More than three years ago we published several articles on how to use Telos Network. It’s been a minute and a lot has changed in this time. We want to make it as clear and easy as possible for new users to interact with and learn about Telos. As we go through the first steps, we will endeavor to include definitions and terms that you may or may not be familiar with and may or may not understand in the context of blockchain. We will explain it all and include a glossary of terms at the end for reference. So without further ado, let’s get started.
TLOS is the ticker symbol for the native coin or token on the Telos Blockchain Network.
Coin: “Simply put, a coin is a digital asset which is ‘native’ to its blockchain.” A type of cryptocurrency created to be used as money. Coins help with paying for goods and services, can be held for use later, and can be divided into fractions of the whole. Many people use “Coin” and “Token” synonymously and the differentiation is debated.
Token: “Unlike coins, which directly represent a proposed medium of exchange, crypto tokens are a representation of an asset on a blockchain. These can be held for value, traded, and ‘staked’ to earn interest.
The first thing you need is a Telos Account.
Account: A 12 character (generally speaking) address on the Telos Network, chosen and connected to public/private keys by the user.
The easiest way to get a free account is at wallet.telos.net.
This opens the signup screen where you fill in the blanks and copy and save your keys. It should be noted that the keys generated at this site are only one set, while best security practices indicate that users are advised to utilize two sets of keys. This can be easily accomplished later but for the purposes of getting started we will save that for another time.
Key security here cannot be emphasized enough. If you do not maintain 100% control of your private key, your account and any TLOS or other tokens associated with it are at risk of being lost or stolen from you. This means, you should not keep it on your phone. You should not keep it on a sticky note under your keyboard or anywhere else that someone else can access it. You should not take a photo of it and post it on the internet and you should not share it with anyone. You may be wondering what you should do with this thing now that you have it saved in a txt file and it’s sitting on your desktop. For the purposes of this article, we will leave it to you to research best practices for crypto key security and do what makes the most sense for you. Please do that. It is a very sad thing to lose your keys and we all known someone or a few who have done that very thing and lost thousands.
So now that you have secured your keys it is time to get a “wallet” so you can use them.
Wallet: A device or software program that allows the user to store their cryptographic keys and interact with the network to sign transactions and use their account.
We recommend the Anchor Wallet by Greymass. This can be downloaded for Linux, Mac and Windows through links at Greymass.com. Additionally, there are mobile products available for download from the respective Play stores.
With your new Anchor Wallet installed (version as of the writing of this article is v1.3.1) you will need to add your newly created account.
Then you will create a password and confirm on the next two screens.
Choose your blockchain (Telos) then import your newly made account into Anchor with the private key you saved. See screenshots below.
Enter the private key you saved when you created your account. The account matching your key will appear as below.
Note: there are two permissions associated with this private key. @active & @owner
Permissions: Permissions control what account users can do and how actions are authorized.
When you created your free account, it assigned the same key for both owner and active permissions. The owner permission can do all actions while the active permission can do all with the exception of changing keys. This is why it is important to use different keys for owner and active permissions.
Before you put any TLOS in your new account it is important to change at least one of your keys so that you can ensure the security of your account. Best practice is to change both to keys you generate on your machine in Anchor, while not connected to the internet.
To navigate there in Anchor: Click Tools in the left menu bar and Manage Keys under the Security section.
Click the Generate Key Pairs button. Followed by the Generate Key Pair (x2) Button. This will generate two new key pairs as pictured below. You may copy to clipboard and paste them as needed and save them to your Anchor Wallet. Follow the prompts to save the keys. Then close the window.
When you close the window you will be taken to the Key Management screen and will see the newly saved keys in along with the number of accounts associated with each key. The new keys will reflect zero.
Now that you have new keys you can update the permissions of your account by assigning one of each of the new public keys to the the owner permission and the other to the active permission.
At the top of your screen make sure you are logged in using the owner key of the account you want to change.
Go back to Tools and select Permissions under Security.
In this image, I have already changed the Active Permission and will now change the Owner Permission.
Note the warning regarding altering account permissions.
Select the Modify button which will open up a modal that allows you to replace the existing public key with the new one that you just created.
As indicated in the image replace the existing public Key with your new one. Note the additional warnings. Make sure that you have secured and have access to the new private key.
Clicking Update Permission will automatically change the key associated and you will now need to delete the old key from your wallet as shown below.
Click Home in the left panel and then the Manage Wallets button.
Next, select the menu next to the Use Wallet button and choose “delete wallet” for each of the keys on the left side that you have replaced. For each one you will be required to enter your Anchor password.
Once you have deleted the old keys that you have replaced, click the + Import Account(s) button in the upper right.
Select either option and Anchor will search the blockchain for any accounts that match the keys you have saved in your wallet.
Click the check box and click the + Import Account (s) button as shown below. Enter your password and you are set.
Now that you have a Telos Account and it is loaded into your Anchor key signer with fresh new keys, you are ready to fill it up with TLOS. You can see which exchanges are listing TLOS at telos.net
Telos is listed on a few exchanges but non that trade directly with USD, which means you will need to use USD to purchase a different token that can be traded for TLOS. Common pairs are USDT/TLOS and BTC/TLOS.
