Ok, I Think I Know What I Want to Buy, How do I Buy it!?
Congrats, you’re now on your way to becoming a successful Solana NFT trader and investor! Whoever told you the first step was getting SOL doesn’t want to see you win, sorry about that. On a serious note, it’s now time to set up your Phantom wallet, load it up, and acquire your first piece of digital art!
*There are several other Solana wallets — we’ve only used Phantom and are big fans, so that’s the one we’ll specify.
Head Over to phantom.app
Take this as a rule of thumb in the crypto world: ALWAYS CHECK THE LINK. Personally, we only ever click links on a project’s official Twitter, or from the #Official-Links channel in their Discord server. There are a lot of scammers in this space and you want to keep yourself safe.
Once you’re on phantom.app (We triple-checked that this is the right link), browse through the site to learn more about the wallet, how it works and how it’s secured. Ultimately you’ll want to click the download button and either get the browser extension for laptop/pc (Chrome, Brave, Firefox or Edge), or the mobile app for iPhones (Android isn’t available yet).
Browser Extension
Instead of downloading an app or program, you’ll be adding an extension to your browser. So if you’re using Chrome, you’ll hit “Add to Chrome”, and a new tab will open asking you if you want to create a new wallet, or access an existing one. Obviously you’ll want to hit create new wallet, enter a strong, secure password, and agree to the terms of service.
Now this is very important — you’re going to be shown a Secret Recovery Phrase. You should protect this with your life and never lose it. Write it down on something physical and hide it somewhere you’ll remember.
Now you’ve got your wallet! Head over to the extensions in your browser (on Chrome it’s the puzzle piece on the top-right, next to the profile icon), find phantom, and click the pin on the right. That will keep the icon visible to the right of the URL bar.
Sending Funds to Your Phantom Wallet
Sign in to a Centralized exchange, buy Solana, USDC, or USDT and send it to your Phantom wallet (some exchanges don’t support sending USDC/USDT to Solana, so you may only be able to buy & transfer SOL). You can find your wallet address by opening your wallet, and clicking on where it says “Wallet 1”. You will need Solana to conduct transactions, buy NFTs, and use DeFi applications.
We recommend creating a second, burner wallet that you will use to mint. That’s just another layer of security to protect yourself from scammers and hackers. Every time you have to connect to a mint site, send just enough to mint from your OG wallet to your burner wallet. Remember that you need something like 0.01 SOL over the mint price for transaction fees. (0.01 SOL is plenty for 1 transaction fee, but might as well have it there for future transactions)
This way, if your wallet is ever drained, all you’re losing is the money you were going to mint with. Trust us, we’ve heard stories of people getting drained of 100s of high value NFTs and 1000s of SOL. It’s not fun.
You’re all set to buy your first NFT! In our next article, we’ll teach you how to connect to a marketplace, make sense of the metrics shown, and buy your NFT.
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