Are your bitcoin transactions safe?

The safety of your transactions when using bitcoin is something not to be taken lightly. I guess nobody will find it interesting to suffer the cruelty of identity theft or intrusion of your bitcoin wallet by a cybercriminal. For sure, there are increasingly more places where you can spend your bitcoins.

As you know or may have heard, something unique with bitcoin just like the rest of cryptos is that you have no chance of walking to a customer care and asking about what happened. Of course there are customer support at your selected crypto exchange to help with any queries but it’s still not convincing to believe this new technology will secure your money plus any transactions.

No doubt, bitcoin and other altcoins are a budding new currency. Bitcoin having been the first cryptocurrency to enter the marketplace, it takes a leading role in beating the path for other such digital currencies. As a first crypto, bitcoin has had to fight a lot of uncertainties, truths, half-truths and sheer propaganda. One key concern that most people use to poke holes on bitcoin is its safety as an alternative way of paying for commodities online.

Are you worried about the possibility of your bitcoin wallet being hacked, a payment in bitcoin interpreted and diverted or possibility of suffering an identity theft? You are very right to be worried about safety of bitcoin transactions because it is just eleven years old. Just like everyone else, you are probably learning bitcoin on the go.,

Where can I buy using bitcoin?

Bitcoin continues to  dive deep into unchartered waters and expand its use globally. To say the east, bitcoin has sent finance, economic experts and governments scratching their heads on what it would mean . People are thinking about ways for monitoring the bitcoin transactions within the country and how exactly to tax it. These are just but a tip of the iceberg about how bitcoin is shaking up status quo.

Bitcoin today redefines buying and selling in the online space. While many people today consider bitcoin more as an investment option, its use for paying for online purchases is on the rise with El Salvador making it one of its recognized currencies. Coming from a period of fear and apprehension about what cryptocurrency generally and specifically bitcoin meant for trade, major retailers have now embraced it.

Below is just but just some of the  few businesses that accept bitcoin for their transactions. They are literally ready and willing to grow with the currency even as some quotas bash it.

• Microsoft
• Overstock
• Home Depot
• Namecheap
• Starbucks
• Tesla
• Electronics
• Wikipedia
• Newegg
• Shopify
• AT&T
• Twitch
• Dish Network
• ExpressVPN
• NordVPN
• ProtonMail
• Vultr
• WordPress
• Reddit
• Namecheap

It’s true that bitcoin is gaining more ground and acceptance as a currency for use in buying commodities. But the growth of bitcoin use has been largely on online platforms which is actually a pointer to the fact that as people get more digital in their buying, bitcoin will continue to offer more possibilities and convenience.

The businesses where one can use bitcoin range so widely including hotels, software solution providers, video games, travel agencies, and many more. You can always ask or check whether whichever the business you want to transact with accepts bitcoin payments. there is a possibility that either they accept it or are in the process of making it possible to pay with bitcoin.

Safety of your bitcoin transactions

Today, more and more people are fast accepting that bitcoin just like the internet is a disruption that may completely transform how people buy and sell. However, there are a series of questions that linger in the mind about just how safe it is. Could there be someone who can digitally enter your bitcoin wallet and initiate transactions without your knowledge? Is it possible that someone intercepts and redirect your bitcoin payments?

Whichever the way or shape the question about how safe bitcoin transactions is comes, the key thing is that people are paranoid, apprehensive and just not wishing to take chances. There is information from bitcoin miners, crypt exchanges and financial technology experts explaining how fraud proof the blockchain is. But such explanations may not be convincing enough. For the solace of anyone who intends to dive deep into the bitcoin arena, lets know better.

When you create the bitcoin wallet, it is a necessity that you secure it. The same applies whenever you as a customer start operating your bitcoin account. As much as the transactions that you perform will be displayed on the blockchain and can be traced back to your account, there is reasonably low risk to you as a person.

Let’s face it, if a fraudster had targeted a bitcoin blockchain to intercept a transaction, he or she must corrupt the algorithms of the multiple node (computers used in mining bitcoin) to access you. Simply put, when your transaction is run on a blockchain, you automatically become a member of that community. So, as a person, your individual payments are secure.

While it may be easy to guarantee safety of an individual transaction, there is a collective risk should a cybercriminal break through into the blockchain. Although such an occurrence is a rarity, considering the great level of technology used in making bitcoin, conspiracies have no limits-who knows when this may strike bitcoin. Intruder cybercriminals may be burning the midnight oil somewhere targeting bitcoin.

Remember, for you to get into cryptocurrency world, it is a requirement that you open a digital wallet. This opening of a bitcoin wallet requires a lot of information about you including card details, name, identity, telephone number et cetera. Such information may be infiltrated. However, this challenge is not unique only to cryptocurrency. It happens to even banks but there are of course various remedies on standby to protect you as a customer.

How to secure your bitcoins and bitcoin-based transactions

The blockchain and bitcoin developers have a primary duty to ensure that you who uses the currency is safe, that is no question. As any financial system, the developers are expected to have everything within their control and ensure that no transaction turns awry or a customer losses investment in whatever way.

Something tricky with bitcoins and bitcoin-based transactions is that in the unlikely event that you lose the precious coins, that is it. There is no clearly defined path as at now on ways to follow up for compensation over losses of your bitcoin. Probably this is one area that need clear thinking and fixing.

As an extra layer of security and safety for your bitcoins, there is something you can do, let’s see them now;

Secure your bitcoin transactions with VPNs (Virtual Private Networks)

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) help you secure online communications.  VPN reroutes your traffic and encrypt the data that travels between your device and the online endpoint. This is a great way to secure your bitcoins.

Offline private keys for safe bitcoin transactions

The keys that you ordinarily use to access your wallet is stored online which then makes it within reach of high tech hacking. The remedy to this is keeping an offline private key. This may seem contradictory that you are trying to embrace digital money but still has to go back to a manual kind of storing important details. Yes, it’s necessary to go manual if only to secure your bitcoins.

Use cold crypto wallets

Crypto wallet is you private storage of bitcoin from here transactions are initiated. Your crypto exchange of choice will ordinarily host your wallet for you. There are two types of crypto wallets today-cold and hot wallets.

Hot crypto currency wallets are online based. This means that they are live at all times even when you are not transacting. Because the hot accounts are always out there, the chances that a cyber attacker may target it is high. So, consider having a cold wallet as well.

A cold crypto wallet is offline. This means that nobody will easily access it unless with express permission from you as the owner. These accounts are largely more secure than the hot wallets. It would be a great thing to have this type of wallet.

Clever crypto owners like you may consider having both hot wallet and cold wallet. With two wallets, you spread the risks and be more ready to absorb a shock should the unexpected happen.