Safety first. With crypto, this is imperative.

Lets  start from a very important premise. Bitcoin is currently considered a safe system.

The weak point in the use of bitcoin is the user.

the weak point is you.

But this big problem can be solved with careful planning and habits every time you use bitcoin.

Losing your bitcoins means losing access to the wallets where they are stored or sending them to people or exchanges from which we can no longer recover them. Another example of a loss could be considered the theft of the wallet by a criminal.

Always remember that there is no way to delete a transaction on the blockchain, and those Bitcoins sent cannot come back. There is no regulatory autorithy that will protect you from malicious people and get your bitcoins back. Is only your responsibility to protect yourself

But what are the steps to protect yourself.

First of all, a wallet must be created, and this wallet will have a private key. This private key must be keep secret and you must back it up

If you don’t know what kind of wallet to open, check out our article on the various types of wallets.

To access this wallet, create a login password. Back up your login password.

Remember that you are not in control of wallets on exchanges, so do not forget funds on exchange unless you are trading. Exchanges are like banks, they own your money but control is in their hands.

For large quantities of bitcoins, it is imperative to use hardware wallets

Make a copy of the wallet’s private key and password on a USB stick. Encrypt this key and hide it in a safe place. You can choose to have multiple keys with multiple passwords for the different wallets you are going to create. Obviously you don’t have to forget the password otherwise you will lose everything.

Create one or more strong passwords,it means that you have to create password with at least 8 characters, better if there are more. With a mixture of lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers and special characters.

Do not use passwords from other accounts such as email.

A good idea for a password is a sentence made with one or more grammatical errors, or by substituting letters with numbers such as 5 instead of S

the best possible password, however, is a string of characters and numbers and random symbols but it is difficult if not impossible to remember

You can also use a password manager to generate and track passwords

Some hardware wallets require you to use Pin codes, always prefer 8-digit ones over 4-digit ones and don’t use dates of birth.

When accessing exchanges, always try to use 2-factor authentication and not SMS. You can check out our 2-Factor Authentication video to learn more. SMS is not recommended because it could be intercepted by a hacker and used to defraud you or empty your wallet.

If you need to access an exchange or your wallet, it is absolutely not recommended to use a public wi fi. Wait until you have a secure line or use a VPN. Much better never to use public wifi.

You have to pay attention to the sites you use and check the emails that come to you. Phising sites and emails are a real threat.

check that you have a secure SSL connection via HTTPS. There are many scams with cloned sites and domains that look the same but that if carefully observed have very small discrepancies from the originals

Another precaution is not to click on the links within the unsecured emails. We can receive emails from the exchanges where we are registered but we must check carefully and if the email seems suspicious, throw it. Obviously never open attachments from these emails. Remember that an exchange email should contain your name, not just Sir or Dear Customer. Another test is to check the real origin of the email.

remember that transactions cannot be canceled or returned.

Precisely for this reason when you send money always check the sending address twice and never write the address manually,

because you will face always complicated address, and if you make a mistake and send money to an address that has nothing to do with it and you never get those coin back.

The security of your Bitcoins is entirely up to you.