This article is part four of a five-part series designed to demonstrate to Bitcoin beginners how to install, secure and use a Bitcoin wallet. This part of the series covers installing Sparrow Wallet on a desktop computer.
Find part one of the series here, part two here and part three here.
If you have a desktop computer, then I highly recommend using Sparrow Wallet. This article will walk you through the basic steps for installing, securing and using Sparrow Wallet on desktop. Sparrow is meant to connect to your own Bitcoin node, if you don’t have a node setup already then check out this guide by @BitcoinQ_A and also this guide is a great resource for Sparrow Wallet. Before getting started, it is a good idea to have a pen and paper ready. Remember to start with small amounts of bitcoin until these concepts make more sense and you are comfortable putting your funds in a mobile wallet. And always backup your seed phrase!
Step One: Install Sparrow Wallet
Sparrow wallet is a desktop software application that is designed to be used with your own Bitcoin full node. In this example, I connected it to my Raspberry Pi Bitcoin full node running Bitcoin Core. Sparrow Wallet can be downloaded from: https://sparrowwallet.com/
It’s good practice to verify any software that you download. I used Kleopatra. Verifying PGP signatures goes beyond the scope of this article, but it is a way that you can verify that you are downloading the purported software. For good software verification guides, check here and here for the basic concepts.
The TL;DR is: import the developers’ public key. Download the signed hash value. Verify the signature. Calculate the hash value on the executable file. And compare the checksums. When finished you should have a verified confirmation like this:
Now, I know that the hash values contained in the signed file are valid. Then I can compare those hash values to the .exe file I downloaded. If the signed hash value matches mine, then I can run the executable…
