Wednesday, 08 June 2011
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Free Bitcoins - peer-to-peer currency
Getting Started:
Step 1 - Get a wallet
The official Bitcoin client is a program you can install on every Windows, Mac or Linux computer. Simply download and install it. It will automatically create a wallet for you and start downloading the transaction history. (Future versions will have a "lightweight" mode where this is not necessary.)
Another way to get a free bitcoin wallet is get one online at InstaWallet or MyBitcoin. With this option you don't have to install anything, but your wallet is stored on that company's servers, so you have to take great care not to lose your password and you trust that site to keep your wallet safe.
Once your wallet is set up, you'll get your first Bitcoin address, which means you're ready to receive free Bitcoins!
Step 2 - Get Bitcoins
For your first test with Bitcoin, you can get a tiny amount of Bitcoins for free from the freebitcoins.org.
Step 3 – Accepting Bitcoins
If you have anything to sell or a marketable skill, consider that you can earn bitcoins as payment for small jobs at forbitcoins.org
For larger purchases there are several currency exchanges, such as Mt. Gox and Bitcoin Market. If you prefer skipping the exchange and dealing directly with other people you can head over to Bitcoin OTC.
What to do with my Bitcoins?
The best place to find products and services available for Bitcoins is the Trade page on the Bitcoin Wiki.
You might also want to check the Bitcoin Marketplace forum on Bitcoin.org.
Over-the-counter trading is being done via IRC chat in Bitcoin OTC (#bitcoin-otc on Freenode).
Bitcoin works different than Paypal:
BitCoin is a P2P, distributed computing type competitor to PayPal. In the PayPal model, everyone logs into a central server. PayPal moves money around the various accounts and you can take money out of the system by having PayPal deposits it into your bank account. Because PayPal needs to buy servers and pay salaries, PayPal takes a percentage cut. However, what if computer resources, hosting, and labor were all crowd sourced? Well, that’s the BitCoin model. But there’s one small difference. Well, there are two small differences. Wait. There are three small differences. Wait. Not all of them are small.
One, as you run your node, BitCoin pays a small fee into your account for use of your hardware and bandwidth. PayPal doesn’t pay me anything.
Two, PayPal lets you pay merchants and send people real money. As in US dollars, Canadian dollars, British Pounds, and Euros, BitCoin only lets you pay in a currency invented out of whole cloth - The BitCoin. To get real money, you have to find someone who wants to trade real money for BitCoin. There are some secondary sites where you can place offers for coins and people set the price they want to sell their coins at. So, to get Bitcoins you have to either earn them by keeping your node going or buying them from someone else.
Three, while any government can increase arbitrarily the supply of dollars, Euros, etc., BitCoin swears it will cap the circulation of Bitcoins to 21 million. It will generate a lot of Bitcoins in the initial phase and then taper off.
Get free bitcoins today at freebitcoins.org
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