How To SEND Bitcoin Safely Without Getting Scammed

00:01 How to send Bitcoin to anyone anywhere 00:04 in the world. As easy as sending an 00:07 email, but not to hackers and scammers. 00:09 Let's talk about it. First of all, 00:10 hackers and scammers. Do not ever send 00:13 Bitcoin to anyone that is asking you to. 00:16 No matter what, it is 100% a scam 100% 00:19 of the time. Nobody at Coinbase or River 00:21 or BitKey will ever tell you to send 00:24 your Bitcoin somewhere. Never, never, 00:26 never do that. If you get a phone call 00:29 from someone pretending to be from 00:30 Google or Coinbase or whatever, claiming 00:32 your account was compromised and they 00:34 need to help you secure it, it is a 00:36 scam. Hang up the phone. If you get a 00:39 text message claiming to be from 00:40 Coinbase claiming that a login happened 00:43 to your phone or that a, you know, send 00:46 was initiated or something like that and 00:49 asking you to call a phone number. Do 00:51 not call the phone number. Coinbase will 00:53 never include a phone number in a text 00:55 message. It is a scam. So, do not do not 00:59 do not send Bitcoin to anyone who is 01:01 asking you to. If they're asking you to, 01:03 it is a scam. Okay, with that out of the 01:05 way, let's talk about how you send 01:07 Bitcoin to anyone anywhere in the world. 01:09 Okay, so Bitcoin works. Sending Bitcoin, 01:12 let me put it this way. Sending Bitcoin 01:15 works like email. When you want to send 01:18 an email to somebody, the very first 01:19 thing you need to do is get the email 01:22 address of the destination. So, a lot of 01:25 people get hung up on this with Bitcoin. 01:26 They're like, I need to send it and I 01:28 don't know what to do. It's like step 01:30 one, where are you going to send it? 01:32 Think about it like email. You got to 01:34 send the Bitcoin to somewhere else. You 01:36 got to start with the destination. Even 01:38 if you are sending Bitcoin to yourself, 01:41 you have to start with the destination 01:43 because you have to generate a Bitcoin 01:46 address. We'll call it a Bitcoin receive 01:49 address. Okay. So let's assume I am 01:51 sending Bitcoin between Coinbase and 01:55 River. Let's say it's going from 01:57 Coinbase to River. So if the destination 01:60 is River, that means when I want to send 02:02 it, even if I'm sending it to myself 02:04 between two accounts I control, I have 02:07 to start with the destination. What is 02:10 the email address or in this case the 02:11 Bitcoin receive address for where I'm 02:14 sending it? Well, because it's going 02:15 from Coinbase to River, I have to start 02:18 in River and I have to generate a 02:20 Bitcoin receive address. Now, a Bitcoin 02:23 receive address is a long string of 02:26 letters and numbers. It's between 26 and 02:28 62 letters and numbers in a string. And 02:32 uh Satoshi Nakamoto was smart enough to 02:34 make it work where it does not use any 02:37 special characters. So, if you double 02:38 click it, it's not going to select only 02:40 part of a Bitcoin address. If you double 02:42 click a Bitcoin address, it always 02:44 selects the whole thing. Satoshi 02:45 Nakamoto was a genius. He made it, you 02:48 know, idiot proof. Um, also, you should 02:51 always copy and paste Bitcoin addresses 02:53 rather than type them because 26, you 02:56 know, letters and numbers is really 02:58 long. 62 letters and number is way super 03:01 long. And there's no reason to to type 03:03 it. It's just always easier to copy and 03:05 paste no matter when you're doing it. 03:06 Uh, also you do not need to if you do if 03:09 you do decide to type any a bitcoin 03:11 address, you do not need to worry about 03:13 typing it wrong. Uh, there is something 03:16 called a check sum in a bitcoin receive 03:18 address that makes it impossible to send 03:21 it in the wrong place. So essentially, 03:23 no matter how long the address is, the 03:26 last five digits of it are uh a check 03:29 sum that makes sure that the first 03:32 however many digits are correct. And so 03:34 if you type a wrong letter or number 03:37 into the anywhere in the Bitcoin 03:40 address, whether it's in the first part 03:41 of it or it's in the check some at the 03:43 end, the all of the that has to match 03:46 and it is essentially mathematically 03:48 statistically impossible for you to type 03:51 an address that is accidental that is a 03:54 legitimate Bitcoin address. So if you 03:55 change any letter or number or any 03:59 series of letters or numbers, basically 04:01 if you change anything about a real 04:03 Bitcoin address, there is a 0% chance 04:06 that it will let you send Bitcoin to 04:08 that address. So you can try it. You 04:10 can, you know, try to send $1 of Bitcoin 04:12 or whatever and then change something 04:14 about the address and it will not let 04:15 you send it. No matter how much you 04:17 change about that address, it will not 04:19 allow you to send the Bitcoin until you 04:21 change it to the way it's supposed to 04:23 be. Now, you do need to check the 04:26 address before you send it because even 04:28 though it's impossible to send it to a 04:30 an address that was typed wrong or copy 04:33 and you know copied and pasted only part 04:35 of it or something like that, even 04:36 though that is impossible, it absolutely 04:38 is possible for you to send it to the 04:40 wrong address if you copy and paste the 04:42 wrong address. So when you are ready to 04:45 send the Bitcoin, you do need to check 04:48 and again it's you do not need to check 04:50 like every letter, but you do need to 04:52 scan over it and make sure that 04:54 generally it looks like you know 80% I 04:58 mean go ahead and check every letter. 04:60 There's no reason not to check every 05:01 letter. But my point is if you're if you 05:03 miss a couple, it doesn't even matter 05:04 because it's not mathematically possible 05:06 for an address to be uh almost exactly 05:09 the same. But anyway, so read through 05:11 the read through it, check it, eyeball 05:12 it, make sure that it generally looks 05:15 like uh looks like every digit lines up 05:17 with what you think you're sending it 05:19 to, and then you can safely send it. But 05:21 again, check your destination, make sure 05:23 you have the right address. Sometimes 05:25 people get messed up uh because, and you 05:27 should never do this, never never do 05:29 this, but sometimes people will copy and 05:31 paste addresses out of their uh 05:34 transaction history. uh you should not 05:36 do that because if somebody sends you 05:38 Bitcoin with an address that is similar 05:41 to an address that you that is your 05:44 address and you are copying and pasting 05:46 random addresses out of your transaction 05:48 history, you might accidentally copy and 05:50 paste an address that kind of looks like 05:52 your address, not realize that it's not 05:54 your address, and then send it to 05:56 someone that is not intended. So, uh, 05:59 anytime you're generating a Bitcoin 06:00 address, you generate the address at the 06:03 destination, which means you go into 06:04 River and you click receive and it will 06:07 give you a Bitcoin address, and that is 06:08 the address you use. Don't pull a random 06:11 address out of your transaction history 06:12 or something like that. Go generate a 06:14 new Bitcoin address every time. Uh, 06:17 also, you might be thinking, well, 06:19 that's cool. I'll just memorize my 06:21 Bitcoin receive address. You do not need 06:23 to do that because every time you send 06:25 Bitcoin, you need to generate a new 06:28 receive address. The reason for that is 06:31 that Bitcoin is a public ledger. Meaning 06:34 although nobody can tell who is 06:37 transacting, the transactions themselves 06:40 appear on a public ledger. And if you 06:42 are sending uh all different 06:45 transactions to the same Bitcoin receive 06:48 address, someone can eventually figure 06:50 out if they do enough scouring that all 06:52 of those things are going to you. So, 06:54 for example, let's say that you give a, 06:59 you know, you ask a friend to send you 07:01 $20 and they send you $20 to a Bitcoin 07:04 receive address and later, you know, you 07:07 sell somebody a car for $20,000 07:10 and they send the Bitcoin to the same 07:12 Bitcoin receive address. Now, that 07:14 Bitcoin receive address has $20,20 07:18 in it, which is not a problem except 07:21 that the person who sent you $20 can go 07:24 look at that Bitcoin receive address and 07:26 say, "Wow, I sent them $20. Now they 07:28 have $20,20." 07:31 And you just there's no reason for the 07:32 person who sent you $20 to know that you 07:34 have an additional $20,000 in there. If 07:36 you generate a new Bitcoin receive 07:38 address every time you're sending 07:40 Bitcoin, you don't have to worry about 07:42 that because the person who sends you 07:44 $20 sees $20. The person who sends you 07:46 $20,000 sees $20,000. And there's 07:49 nothing that connects the two of those 07:51 things. So, you should always generate a 07:53 new Bitcoin receive address every time 07:55 because it's it helps with your privacy. 07:58 It doesn't make it impossible for 08:00 somebody to, you know, put the pieces 08:02 together, but it's just it's good good 08:04 Bitcoin hygiene. And also your you can 08:07 generate on any online service and with 08:10 Bitkey an unlimited number of Bitcoin 08:12 receive addresses. It works very similar 08:14 to the uh feature in Apple where every 08:17 time you generate a new um what do you 08:21 call it? Every time you sign up for a 08:22 service, it asks you uh if you use login 08:25 with Apple, it says, "Hey, do you want 08:27 us to share your real email address with 08:29 this service or do you want us to 08:30 generate a random email address that we 08:34 share with this service?" And then we'll 08:35 forward you the emails they send. That 08:37 way, if anybody, you know, leaks your 08:39 email address or you start getting spam, 08:41 you can find out exactly where it came 08:42 from because you technically use a 08:44 different email address for every online 08:46 service you sign up for. But again, you 08:48 don't have to worry about that. you just 08:49 have one email address that you monitor. 08:51 Well, it's the same thing on River or 08:53 Coinbase or BitKey. When you generate a 08:56 receive address, you can generate an 08:57 unlimited number of receive addresses. 08:59 It will all show up as a single unified 09:01 balance uh on your device because you 09:04 know all the different receive addresses 09:06 you've ever generated, but nobody else 09:08 does. And that's the beauty of it is, 09:10 you know, it it pulls it all together 09:12 for you and makes it nice and simple, 09:14 but nobody else knows that. And so to 09:16 the public blockchain, it looks like 09:19 Bitcoin's going all over the place every 09:21 minute of every day and none of it's 09:23 linked together. And only you know that 09:25 when five different people sent you 09:27 Bitcoin and it aggregates them all 09:29 together on your Bit Key or on River or 09:31 on Coinbase, only you know that those 09:33 transactions all came to you because 09:36 they all came to different Bitcoin 09:37 receive addresses. Okay, that's a lot 09:39 more technical detail. I'm sure my 09:41 amazing team will chop this down to a 09:43 much shorter video. So, but let's go 09:45 through all the details. I like the long 09:47 form videos to have all the details. 09:49 Okay. So, you want to send Bitcoin, you 09:51 need to send it to a Bitcoin receive 09:52 address. That receive address will be 09:55 generated at the destination. If you are 09:57 sending it to yourself, uh sending 09:59 Bitcoin from Coinbase to River, you will 10:01 generate that receive address on River. 10:04 If you are sending Bitcoin from River to 10:06 to Bitkey, you will generate that 10:08 Bitcoin receive address on Bitkey. 10:10 Again, it's always at the destination. 10:12 All right. Now, once you have that 10:14 Bitcoin receive address, you copy and 10:16 paste it. Well, you copy it at this 10:18 stage. You copy it and then you move 10:20 over to wherever you're sending it from. 10:23 In this case, if we're going from 10:24 Coinbase to River, we get the Bitcoin 10:26 receive address from River. We go over 10:28 to Coinbase. We hit send or withdraw. 10:31 They keep changing uh the user interface 10:33 as far as, you know, what you click to 10:35 do what you plan to do. I think they uh 10:37 they change it to withdraw, but it used 10:39 to be send or something like that. 10:40 Anyway, and then it asks you for a 10:42 Bitcoin address and you paste that 10:46 Bitcoin address into there and then you 10:49 check it. So, you check the, you know, 10:52 you flip back over to River and you, you 10:54 know, check the characters there. You 10:56 can also screenshot it if you want. Uh, 10:58 you can screenshot the address from 10:60 River, flip over to Coinbase, uh, paste 11:03 it into Coinbase, and then you can flip 11:04 back and forth between Coinbase and 11:06 River to check the address and make sure 11:07 it's right. Or if you screenshot it, you 11:10 can flip over to your photos app and 11:12 flip back and forth between your photos 11:13 app and Coinbase to check that the 11:16 Bitcoin address that you got from River 11:19 is actually the one that pasted into 11:21 Coinbase and then you send the Bitcoin. 11:24 Um, and that's what happens. Now, uh, 11:26 some services, uh, usually they send the 11:29 Bitcoin immediately. The exception to 11:30 that is Coinbase. Coinbase aggregates, 11:34 sends, and does what's called batch 11:36 processing. Batch processing means you 11:38 don't process until you have a batch. So 11:41 if a thousand people want to send 11:43 Bitcoin, they'll wait till a thousand 11:45 people have sent Bitcoin and then 11:47 they'll process all of those together on 11:49 the blockchain in a single transaction. 11:51 The downside of that approach, the 11:53 upside is it saves Coinbase uh fees 11:55 because the fees on the Bitcoin network 11:57 are a lot cheaper if you're batch 11:59 processing. Uh the downside is it delays 12:02 the transaction send. So oftentimes if 12:05 you send from Coinbase it will be 12:07 delayed as compared to no it's usually 12:09 only a minute or two you know sometimes 12:11 five or 10 minutes it uh etc. Also if 12:14 you receive Bitcoin on Coinbase it works 12:16 the same way they do not reflect it in 12:18 your account balance until you are you 12:22 know 10 or 20 minutes have been passed. 12:24 So um if you're using Coinbase sending 12:27 from Coinbase is you know relatively 12:30 quick but not instantaneous. Receiving 12:33 on Coinbase is typically quite slow 12:35 because Bitcoin uh Coinbase does not 12:37 show up receives on their platform until 12:40 a certain amount of time has passed. But 12:42 other services like River or Bitkey, if 12:45 you send Bitcoin, it happens 12:47 immediately. Boom. You send it, it goes 12:49 out the next second. Uh and then 12:51 typically receives happen the same way. 12:52 If you receive bitcoin on bit key or 12:55 river uh you'll get a notice that the 12:57 transaction is processing very quick 12:59 quickly typically within a few seconds 13:01 or at least a minute or two. Uh and then 13:04 uh it will be uh you know the 13:07 transaction will be confirmed on the 13:09 bitcoin blockchain which happens 13:11 typically within 10 or 20 minutes. Uh 13:13 but you don't have to worry about that 13:14 with bit or with river. You find out 13:16 that the transaction went through and is 13:18 processing very quickly. Again on 13:20 Coinbase that typically can take some 13:22 time. Uh, so if you send something to or 13:24 from Coinbase, just realize you might be 13:26 waiting a little while. All right, so to 13:28 recap here, you got your bit you got 13:31 your the equivalent of a Bitcoin email 13:33 address from the recipient. Just like 13:34 email, you always start by getting 13:36 knowing where you want to send it. You 13:38 cannot use email unless you get the 13:40 email address of where it's sending. 13:42 That's always the first step. People 13:43 don't think about it, but that's the way 13:45 it works. You always get the Bitcoin. 13:46 You always get a bit a email address 13:49 from the recipient first and then you 13:52 send them the email. Bitcoin works the 13:54 same way. You get a Bitcoin receive 13:55 address first and then you send the 13:58 Bitcoin. So once you have done that and 13:60 you're sending, you know, from Coinbase 14:02 to River or from River to Bitkey or 14:05 whatever you're doing, you get that 14:06 Bitcoin receive address. Then you go 14:08 over to wherever the Bitcoin is that you 14:10 want to send. You paste it in and then 14:12 you initiate the send. Now, I recommend 14:15 if you're new to this to send a small 14:16 amount first. So, even if you're 14:18 planning to send $1,000, start by 14:20 sending $10 and then just get 14:22 comfortable with the process. You can 14:24 see the $10 show up, as soon as you see 14:25 the $10 show up, go ahead and send the 14:27 $1,000. It's just good to get 14:30 comfortable with it. I want everybody to 14:31 feel comfortable with how this works. 14:32 Now, you might be thinking, "Do I even 14:34 need to learn how to do this?" The 14:36 answer is yes, because this is how 14:37 Bitcoin works. So, if you want to be 14:40 able to send Bitcoin, um, you got to 14:42 know how to do this. Um, even if you use 14:45 an automatic integration with BitKey, 14:48 um, and there there is an automatic 14:50 integration with Coinbase and with Robin 14:52 Hood, that makes it easy to send Bitcoin 14:55 to Bitkey. If you're going to send it 14:58 back from Bitkey to Robin Hood or 15:01 Coinbase or River or anywhere else, 15:03 you're going to have to generate a 15:04 receive address and send the Bitcoin 15:06 that way. There's no automatic 15:08 integration to get Bitcoin off of Bit 15:10 Key. And that is by design because if 15:12 there's an automatic integration, that 15:14 means there's something to be hacked or 15:16 scammed. And uh Bitkey does not mind an 15:19 automatic integration to get Bit Bitcoin 15:21 into Bit Key. Uh but if you're getting 15:23 it back out, then obviously, you know, 15:26 that produces the possibility of hackers 15:28 and scammers. And so that's why they 15:30 have it locked down where you have to 15:32 use it the traditional way that Bitcoin 15:34 works. Um, so you're welcome to use the 15:36 automatic integration with Coinbase or 15:39 Robin Hood if you're trying to get 15:40 Bitcoin on BitKey, but if you need to 15:42 send it back from Bitkey back to 15:45 Coinbase or Robin Hood or River or 15:47 anywhere else, you're going to have to 15:48 generate a receive address at the 15:51 destination and then send the Bitcoin 15:53 from wherever it is. So, that's how that 15:56 works. And, um, again, uh, let me think 15:60 if there's anything else I'm forgetting 16:01 here. generate a receive address on the 16:04 destination, send it from wherever it 16:06 is, wait. If it's Coinbase, you'll be 16:09 typically waiting longer. If it's Ri 16:11 River, Bitkeye, Robin Hood, whatever, 16:13 they they send and receive pretty quick. 16:16 Um, yeah, that's how that works. It's a 16:19 super cool technology. Um, it's, you 16:21 know, pseudonymous, meaning all the 16:24 transactions are visible on the 16:25 blockchain, but nobody can tell who is 16:27 who. uh just always remember to generate 16:30 a new Bitcoin receive address every time 16:33 you are sending Bitcoin. Now the 16:35 exception here is if you have it set up 16:36 on like uh automatic withdrawals on 16:39 River, that's fine. If if if automatic 16:42 withdrawals from your own account are 16:44 going to the same Bitcoin address over 16:46 and over, that's fine because again, who 16:48 cares if somebody sees that once a week 16:50 $20 or $100 or $1,000 goes to the same 16:53 Bitcoin address? Nobody, you know, 16:55 nobody knows the difference. So, if 16:56 you're withdrawing to the same address 16:59 over and over, as long as it's yours, it 17:01 doesn't matter. And if it's on automatic 17:03 withdrawal, you can only put in one 17:05 address anyway. So, that's totally fine. 17:07 But again, if you're actually 17:08 transacting in the real world and moving 17:10 Bitcoin around, whether you are sending 17:12 Bitcoin to a Christian missionary in a 17:14 foreign country or you are sending 17:16 Bitcoin to loved ones or you are sending 17:19 Bitcoin to yourself or your BitKey 17:21 device, always generate a new Bitcoin 17:23 receive address every time. And to 17:26 recap, do not send it to hackers and 17:28 scammers. Nobody at Coinbase or River or 17:31 BitKey will ever under any circumstances 17:34 tell you to send your Bitcoin anywhere. 17:37 If anyone ever if they call you on the 17:39 phone, you get a text message, they 17:41 claim your account's been compromised, 17:43 they claim there's an unauthorized 17:44 transaction, it doesn't matter what they 17:46 tell you, nobody, nobody, nobody will 17:48 ever tell you to send your Bitcoin. If 17:52 anyone is telling you to send your 17:53 Bitcoin anywhere, there is a 100% chance 17:56 it's a scam. Do not do it. Hang up the 17:59 phone. Do not respond to the text 18:01 message. If you need me to, you know, 18:03 fact check something, text me a 18:05 screenshot at 601-2070813. 18:09 That number again, 612070813. 18:13 Or message me on Facebook Messenger with 18:16 a screenshot of whatever it is and say, 18:17 "Hey, is this legit? Is this real?" 18:19 There's almost a 100% chance I will tell 18:21 you, "Nope, that's a scam. Ignore it." 18:24 Uh, just ignore it. So, be careful out 18:27 there. Bitcoin's amazing. It's powerful. 18:30 And that is how you send Bitcoin.