Getting started with cryptocurrency wallets — which digital wallets store CENNZ?

Before you start building a portfolio of cryptocurrency, you’ll need a digital wallet to store them securely. Digital wallets are required to safely store your public and private keys. Your public key is the address that you use to make transactions (like a bank account number). The private key, on the other hand, is your personal identifier on the blockchain (and needs to be kept secure like a password).

Where do you get a digital wallet?

It’s a good idea to go to straight to the source. Go the issuer of a cryptocurrency and follow their instructions to participate or get a wallet. Generally, each coin will have its own wallet but CENNZ, being an ERC20 token, can be held in any Ethereum wallet that is ERC20 compliant.

What kind of wallets are out there?

· A core wallet, which will generally download a whole copy of the blockchain

· A lite wallet, which is more ready to use because it doesn’t download a copy of the blockchain

· A browser extension like Metamask, which enables your browser to directly interact with the Ethereum blockchain

Whichever you choose, the best kind of wallet is one that you have private keys for so that you can restore it yourself rather than relying on a third party. There are lots of options available and all the above take CENNZ but here’s a rundown of how to set up a Metamask wallet. Metamask has several security measures in place and will ask you to authenticate every transaction and interaction with a smart contract. Also your private key is not uploaded to their servers, meaning no one else has access to it (unless they have access to the machine your keys are stored on).

How to create a digital wallet using Metamask

First, create a MetaMask DEN

1. Download the MetaMask extension from https://metamask.io/. MetaMask is supported by Chrome, Firefox and Brave browsers!

2. Open MetaMask and create a password to encrypt your DEN! This is like a digital vault where your wallet will be stored and so make sure that you set a strong password. We suggest you use a password manager such as KeePass or LastPass.

3. MetaMask will now show you your 12 word seed phrase. It is what you use to restore your wallet if something goes wrong, so it’s incredibly important. If you lose this phrase and lose access to your wallet, you lose access to your funds! Suggested methods to back up your seed phrase: on paper, in your password manager or an encytped file on your computer.

4. That’s it, your MetaMask wallet is ready to use!

When your wallet is created, you’ll be given a public address. This is the address you use to deposit funds into the wallet. There’s no need to keep this one a secret unless you don’t want your name associated with the address! Ethereum public addresses start with a ‘0x’ and are followed by a series of numbers and letters e.g. 0xa98fff793eca2123a34f4f33deba031fd129c460

To send a transaction:

1. Make sure that you have enough funds in your wallet and press the send button.

2. In the ‘Recipient Address’ field, put the public address of the wallet you want to send tokens to. Enter however much you want to send into the ‘Amount’ field. Transaction data is optional.

3. Specify the gas limit and price. This is the fee paid to the miners auditing the Ethereum blockchain to process the transaction. The higher the gas fee, the faster the transaction. You’ll also be asked to set a gas limit, the maximum amount of gas you’re willing to spend on the transaction. MetaMask will automatically set the gas price according to the traffic on the network but you can check https://ethgasstation.info/ for real time information.

4. Double check you’ve got everything correct and press submit!

5. Your transaction has been sent to the blockchain and will be processed soon. If you want to check the status of your transaction, MetaMask provides a transaction link that will take you to Etherscan, a blockchain explorer, where you can see the progress.

One aspect of Metamask that could be improved on is the level of support for tokens. If you need to add a token e.g. CENNZ, you’ll need to go to Metamask > Custom Token > Contract Address and enter the name of the token or provide the token’s contract address. CENNZ, for example, is 0x1122b6a0e00dce0563082b6e2953f3a943855c1f

There you have it, the basics of setting up a digital wallet!

Additional resources

· To research cryptocurrencies: CoinMarketCap

· To find token contract address: Etherscan

· To monitor your portfolio: Delta portfolio tracker