Setup & use a Metamask wallet

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In preparation for the BREWSKI Labs token launch for those community members who are not so crypto native this article should help begin your crypto and blockchain education.

This 2 part article is aimed at introducing a newcomer to Blockchain by installing the most popular and widely used crypto wallet, Metamask, loading it with funds and making your first cryptocurrency transfer.

It’s going to be a long article but it should cover everything you need to get started. I wish I had this when I first got into crypto, so grab your favourite beverage and read on.

What is Blockchain?

The best description I’ve seen about Blockchain is to consider a group of children playing football. There is no referee or scoreboard however simply by witnessing and being part of the game all children on the pitch know what the score is, they don’t need to ask anyone and they don’t need to be told, they just know. However, if one player in the game suddenly declared a different score then consensus among the children would declare that to be incorrect. It would only become fact if most of the children all suddenly decided to also state an incorrect score and convince those remaining it was true.

‘Blockchain is the same, instead of football players and passes and goals the blockchain keeps track of wallet addresses, transactions and wallet balances. But, in the same way as all the children know the score simply by witnessing the game, the blockchain knows the state of every wallet address and transaction because it is witnessed by many computers. Therefore the blockchain is decentralised rather than being centralised and relying on a single source to know everything.

The top 2 blockchains are the Bitcoin blockchain and the Ethereum (or Ether) blockchain. A comparison between Ethereum and Bitcoin is like comparing electricity with gold. The argument is that there’s really no utility to Bitcoin other than being a store of value. The Ethereum network, on the other hand, brings virtually limitless possibilities due to its design of having building blocks to enable projects to create their own dApps (digital apps) on it.

What are crypto wallets?

Crypto wallets are essentially the same as regular money wallets. They store digital representations of coins. Much in the same way your bank app on your phone knows your balance, a crypto wallet knows the balance of each of the crypto coins you hold in it. From the wallet you can make transactions such as sending coins to others, paying for things or approving transactions others have requested from you.

What is Metamask?

Metamask is the most popular self-custodial crypto wallet used on the Ethereum network. A statement you will likely hear a lot is “not your keys, not your coins/crypto”, Self custodial means that you alone know the private keys to your wallet and no one else. This makes your wallet secure, however, it also makes keeping the keys to your wallet very safe (screenshots of teh wallet key are not safe as they are stored in the cloud and therefore can be accessed if your cloud account is hacked). Write them down or print them out and keep a few copies of them in a safe place. If you lose the keys you lose access to retrieve your wallet and all its contents.

Installing Metamask

Metamask themselves provide excellent clear instructions on how to install a wallet on a variety of systems (Chrome, Firefox, Edge browsers as well as on IOS or Android)

Follow the instructions here: https://support.metamask.io/hc/en-us/articles/360015489531-Getting-started-with-MetaMask

Follow the steps to install until you get to the screen that looks like this:

We want to set up a brand new MetaMask wallet so click ‘Create a Wallet’

• Pick a password for the next step. This needs to be at least 8 characters long. Use a completely unique password that hasn’t been used anywhere else, and one that contains a mixture of upper- and lower-case letters, symbols, and numbers.

• When you set the password, read and accept the terms of service by clicking the create button.
• Next, you’ll see the importance of the Metamask secret recovery phrase being emphasized with a short video. I would advise you to watch it.

To watch this video on chrome browser please refer to the attached link.
chrome-extension://nkbihfbeogaeaoehlefnkodbefgpgknn/images/videos/recovery-onboarding/video.webm

*** THIS NEXT PART IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT, READ CAREFULLY ***

• When you click on the “Click here to Reveal Secret Words” spot in the shadows, Metamask will show you a 12-word backup phrase. If you lose your wallet, knowing this phrase will help you find it again. Write it down, memorise it, or safely keep it. Keep your 12-word phrase private and secure because if someone gets it, they’ll have access to your money and tokens. This is both the only way you can ever recover your account if you need to re-install your wallet on another computer or mobile and also the only way anyone can gain access to your wallet and it’s contents. Yes, it’s that important and No, if you lose this there is no-one that can help you unless they know this information.

• On the next screen, type the phrase you wrote down to confirm the backup phrase, then confirm your entry once more. Once you have the phrases in the correct sequence, click the “confirm” button.

• Congratulations! You have successfully created an account in MetaMask with a new wallet address, you can now begin to use crypto.

Important note: If you are using a mobile and want to connect your MetaMask wallet to a web site, you would need to use the Browser inside the MetaMask app (bottom right in the screenshot below).
If you use a browser such as Safari, Chrome or Firefox on a mobile device it will not be able to connect to your MetaMask wallet inside the app and likely display an error so always best to use the MetaMaskk app Browser for crypto sites.

Come back later for part 2 whereby we fund the wallet with some Ethereum and make a simple transaction to swap the Ethereum to another coin.

In the meantime, read up on our project, BREWSKI Labs, bringing blockchain to craft beer lovers in the form of rewards based NFT digital artwork and come join us in Telegram for a chat or even simply to say thanks for the above useful info.

BREWSKI labs team
https://brewskilabs.io/