Two paths,
and nothing you need to know beforehand.

You buy the bitcoin before you order, so first decide how long you want COVE for. The guide then gives you the amount to buy, with a margin.

The simplest way, by far, is a Revolut account: a free online bank, licensed in Europe. Install the app and have your identity verified: count on twenty minutes, sometimes a few hours. Put euros on the account, open Crypto, choose Bitcoin, and buy the amount shown in the previous step.

Revolut isn't available in your country? Our dedicated page gives an app for each region of the world. Wherever this guide says Revolut, read the name of your app.

Blue Wallet is free and works on iPhone and Android. Install it, put it in your language as shown below, then create your wallet.

1. Tap Add now, or the + at the top right.

2. In Name, write a name for the wallet, not your own name: for example My wallet.

3. Choose the Bitcoin type, not Lightning or Vault, then tap Create.

4. A list of words appears. Copy them by hand, on paper, in order. They are the only way to recover your bitcoin if you lose your phone: no photo, no screenshot.

The one receiving gives an address, the one sending copies it. Here, Blue Wallet receives and Revolut sends.

1. In Blue Wallet, tap Receive, then tap the address under the QR code: Copied! appears in its place, it is copied. Don't use your phone's share button, it sends nothing.

Screenshots in English: in your app, the same buttons carry the names given in the text.

2. Leave Blue Wallet and open Revolut yourself: Bitcoin, then Send. Choose an external address, paste, and pick the Bitcoin network. If Revolut asks who the wallet belongs to, answer that it's yours.

3. Send a few euros first and wait for them to appear in Blue Wallet, first as pending. Then send the rest, all of it: about €90.

We only ask for an email address, preferably a confidential one, from Proton Mail for example. No name, no card, no automatic debit: you pay for a period of time, and it stops on its own if you don't renew it.

Payment is made in bitcoin, from your wallet, by copying the address we display or scanning the QR code. The amount in euros is converted at the day's rate right before your eyes, and your order is unlocked as soon as the network has confirmed it.

The order button below opens COVE with the duration you chose at the start.

When you order, we measure the response time of each city from where you are, and we check the fastest one for you. You can choose another one: each city is shown with its country and jurisdiction, without dressing it up.

This choice isn't final. From your account, you can change cities whenever you want, as many times as you want, at no extra cost.

As soon as the Bitcoin network has confirmed your payment, an email arrives. It contains everything you need to open your first VPN tunnel: where to download the AmneziaWG app, your configuration, the QR code, and the link to your account.

Keep this email. If you lose it, request a new link from the access page using the same email address: we have nothing else to recognize you by.

This link will only open your account once your tunnel is active: that's the next step. Until then, the page will ask you to connect to the VPN first.

Your first tunnel is already ready. We created it at the moment of payment, for the city you chose, and its configuration travels in the delivery email. So you have nothing to do in your account to get started, which is just as well, since that account won't open until the tunnel is active.

Install AmneziaWG, the app that opens the tunnel: it exists for iPhone, Android, Mac, and Windows. On Linux, the tunnel opens from the command line. On a computer, you import the file attached to the delivery email; on a phone, you open that same file from the app, or you display the QR code from your account on another screen, and scan it. You tap the button, and it's active.

One tunnel per device, and ten devices at once with COVE. The next ones open from your account, once the first is active: you name the device, “iPhone at home”, “laptop at the office”, and we prepare a configuration for it alone. A tunnel only opens on the device it was created for: if you lose one, you delete its tunnel and no one can use it anymore.

Once the tunnel is active, go back to your account: a green banner confirms that you're indeed going through NodeCove. As long as the tunnel is closed, the account won't open and asks you to reconnect first. This is intentional, since your account can only be reached through our VPN, with a tunnel open.

What you'll find there, in order:

• My subscription. Your plan, the expiry date, and a way to extend it without waiting for the last day. Time you buy is added to what remains.
• My usage. This month's volume against your quota, so you're never caught by surprise.
• My VPN tunnels. One per device: its name, its city, the day it was created. This is where you open one more, delete one, or change cities.
• Login sessions. The browsers open on your account. Closing one doesn't close your tunnel: these are two different things.
• Access via Tor. The backup address for your account, useful if our domain is blocked where you are.
• The announcements channel, and referrals. The channel gives notice of an outage or a new city; referrals earn you free months when someone subscribes with your link.

A Switch to NODECOVE card is waiting there too. If you decide later to add your Bitcoin node, pick this manual back up at step 3: everything you've just done stays valid.

There's a growing effort to find out what you do on the Internet. Your internet provider sees every site you open. The network at the hotel, the café, or the airport sees the same thing, and it isn't always run by honest people.

A VPN is a tunnel: what you do goes in encrypted and comes back out through another city, which hides the address of your home, known to your internet provider. The network around you no longer sees anything but an unreadable stream. Two things make the difference between our VPN and most others.

• We don't log any history of what you do online. We can't hand over what we never wrote down, not to an authority, not to a hacker who broke into our systems.
• Our tunnel doesn't look like a tunnel. Networks that block VPNs look for a recognizable signature. Stealth mode doesn't show one: it keeps getting through where others are cut off, including in the countries that filter the most, such as China, Russia, or Iran.

And since data leaks keep multiplying, helped along by increasingly effective AI, the sensible habit is simple: as soon as you're away from home, use our VPN. We install it for you on your phone, your tablet, and your computer, Mac as well as PC.

An ordinary electronic payment leaves a line with your name on it, at your bank and at the merchant. Central bank digital currencies, today under study or in trial in about a hundred countries, are designed to be programmable: the rule travels with the money. That's not an accusation, it's the technical promise being made, and it's useful for fighting fraud. But it assumes that whoever writes the rule is always well intentioned, and no technology can guarantee that.

Bitcoin is the other end of the spectrum: the rule sits in the protocol, not at a counter. No one can issue more of it. Of the 21 million that will ever exist, about 20.1 million are already issued, close to 96% (circulating supply report), leaving fewer than 0.9 million left to produce, spread over more than a century. Set against the planet's 8.3 billion inhabitants (Worldometer), that comes to 0.0025 bitcoin per person, about 250,000 satoshis. In other words: eventually, very few people will hold a whole bitcoin. And above all, no one will be able to run the printing press.

Now the bad news, the part rarely mentioned. Bitcoin is not anonymous, it's pseudonymous. That means every transaction is recorded in a public, permanent ledger, known as the BlockChain. Even though your name isn't on each transaction, just a code, hence the word pseudonymous, the day you buy bitcoin through a bank or a platform that verifies your identity, all your past and future transactions, each carrying a different code, will be linked to you unless you manage to break that link.

In other words: used the way almost every beginner uses it, bitcoin follows you wherever you go. That's where we come in. NodeCove gives you the method and the means so that your bitcoin stops being automatically traceable by just anyone.

Revolut is an online bank, licensed in Europe, whose app installs in a few minutes. The account is free, and the euros you deposit are covered by the European bank deposit guarantee, up to €100,000 per account: you can open the account with confidence. Once your identity is verified with them, you buy bitcoin with one tap. Follow their step-by-step process, it's made for beginners.

Open the Revolut site ↗

If Revolut doesn't exist in your country, or if you'd rather not go through a bank, don't get stuck here: our dedicated page lists the recommended platforms region by region, Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and the only question that matters when choosing one: will it really let you send your bitcoin out to your own wallet?

A wallet is like a safe for your bitcoin, and you alone hold the keys to receive bitcoin or send it elsewhere. If you leave your bitcoin at Revolut, you don't really own it: you remain at the mercy of your banker's goodwill to make bitcoin transactions, not to mention that an administration can ask Revolut to freeze your bitcoin account at any time, which is impossible if you manage your own wallet. The wallet we recommend is Blue Wallet: free, available in your language, and it works on both iPhone and Android.

This one will be your declared wallet: the only one in contact with Revolut. It's the one that receives your purchases. It accepts being linked to your name, and that's just fine, it will be the only wallet linked to an institution that has asked for your identity. It will always act as a buffer between the institutions that seek to control you and your private wallet.

Don't have a phone handy, or would you rather work on a computer? Blue Wallet also exists for Mac. On Windows or Linux, use Sparrow or Electrum instead: also free, they're the two most widely used computer wallets, and they connect to your node exactly like the others do in step 10. The path doesn't change, only the screens do.

During installation, the app shows you a list of words to copy down. Copy them by hand, on paper, in order. These words are your unique code to recover your wallet and everything it holds in bitcoin if you lose your phone. Without them, or if they're stolen from you, your bitcoin will be permanently lost. So take the importance of this backup seriously: no photo, no screenshot, no message to yourself.

The principle is always the same, whatever the wallet: the one receiving gives an address, the one sending copies it. An address is a long string of letters and numbers. You never type it by hand: you copy it, or scan the QR code shown on screen with the app that's sending the funds, here Revolut.

How much to send? Everything you bought in step 3, about €160, in two goes: a few euros first, then the rest.

Make a tiny first transfer, the equivalent of a few euros, and wait for it to arrive before sending the rest. It's the only way to check that you haven't got the wrong address: a bitcoin transfer is final, no one can reverse it, not even us.

The diagrams on this page reproduce the layout of the screens, not their exact appearance: apps change often, the gestures don't.

NODECOVE is your private Bitcoin node and your stealth VPN. It's the plan you need: without the node, steps 10 and 12 don't exist, and that's exactly where the privacy of your bitcoin is decided.

We only ask for an email address, preferably a confidential one, from Proton Mail for example. No name, no card, no automatic debit.

Payment is made in bitcoin, from Blue Wallet, by copying the address we display or scanning the QR code. The amount in euros is converted at the day's rate right before your eyes, and your order is unlocked as soon as the network has confirmed it.

Just know that this payment leaves a visible line in the public ledger between your declared wallet and us. Buying a VPN isn't a crime, and it reveals nothing about what you do with it: it's the declared wallet's job, Blue Wallet, to carry the traces that link you to a bank or an institution that knows your identity. That way your private wallet, which we'll install next, has no more direct link to those institutions.

As soon as your payment is confirmed, you receive an email. It contains three things: where to download the AmneziaWG app, your configuration file, and a QR code to scan if you'd rather.

Keep this email. You'll need it if you change phones, to open our VPN's tunnel again.

AmneziaWG is the app that opens the tunnel. It exists for iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows, and Linux. You install it, import the file you received, and that's it, there's nothing to configure.

In AmneziaWG, a single button. You turn it on: you're in the tunnel. You turn it off: you're out of it. To check, go back to our homepage, the shield at the top of the page turns green and shows “Protected by NodeCove”.

This tunnel isn't just a convenience. It's mandatory to use your private Bitcoin node, in steps 10 and 12: your node can only be reached from inside the tunnel. That's what makes it yours and not everyone else's.

With the tunnel open, go to “My account”. There you'll find your tunnels already open, your usage, and a way to open other tunnels: one per device, and as many cities as you want.

One tunnel per device, that's the rule: phone, computer, the household tablet. Some services on the Internet are blocked or restricted depending on which region of the world you're in: our stealth VPN lets you get around these restrictions by opening a tunnel to the city of your choice. The service in question will then think you're located in that city, and open up to you.

A second wallet, a second role. Bull Wallet will be your reserved wallet: the one holding your reserve, the one that never talks to Revolut, never to a platform that knows your name.

Why two apps instead of two accounts in the same one? Because the separation has to be physical, not just for show: two apps, two word lists, no possible mix-up when it's time to send.

Bull Wallet only exists on phone, iPhone and Android. If you do everything on a computer, use Electrum for this second wallet if you've already installed Sparrow, or Sparrow if you started with Electrum. The goal is to have two word lists in two different apps, so the separation stays complete.

As in step 4: copy the word list down on paper, in order, and store it somewhere other than the first one.

The exact same action as in step 10, in a different app. And here it matters even more: this is your reserve wallet, the one whose address list you especially don't want ending up with a stranger.

Screenshots taken in Bull Wallet on iPhone. Don't add https:// or the :s suffix: in this version, it's the Enable SSL switch that encrypts the connection. The tunnel must be open.

The same action as in step 5, between your two apps: Bull gives an address, Blue sends to it.

Your reserve is in place, and its balance has only ever been asked of your node.

The golden rule: never send everything, and never the exact amount you just received. Send part of it, with an amount that doesn't resemble any other, and not on the same day. It's this partial amount that does all the work: a wallet emptied all at once to a single recipient can only look like a move to yourself, whereas a partial transfer of an arbitrary amount looks exactly like a payment made to someone else.

At this point, without having become a technician: your browsing no longer goes through anyone else's network; your two wallets no longer ask unknown servers for anything; your reserve is separate from your bank account; and no one at our end knows who you are.

What's left is the part most people overlook, and which ruins everything else: how to get this money back out. If your only way out is the platform that knows your name, most of the precaution is wasted.

From Bull, your reserved wallet, you can pay a person, a craftsperson, a shopkeeper who accepts bitcoin. That's what it's for.

But never, ever, to a platform where you've given your identity. The day you do, you hand it the link between your name and your reserve yourself, and everything in Bull becomes readable, the past included.

If you need to bring your bitcoin back to Revolut, to another bank, or to a platform that handles cryptocurrencies, never do it directly from Bull. Go the other way: from Bull to Blue Wallet, from your reserved wallet to your declared wallet, always in split amounts, and only then from Blue Wallet to Revolut. But normally you won't have to do this: the next step teaches you how to cash out your bitcoin with more discretion.

A way not to get it wrong: the color. Blue Wallet is blue, Bull Wallet is red. The red is there to warn you: that wallet must never be connected to an institution that knows your identity. The blue one is the one that receives, the red one is the one that keeps.

Freedomia issues a virtual Visa card that's topped up in bitcoin, with no identity check. You open an account with an email address, you receive a personal top-up address, you send bitcoin to it, just as you did between your two wallets: Freedomia gives you an address that you copy into Bull to send the amount you want. The amount is converted to dollars at the day's rate and credits the card right away. You spend anywhere Visa is accepted.

What this solves: you spend your bitcoin without routing it back through a platform that knows you.

From which of your wallets? From Bull, your reserved wallet. This may seem to contradict step 15, but Freedomia doesn't know your name, whereas a top-up sent from a platform that has asked for your papers would be linked to your identity in a second.

That said, Freedomia does see the addresses the money comes from, and those addresses could resurface one day, through a hack or a legal order. This is where the work of steps 10 to 13 pays off: those addresses belong to your reserved wallet, whose list no server has ever received, and which has never received anything from a platform that knows you. What can be drawn from that is a guess, not a certainty.

Open a Freedomia account

Affiliate link: NodeCove earns a commission at no extra cost to you. Freedomia is an independent service: we document it, we don't control it.

To pay contactless with this card, you need Google Wallet, so an Android phone.

If you're attached to your iPhone, keep it, and get a cheap second Android phone for this purpose. No particular model is needed: a recent entry-level device, new or used, is more than enough to run Google Wallet. With several manufacturers, the interface actually looks a lot like Apple's, and you'll find your way around in a few minutes.

To use Google Wallet, you need a Google account. Create a separate Google account that will only be used for this phone and this card. Don't mix this account with the one that holds your emails, your photos, and your contacts: that would be gathering back together with one hand what you just separated with the other.