So you've purchased your first Bitcoin, congratulations! Now what? You've heard of how amazing it is, how no one controls it, how it's decentralized and how can you can send BTC across the world without going through a 3rd party. Well yes, it's all true!
The following steps are for sending Bitcoin out of Coinbase and receiving it on my Exodus wallet, but the guidelines can be applied to any Bitcoin address, whether it's a Bitcoin address on a cryptocurrency exchange, software wallet, or hardware wallet. Let's get to it!
You'll want to sign into your Coinbase account and log in to see your dashboard. You'll want to click on your Accounts tab.
After arriving at the Accounts page, you'll want to click on the Send button underneath your BTC Wallet section.
A pop-up box should now show up where we will fill out the form with the Recipient's Bitcoin Address, how much Bitcoin we want to send, and an optional memo for your future reference.
I'll be sending my Bitcoin (BTC) out to my Exodus wallet. On my Exodus wallet, I'll want to check what my Bitcoin Address is, so I'll click on Receive.
A popup will show up with the Bitcoin address of my Exodus wallet. A trading exchange would give you a Bitcoin address, or a friend, family member would give you a Bitcoin (BTC) address to send it to. On the Exodus wallet, you can either copy the text string, in this case being "18oSrMDoP72XBrkztnvx53Gi3FbTcA1kxv" (feel free to donate), or you can click the button on bottom left.
Now that we have a Bitcoin address to where we will send BTC too, let's go back to Coinbase and fill out our form. Fill out the recipient section with the Bitcoin address we just copied (or given from a friend), and fill out how much BTC you would like to send. In my case, I'm sending .00007 Bitcoin. You'll notice at the bottom a Network Fee. The network fee is what is used to pay the network to send your money. Every transaction you make on Bitcoin will require a network fee. Depending on where you are sending your Bitcoin from, you can adjust your Network fee. If you want your transaction to be processed faster, you can pay a priority fee, likewise if you don't mind how long it will take, you can choose a more economical fee. In this case, Coinbase automatically chooses what tier we are put in, thus unfortunately high USD price mark to send it out. If you plan on sending Bitcoin back and forth many times, I recommend putting your Bitcoin into another wallet (blog post regarding wallets to be published soon)
On Coinbase, you'll be ask to Confirm your transaction details. Details such as the amount of BTC you are sending out and the Recipient Bitcoin Address. Please, ALWAYS double or triple check you have put in the correct Recipient wallet address as not all wallets ask for a confirmation. If you enter an incorrect address, your Bitcoin will be lost forever. Let me repeat that again, LOST FOREVER. I personally always send out a test amount, before sending a large amount of Bitcoin.
You'll now see a success message and you can click on View Details for more information regarding the transaction.
You'll see that there are 0 confirmations. Depending on where you send your Bitcoin, you'll need a certain amount of transactions to make it official for the recipient. You can close out the details for now. Typically the Bitcoin blockchain itself requires 6 to make it officially part of the blockchain.
Once closed out, you'll also see a pending state for under your Transactions. To view the details again, you can click on the transaction.
You'll now see that the View Details box will read that there are a certain amount of transactions, and a "View transaction" link. Clicking on the View Transaction link will allow you to see your transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain explorer.
On the explorer, you can type in any transaction ID or wallet to get details of it. As you can see below, only 2 confirmations have occurred.
Once you start seeing confirmations, typically it's only a matter of time before your confirmation is official on the blockchain. And you're done! You've officially sent Bitcoin, as you can see below, once it's confirmed 6 times, your Coinbase account will say success, and you're receiving wallet will now have the funds. (You may need to refresh your wallet/page of where you are receiving the funds to view it)
