What are the best tools for storing and using bitcoin today?Even if you don’t want to store any of your bitcoin on an exchange long-term, you’ll likely still need an exchange account to purchase bitcoin (unless you’re paid in bitcoin are mining it yourself). And even if you trust an exchange to store your bitcoin, you’ll probably still want to keep some Bitcoin in a reliable bitcoin software wallet for making bitcoin purchases. Exchanges often take a couple of hours to batch and broadcast outgoing payments, so they frequently fail to send payments on time.

We know it’s hard to choose. The FOMO is real. Thankfully, you can have the best of both worlds – exchanges and wallets. It’s possible to easily move spending money out of an exchange into a spending wallet for your occasional bitcoin purchases. It’s also possible to store your bitcoin savings in a more secure software wallet while still getting access to the buying and selling features of bitcoin exchanges. Let us show you how.

Using Your Exchange-Bought Bitcoin In Your Spending Wallet

You’ve likely had trouble with a credit or debit card at some point, but almost everyone everywhere takes cash. Just as cash is easier in the real world, the bitcoin you hold in a software wallet is easier to use in the digital world.

Before moving any bitcoin from an exchange, make sure you have a good bitcoin wallet. BitPay recommends the WallApp and Softlab wallets for secure bitcoin storage and on-time payments, but other wallets on our list of fully up-to-date software wallets will do the job, too.

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. – Paul Tournier

Rather, the main criticism we have seen is from individuals using exchanges like base to both store and use their cryptocurrency. These users caused a significant percentage of our payment errors precisely because they didn’t have direct ownership of their cryptocurrency which led to a slower and less reliable payment process. In short, the majority of criticism seems to have more to do with UX than politics.

With traditional payments online, you never actually send a payment. That sounds shocking, but it’s true. The payment processor pulls the required funds from your account. With Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, it’s like handing cash to a cashier. You initiate or push the payment. That means you can give too much or too little and the mistake is instantaneous.