NEVER Do's

Before we get started buying Bitcoins (or the alt-coin of your choice) and installing wallets or software on your computer I am going to list the "Never do's" and I want you to ingrain these in your head, repeat -- I want you to ingrain these in your head:

1. NEVER SELL BITCOINS OR OTHER ALT-COINS WITH PAYPAL!
• I repeat NEVER sell bitcoins or other coins with PayPal.
• Why? Because the PayPal scam is the first trick in the book. It goes like this:
• Newbie SELLER meets seemingly trustworthy BUYER in a forum or even an accredited established peer to peer exchange.
• Newbie sells Bitcoins to Buyer.
• One or two days later the seemingly trustworthy buyer revokes payment in PayPal with the excuse "My account was hacked!"
• PayPal, with its buyer protection policies takes back the money and you are left without your bitcoins or your payment!  
• There is no customer service in PayPal, you can open a dispute if you want, PayPal will not answer your emails but put "dispute solved" in their tool. Gee thanks PayPal!
• A buyer has 28 days to revoke payment!
• This is exactly what happened to me, despite me also being a customer they have not answered one single email asking for help.
• Happy ending: I got my bitcoin back because I only use trustworthy exchanges - more on that in the next section.
• On the contrary BUYING bitcoins, for the same reasons above is entirely OK, you as buyer are protected and can revoke payment through PayPal up to 28 days after purchase!
2. NEVER join, pay, move money, move bitcoins or other coins in a platform, forum or exchange until you have thoroughly researched it.
• I use for example SCAMADVISER.COM to check the history and status of every site/forum before even entering:
  
• Additionally I do a google search for each site like this: "trust www.websiteX.com" and check the feedback of other users.
• For example, see these results for "www.instant-e.com trustworthy"
• Instant-e.com looks like a scam doesn't it!?
3. NEVER store your bitcoins on the exchange or in your webwallet or other online wallet longer than you have to!
• When buying or selling Bitcoins, transfer the necessary amount to your chosen exchange right before/after the buy/sell.
• In other words minimize the time that your coins are 'in the internet' or on any website. All of those stories about Bitcoins getting hacked and exchanges like MtGox losing zillions of dollars all have to do with the website being hacked - NOT the Bitcoins!
4. If you jumped ahead and have experimented with paper wallets: NEVER reveal your private key to anyone or anything! This is truly the 'key' to your bitcoin. Keep it somewhere safe and NEVER store it in an email or cloud storage service like Dropbox or Google docs.
5. If you are using a wallet like Electrum which gives you a 'seed' to back-up your wallet NEVER reveal your seed to anyone or anything and NEVER store it on the web i.e. in an email or cloud service like Drobox or Google docs. etc.  
• The seed is the key to your entire bitcoin wallet and ALL bitcoin addresses in that wallet. It is therefore magnitudes higher in safety precautions!!!
6. When transfering Bitcions, i.e. making payments NEVER add messages that could reveal your identity!!!!
• YES that point is worth of four exclamation marks or more.
• TRANSPARENCY IS NOT ANONYMITY!
• Take for example the Bitcoin address of the Bitcoins that the FBI confiscated from the notorious Silk Road operators:
• http://blockchain.info/address/1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5GNn4xqX
• Here you see the heart of Bitcoin, the BLOCKCHAIN.
• Not only that but you see EVERY transaction ever made to that Bitcoin -- its address.
• Notice - you may have to scroll a lot - that people can put messages on their exchange when they send a payment to this address.
• NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN WHEN SOMEONE PUTS THEIR REAL NAME OR ADDRESS IN THAT MESSAGE?
• Yep -- it is there forever , and totally and completely irrevocable , forever .... really forever, or until the internet dies, take your pick.
• This is what a lot of people don't understand about Bitcoin and the blockchain. It is only anonymous until someone figures out who the address belongs to, or until some idiot actually puts an identifier in the message -'Public Note'- attached to the exchange.  This is the plus and minus of full and permanent transparency.

SUMMARY:

• NEVER sell bitcoins with PayPal.
• NEVER enter a website/exchange/forum without researching it first.
• NEVER leave your bitcoins on the exchange or web wallet longer than you must.
• NEVER reveal your PRIVATE KEYS to anyone or anything.
• NEVER reveal your SEED to anyone or anything.
• NEVER add specific information to the 'public note' or 'message' part of a Bitcoin transfer. TRANSPARENCY IS NOT ANONYMITY!

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