few steps and just leave your bitcoin in the account where you bought them. In fact, most bitcoin holders do just that. But the beauty of bitcoin is that it's money that no third party needs to control for you. In addition, since exchanges store hundreds of millions of dollars of bitcoin, they are a very attractive target for hackers. So unlike stuffing dollars in your mattress, it's actually safer to store your bitcoins on your own rather than trusting them to an exchange. All the wallets listed here will not give any third-party access to your bitcoins:
Mobile Wallets are Bitcoin wallets that run on your mobile device. Such wallets are portable and practical for in-store use. Mobile devices tend to be less prone to malicious software than are computers, creating a reasonably secure environment for small amount of bitcoin.
Web wallets are convenient and user-friendly, because they are always available online. All you need to do is set up an account and log in
Hardware wallets are highly secure and mostly foolproof. If you are new to bitcoin and want to store a lot of bitcoin safely, you'd be smart to invest in a hardware wallet
Paper wallets are very secure for long term storage. While paper wallets are highly hacker resistant, they are cumbersome when it comes time to spend your bitcoins.
Advanced wallets are not a great starting place for beginners. This is the type of wallet for which Bitcoin was originally conceived. You'll have to run a local copy of the blockchain to keep your transactions anonymous.
Create a public Bitcoin address. Use the wallet you created in the above step to create a public address for you. Think of a public address like an email address in that you can share it with anyone you want to send you email or in this case Bitcoin.
Send a small amount of bitcoin to the public address you created above using the "withdraw" or "send" function in the place you bought your bitcoin. You may need to wait 10-20 minutes for a confirmation, but if you did everything correctly you should now see the small amount of bitcoin you sent in your personal wallet. Congratulations! You have successfully moved bitcoin to a wallet that you and only you control!
Use your bitcoin to invest, shop, donate or give away.
