Setting Up Your Own Bank
How to open your own bank account on the blockchain
This step-by-step guide accompanies my book, How to ESCAPE INFLATION: Using Blockchain to Protect Your Savings and Business (Amazon affiliate link).
Would you like to test out the fun (and safety) of being your own bank?
Your "bank" is on the blockchain. Then a wallet app in your phone or computer serves as the UI (user interface) to the blockchain.
Here you'll learn how to set up a Centbee wallet in your phone.
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Install Centbee Wallet on Smartphone
Centbee is a reliable wallet with good support that's been around since 2018. You can go shopping with it in 160 countries!
A cool feature is ChatPay where you're chatting to a friend and send cash right there in the chat, with no interruption. Centbee website states:
“Fast outgoing chat payments are the future of online transactions. Send as little as $0.05. Enjoy sending micropayments with zero fees.”
For savings and daily use, you can have any variety of BSV wallets, even any number of Centbee wallets, each one under a different paymail name.
In BSV, you send money to the person's paymail which looks like a regular email.
You can have a wallet for daily purchases, a wallet for college savings, a wallet for your pension, and so on.
If you fall into the "technically challenged" category, then best to do this with a friend or family member, or take a zoom class with me.
★ If you experience any problems, email: support@centbee.com or for a quick answer, visit their FAQ page at: https://www.centbee.com/faqs/
★ Watch their videos at: YouTube.com/@centbee/videos
(1) Download Wallet App
Download & install the Apple or Android app for Centbee wallet into your smartphone. Centbee does not have a desktop version.
Go to Centbee website for the app to be sure you get the correct one. Do not search for it in the App store.
★ Download the app at: https://www.centbee.com/
Open the Centbee app in your phone.
Centbee asks for a referral code, the wording may be "Your Friend’s Handle." Type in the word: gogreen
You and I both earn a honey reward when you enter the referral code: gogreen
My paymail is gogreen@centbee.com — for tips if you enjoy my book :)
You earn a honey reward each time you refer a friend to Centbee and give them your referral code, which is your Username, also known as your Handle. Plus your friend earns a reward.
Choose a Username that's short 'n easy for others to remember because it will be your paymail address (the address that people send money to when they pay you).
Choose the Country where you are living now, in the dropdown list of countries.
When you get to the main screen, tap twice on the BitcoinSV logo mid-screen. You’ll see it switches from the logo, to the number of BitcoinSV you own, to their value in your currency.
Check that the currency symbol is the correct one for your country, e.g. in South Africa we see ZAR (which is the symbol for South African Rand). If it’s incorrect, then you accidentally clicked on the wrong country when you installed the wallet. You must begin again! Delete the app from your phone and re-install it, this time choosing the correct country.
Write down your 4-digit PIN and 12-word backup phrase on paper, ideally on two sheets, and GIVE ONE TO YOUR HEIR.
(2) Security Note
If you lose your phone, your funds are secure on the BSV blockchain, and available — so long as you have your 4 digit PIN and 12-word backup phrase (called a "mnemonic").
KEEP IT SAFE! With your PIN and mnemonic, you can restore your Centbee wallet and access your money from anywhere in the world, on any phone.
If your wallet is reset due to a software or device update, or if you lose or replace your phone, or change your SIM card, you can easily recover your money with the 12-word phrase and 4 digit PIN.
If you lose this information, then it will not be possible to recover your wallet. Your money will be lost forever — unless you go through a complex legal process to recover it.
For added protection, always CLOSE your wallet app after using it.
The same Centbee wallet cannot be opened on two different devices at the same time.
Keep the PIN and 12 words on paper, which is protected from hackers. Do NOT store the words on your phone or computer.
Your Centbee wallet is safer than your fiat bank account. It can NOT get hacked if no one knows your PIN and password.
(3) Test Deleting Your Wallet
Before you add any money to your wallet…
★ You must TEST DELETING the wallet from your phone, and then re-installing it.
This is a safety measure. If you lose or upgrade your phone, you will know how to re-instate your wallet on a new phone:
Delete the wallet app from your phone — don’t just exit the app, you must DELETE it.
Download the wallet app again.
When you open the app, it will ask you whether you want to create a new wallet or re-instate an existing wallet.
Choose re-instate existing wallet.
The app will ask for your 12-word backup you keep written down on paper. In Centbee, you enter the words one after the other with a space between each, make sure there’s no space after the last word.
You’ll see the message “synching with blockchain.” You can use your phone normally in that time, same as with any app updating in the background.
When the synch is complete, you’ll see your balance correctly displayed again.
When my weekly housekeeper and I tested it, my phone displayed the message “synching with blockchain” for nearly an hour. My housekeeper got the message for only ten minutes because she had fewer transactions in her wallet than I had in mine.
(4) Authorize & Buy
Next comes the Know-Your-Customer (KYC) identity verification.
Click the icon at top left (hamburger menu or blue bee) then click Settings, then Top Up, and go through the ID process. You will need a valid ID and proof of address that meet bank standards.
Under Settings, you'll also see View Backup Phrase which displays your 12 words in case you lose the original paper where you wrote them. Write them down on paper again!
To add BSV to your wallet, select Top Up again, and your country in the dropdown list. Mostly it's credit/debit card topup, or direct from your bank account in some countries.
★ Check today's BSV price at:
https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin-sv
If you have any problems with buying BSV in Centbee, then use:
BuyBSV.com — scroll to page end to see countries,
RockWallet.com — for USA, and
MyBanka.eu — for UK/EU.
(5) Test Sending & Receiving
Now download a second wallet into your desktop or laptop computer. I like HandCash because it has apps where you can earn money:
★ Download HandCash.io wallet into computer. Or if you don’t have a computer, into your phone.
If possible, have your computer connected to your wifi ISP (mine is fiber optic cable) and your phone connected to mobile carrier (switch off wifi on phone). That way the two devices are linked to two different ISP’s.
It’s not absolutely necessary but it’s nice to simulate a real-world situation where you, and the one you are sending money to, are on two different networks.
Send one cent in BSV from Centbee on your phone to HandCash on your computer. Then back again from HandCash to Centbee. See Centbee FAQs if you get stuck.
If you don’t have a computer, then send a cent from the Centbee wallet on your phone to the HandCash wallet on your phone, then back again from HandCash to Centbee.
To send from Centbee to Handcash:
(1) Click “Receive” in Handcash and copy either the BitcoinSV Address or the Paymail.
(2) Click “Send” in Centbee , and paste the address you copied into the Send box, hit Send.
(3) When you send from HandCash to Centbee, if HandCash does not accept the Centbee paymail, then…
(4) In Centbee, tap your finger on the QR code. You’ll see the popup message “address copied.” Paste that BSV address into HandCash Send field. If you’re using a computer and phone then you’ll need to paste it into your phone’s notebook. I use iCloud to copy it from my iPhone’s notebook onto my computer’s clipboard.
★ Get a little practice in before the banks crash!
Even when you want to send a large sum to someone, first send them a cent so that you are 100% sure you are sending to the correct paymail address.
It's a bit scary because you can't reverse a transaction on the blockchain, as you can at a regular bank. That's why I test a small sum first. Maybe it's just "old lady nerves." I was in my 50's when the millenials began popping out of their mums' tummies!
Centbee stores the paymails of your recipients. After you've sent a payment once, then the next time you'll see their paymail in a list of contacts, to send again. No need to test it again.
★ To send to someone in your Centbee contact list, click their name, then click the dollar icon next to the message field, to get to the Send box.
(6) Re-synching Your Wallet to Blockchain
Occasionally there’s a blip in your wallet’s connection to the blockchain, just as your online banking is sometimes down.
For instance, you may try to send money, you get message it did not go through, and then, “Hey, what’s this? Your balance displays as 0 when you know you have a hundred dollars in your account!”
Please don’t freak out. Your money is there as an immutable ledger entry on the blockchain. No one can ever steal it.
Your wallet has just fallen out of synch with the blockchain — perhaps because of overload on the wallet server, too many new users coming onboard too quickly.
You simply delete your wallet and re-install it. Follow the instructions above under:
(3) Test Deleting Your Wallet.
(7) Cold Wallet for Additional Safety
For added safety, you can keep your BSV savings in "cold storage." Do NOT use a paper wallet created by a wallet generator. They are infamous for vulnerabilities.
Use only a trusted wallet like Centbee. For your savings (cold) wallet:
Download Centbee wallet app into an old phone.
Create a new wallet with a new Username/paymail address for that wallet.
Send funds to that wallet. Then remove the SIM card and switch off wifi so it has no connection to the Internet.
From time-to-time, transfer just enough BSV from cold storage to your "hot" wallet, that's the phone you use daily for micropayments in BSV apps and for shopping with BSV.
Move Money Before The Crash
Congratulations on setting up your own bank! With Centbee on your phone, your own private bank is now on the BSV blockchain. You alone have the keys to it (your 12-word mnemonic).
I hope you get some of your savings out of the corrupt bankster world and into your own bank — that's NOT investment advice! Just my humble opinion :)
A good rule of thumb is to have three months worth of living expenses on the blockchain. Plus three months in cash.
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