Receiving Bitcoin — sharing your address safely

Eventually someone will want to send you Bitcoin. Maybe a friend, maybe a payment, maybe you're moving Bitcoin between your own devices. Whatever the reason, you'll need to share your wallet's address.

This is shorter than the last lesson, because most of the work happens in your wallet, not in your head. But there are two mistakes that beginners make, and we want to avoid both.

Sharing your address is safe. The address is public information. Knowing your address lets someone send you Bitcoin — it does not let them take Bitcoin from you. Think of it like an email address. You can put your email on a business card; people can send you email; they can't read your inbox.

So when someone asks for your Bitcoin address, you do exactly what you did in the last lesson: open your wallet, tap "Receive," copy the address, send it to them. Or show them the QR code, which they can scan with their wallet app.

That's it. The mechanics are simple.

Now the two things to watch out for.

First: a Bitcoin address is single-purpose, and best practice is to use a new address every time you receive. Your wallet does this automatically — each time you tap "Receive," you'll see a different address. They all belong to your wallet. Using a fresh one every time makes it harder for anyone watching the public blockchain to link payments to you. It's a privacy thing. It's not strictly required, but it's free, so we do it.

Second: never give your address to anyone in response to an unsolicited message. If a stranger DMs you on Twitter or sends a random email saying "hi I want to send you Bitcoin, what's your address?" — they're trying to scam you. The scam usually goes: they send a tiny amount first, build trust, then ask you to send them something. Or they're testing if your address is valid as part of a larger scam. Just block them. There's no legitimate reason for a stranger to want to send you free Bitcoin.

When a real person — someone you know — wants to send you Bitcoin, you give them an address and they send. The whole thing takes a few minutes.

In the next lesson, we cover everything you need to do to make sure that, ten years from now, you still have access to your Bitcoin.