securely_purchase.md

How to purchase Monero and securely store it.

This is a guide to purchase and securely store Monero as of June 2017.

Step 1: Buy Bitcoin

There are many ways to buy Bitcoin. Two semi-reliable companies at this time are Xapo http://www.xapo.com/ and Coinbase http://www.coinbase.com/. The process will involve uploading your personal identification (State ID, Passport, etc.) and will take anywhere from 2 to 10 days (or longer). Verify their reputation on Reddit before making a large purchase. Xapo uses Wire Transfer and Coinbase uses Bank Transfer (ACH in the USA). Xapo should be faster than Coinbase. Coinbase also allows small "instant" buys via a debit card but adds a large fee for this option. Once you have purchased Bitcoin, you are ready to convert it to Monero!

Step 2: Download and create a Paper Wallet on a secure and air-gapped computer.

Download the paper wallet generator at: https://moneroaddress.org and copy it to a USB stick (Direct link: https://github.com/moneromooo-monero/monero-wallet-generator/archive/master.zip).

Unzip and open the paper wallet generator (monero-wallet-generator.html) into a web browser on an air-gapped computer that hasn't been used before, or has had a clean installation of the OS.

Your paper wallet will have four important items:

Monero Public Address The public address is used to receive funds to the wallet. You give this to anyone who will be sending funds to your wallet.

Monero Mnemonic Seed The mnemonic seed is a method of storing the entire wallet that is easily recognizable to humans. This is all you need to restore your wallet at a later date.