How to Buy Bitcoin Safely: A Gentle Guide for Those of Us Who've Seen a Century of Change

By someone who remembers when a loaf of bread cost a nickel

Dear friend,

You have lived through the Great Depression, watched men walk on the Moon, and seen the telephone shrink from a piece of furniture into a little glass slate we carry in our pockets. You have survived worse than this. Buying a sliver of digital money is well within your abilities, and I'm going to walk you through it slowly, the way I'd explain it over a cup of tea.

First, What on Earth Is Bitcoin?

Imagine a ledger—a big record book, like the one the bank used to keep behind the counter. Now imagine that instead of one bank keeping that book, thousands of computers all over the world keep identical copies, and every few minutes they all agree on what's written in it. No single bank, no single government, no single person controls it. That's Bitcoin.

In my lifetime, we've used gold coins, paper dollars, and now mostly just numbers on a screen. Bitcoin is simply the next step in that long story: money that lives on the computer, with a fixed supply, like a digital form of the gold standard we once knew.

You do not need to buy a whole one. Just as you could buy a single silver dollar instead of a chest of them, you can buy twenty dollars' worth of Bitcoin and own a little fraction. Most sensible folks start exactly there.

Step One: Set Up Your Spectacles and Your Patience

Before anything else, do this on a computer you trust, in your own home, on your own internet connection. Not the library computer. Not a public coffeehouse Wi-Fi. Your own chair, your own desk.

Have a notebook and pen beside you. You'll be writing a few things down, and I'll explain which things in a moment.

Step Two: Choose a Reputable Exchange

An "exchange" is simply a company that sells you Bitcoin for your dollars, the way a bank once sold you savings bonds. The key word is reputable. In my day we trusted institutions with long histories and good names; the same instinct serves you here.

Look for the large, well-established companies—the ones your grandchildren have heard of, the ones registered with the proper authorities, the ones that ask to see your identification. Yes, it feels like a nuisance to show your ID, but a company that verifies its customers is a company the swindlers find harder to operate in. That friction is protection.

A few markers of trustworthiness, worn true across a hundred years of commerce:

• They are registered and regulated in your country.
• They have been around for years, not weeks.
• They answer their telephone and have real human help available.
• They never, ever contact you first to offer you a deal.

That last one bears repeating: any phone call, letter, or message that arrives uninvited promising you Bitcoin profits is a thief. In 1925 it was a man selling swamp land in Florida. Today it wears a new costume, but it is the same old con.

Step Three: Open Your Account Slowly

You will create an account with your name, your address, and your identification—much like opening a bank account in person, only done from your armchair. Use a strong password, and if the company offers something called "two-factor authentication," say yes. That simply means that after your password, they also send a code to your telephone before anyone can get in. It's like a door with two locks. A burglar who picks one still faces the other.

Step Four: Buy a Small Amount First

Send a modest sum—perhaps the price of a good dinner—and buy your first fraction of Bitcoin. Watch it arrive. Let it sit a few days. Nothing teaches like a small, safe rehearsal. You are never obliged to buy more, and anyone who pressures you to buy more, now, quickly is not your friend.

Here is the truthful part, spoken plainly: Bitcoin's price moves about more than a corn stalk in a prairie wind. Some weeks it will be worth more, some weeks less. Money you put into Bitcoin should be money you can afford to watch fluctuate—never the rent, never the medicine money. At our age, peace of mind is worth more than profit.

Step Five: Now, the Most Important Lesson of All

When you buy Bitcoin on an exchange, it sits in their keeping, much like money resting in a bank. For small amounts, that is fine and sensible.

But Bitcoin has one remarkable feature the banks never offered: you can take your holdings home with you. This is done with something called a wallet, and here I must give you the one piece of advice I would carve in stone if I could:

Write down your recovery phrase on paper, with a pen, and put that paper somewhere safe—like the place you keep the deed to the house or your war medals. Never type it into a computer. Never photograph it. Never read it aloud over the telephone to anyone.

Let me explain why, because it is the heart of staying safe.

When you set up a wallet of your own, it will show you a list of twelve or twenty-four words. That list is your money. Anyone who holds those words holds your Bitcoin. The company will tell you this, and the swindlers know it too. So here is how the thieves work today: they telephone you, sounding polite and official—sometimes claiming to be the bank, the government, or the "Bitcoin company"—and they say there is a problem, and you must "verify" or "secure" your account by reading them those words, or by installing a little program they send you.

Friend, hear me clearly: no legitimate institution on God's green earth will ever ask you to read out those words. That request is the modern version of the stranger who asks Grandma for her bank PIN "to protect her savings." You have the wisdom of a century; use it. When in doubt, hang up the telephone. Then call your son, your daughter, your neighbor—someone whose face you know—and talk it over. Thieves hate nothing more than a victim who consults the family.

And that brings me to the final rule, the golden one:

If anyone calls you, writes to you, or messages you about Bitcoin—unsolicited—it is a swindle. Full stop. Real institutions do not cold-call the elderly about money. They never did, and they never will.

Step Six: Keep It Simple, and Let It Rest

You need no fancy trading, no charts, no schemes of doubling and redoubling. Those are the games of young speculators with young stomachs. A sensible approach, if Bitcoin appeals to you, is to buy a little now and then, store it safely, and simply let it be—like planting an oak and letting the grandchildren enjoy the shade.

A Word on the Scoundrels, So You Can Spot Them at Fifty Paces

In my hundred years, I've learned that every new invention attracts its flock of wolves. Watch for these:

1. The guaranteed profit. "Double your money in a week." If it were true, why would a stranger offer it to you?
2. The romance. A kind voice online, a new "friend" who slowly steers you toward an investment. I have seen this break hearts and empty accounts. Sweet words from a stranger are a locked door wearing a wreath of flowers.
3. The urgency. "You must act today." Honest opportunities wait. Thieves hurry you because thinking is their enemy.
4. The celebrity endorsement. A famous face on the wireless promising riches from Bitcoin. The famous face never said it; the picture is a forgery. In my day they used Roosevelt's name to sell tonic; the trick is unchanged.
5. The helper at the door. Anyone offering to come to your home, or to take control of your computer "to set up your Bitcoin." Show them the door.

And If Something Goes Wrong?

If you ever send money and feel a cold doubt in your stomach, do not suffer in silence and do not let shame seal your lips. Tell your family. Report it to the authorities. Every soul gets taken by a trickster at least once; the only shame is in hiding it. You have nothing to prove and everything to gain by speaking up.

In Closing

You have cashed war bonds, balanced checkbooks by lamplight, and paid off a house. Buying a little Bitcoin is a far smaller feat than any of these. Use a reputable company, start small, write your important words on paper and guard them like a family recipe, and treat every unsolicited caller as the wolf at the door that he is.

Then pour yourself a cup of tea. You've earned it—and whatever the charts say this week, you have already outlasted eleven decades of booms, busts, fads, and panics. A little digital money is not going to frighten you now.

With respect and affection,

A fellow traveler