Silk Road forums

Discussion => Newbie discussion => Topic started by: hunter75 on August 29, 2013, 01:10 am

Title: BTC Newb question
Post by: hunter75 on August 29, 2013, 01:10 am
Being in the USA....what is the best and safest BTC wallet to use as of now?  And why?
Title: Re: BTC Newb question
Post by: frank-butcher24 on August 29, 2013, 01:14 am
It is your own wallet (i.e. the bitcoin software itself) which you have on an encrypted SD card or USB stick or something, made to run as a portable application, connecting only ever over Tor.

Why trust a third party?
Title: Re: BTC Newb question
Post by: hunter75 on August 29, 2013, 01:31 am
So I can use a regular thumb drive if I wanted?
Title: Re: BTC Newb question
Post by: frank-butcher24 on August 29, 2013, 01:39 am
Yes but the application will download the entire blockchain, so you'll need a 16GB or 32GB one to be safe.

Create a large Truecrypt encrypted file on the USB drive, and then unpack the bitcoin software into a folder called "bitcoin".

Also put the Tor Browser Bundle onto it, I suppose.

Before running it for the first time, create a folder called "Data" or whatever, then create a shortcut in the same location as the software, which points to bitcoin-qt.exe -datadir=X:\bitcoin\data

The ensure you always mount the truecrypt volume as X:, and run the software by clicking on the shortcut. Make sure you're running Tor or it won't be able to make any connections. The Bitcoin software comes with the Tor (proxy) option enabled by default.
Title: Re: BTC Newb question
Post by: hunter75 on August 29, 2013, 01:53 am
Where is a safe place to get the bitcoin software?
Title: Re: BTC Newb question
Post by: frank-butcher24 on August 29, 2013, 01:56 am
http://bitcoin.org/en/download

Download it using your Tor browser. Be prepared to have to run it overnight so it can download the whole blockchain onto your USB stick.
Title: Re: BTC Newb question
Post by: hunter75 on August 29, 2013, 02:23 am
OK.  What is the safest place to buy BTC from?