Step 1: Buying the bitcoins

1. Go to https://localbitcoins.com and make an account

2. Click on the 'buy bitcoins' tab

3. Find a vendor. Here are the criteria:

a. 'Payment method' = 'national bank transfer'.

b. Their feed back is equal to or higher than (1000+; 100%)

c. The price is not more than 5% of the price seen here http://tinyurl.com/zpahbjj *

4. Read the terms of the vendors, enter the amount (in gbp or btc) you want to buy and click 'send trade request'.

5. Wait for the vendor to send their bank details

6. Pay the full amount into their bank and inform them you have done so (keep the receipt)

7. Once the vendor has confirmed the payment they will release the bitcoins from escrow, you will now see them in your account wallet...... Congratulations you now have you first bitcoins

Step 2: Safely storing the bitcoins

1. Go to https://copay.io/#download and download the wallet for your operating system.

2. Install the wallet

3. Start the wallet and follow their instructions, the most important step is writing down the 12 word recover seed, this is everything you need in the future to reclaim your bitcoins **

4. Click receive (tab at the bottom) then click on the address (it will automatically copy to your clipboard)

5. Now go back to localbitcoins, click on wallet, paste the address and type the amount of bitcoins in and click continue

NB if your worried about doing the transfer (entered in the address wrong etc) you can do a test with like £1

6. Now, it will take around 10mins to an hour for the bitcoins to appear in your bitpay wallet. When they do, the bitcoins are actually stored in a location on the bitcoin network accessible by your recovery seed and not actually on your computer. It's safe to uninstall the wallet if you want or burn your laptop with fire.

7. When you want to redeem your coins and have for example a new pc, download copay (or a variety of other wallets, electrum for example) which will ask if your restoring from a recover seed, click yes and just enter the your 12 word seed and your bitcoins will appear.

* On local bitcoins you pay around a 5% premium compared to the prices seen on exchanges because you're buying them directly from someone. You can register with an exchange like https://www.bitfinex.com/ and not pay the premium but you have register and get verified (1-3 days) and transfer the money (international bank transfer 1-3days) which also costs ~£25-40, so the 5% commission is so you don't have to wait ~5days and pay £30

** Bitcoin wallets use a public key and private key. Your public key is what you use to receive bitcoin, ie you give this to people that are sending you bitcoins. You private key is the key to your wallet, anyone who owns this owns your bitcoins

Example of a public key:

1AY8j8vsisHWZEaKmPykUTeiyr37LhYDqU

example of a private key: 5Kb8kLf9zgWQnogidDA76MzPL6TsZZY36hWXMssSzNydYXYB9KF