You run a particular risk if you store your bitcoin on a centralized service such as a crypto exchange or broker. Because you don’t know if the bitcoin actually exist until you transfer them to your own wallet, and if the company goes bankrupt, your Bitcoin can also be gone.
Read on to learn how to withdraw your bitcoin from an exchange to your personal wallet, where you hold your private keys.
It’s an inconvenient truth, but the Bitcoin you hold on an exchange or broker are not actually your Bitcoin. As a rule, these Bitcoin are merely database entries at the respective service provider. However, when you withdraw the Bitcoin and transfer it via blockchain transaction to a real Bitcoin wallet, they turn into real Bitcoin. From then on, you also only know if they really exist. We have already written about the importance of keeping your own Bitcoin private keys in other blog posts.
‘Proof Of Keys’: Celebrate and Withdraw your Bitcoin From Exchanges
To remind people of this, the Bitcoin community even has its own ‘holiday’: Every 3rd of January, the so-called ‘Proof Of Keys’ reminds people of the importance of holding their Bitcoin keys. On the one hand, as many users as possible should hold their own private keys and thus keep their Bitcoin as it should be. But, on the other hand, this can also cause trouble for twilight exchanges that sell Bitcoin they don’t even have.
The whole thing was launched by Trace Mayer on January 3, 2019, just in time for the tenth birthday of the Bitcoin network, the exact day that Satoshi’s ‘Genesis Block’ was created.
The basic idea of Mayer’s initiative is as simple as it is effective:
“We’re going to withdraw all of our bitcoin from any third-party services just to prove that they’re there. It’s either on the blockchain or it didn’t happen.”
How-To: Receive Bitcoin In Your Relai Wallet
Every exchange and broker is slightly different, so it’s best if you consult their respective helpdesk for a guide in case you are unsure how it works to send bitcoin from their service to external wallets.
In the Relai app, the process is straightforward. First, you need to find your wallet address, where you want to receive the Bitcoin transaction. Here’s how it works:
- Open or download the Relai app.
- Next, tap on the navigation bar at the bottom of your screen.
- Tap on “Receive”.
- You now see a QR code and your complete Bitcoin address.
- Head back to the Bitcoin service you want to send the bitcoin from and enter your Relai address there.
That’s it.
How-To Withdraw Your Bitcoin To Any Other Wallet (e.g., Hardware Wallet)
You can, of course, also withdraw bitcoin to any other wallet, like, e.g., a hardware wallet or any other bitcoin wallet. The process is similar to the Relai app, but every service differs.
A hardware wallet we can recommend is the BitBox02 by Swiss company Shift Crypto. It’s open-source, supports multisig offers a few neat additional features you don’t find in the competition’s products.
To start buying bitcoin, download the Relai app from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store today.
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