by Tiffany C. Lockhart and Munly Leong
Gamers are a pretty tech savvy bunch usually but most have still probably never paid for anything in Bitcoin or bought any cryptocurrencies yet. You may have heard of Bitcoin and Ethereum but you might have never heard of blockchain which is the underlying technology behind both. Bitcoin is a currency but blockchain is potentially the foundation to a whole new internet. Companies are now being built focusing on everything from healthcare to sports betting to gaming. For the purposes of this article, I will focus on Ethereum, which is what Enjin Coin is built on.
Blockchain, by definition, is an open source, public ledger where financial transactions are recorded and confirmed anonymously. Once the information is entered into the ledger, it cannot be changed. For instance, say you want to give a friend some chocolate, and the friend is sitting right next to you. You would just give the friend the chocolate and that would be the end of it. There’s no third party to help confirm the exchange. This is where the Enjin Coin item ownership data is actually stored. Ever used bit-torrent? That’s also distributed and decentralized and even as you use the service, you also become part of it’s infrastructure.
Ethereum IS it’s own blockchain and so is Bitcoin. To set it up, you could use one of the popular browser wallets like MyEtherWallet, or download a full-node browser called Mist. The program is free to use (that’s a money-saver for your real wallet) and it’s through this browser program that allows you to connect to either the main Ethereum network or a test network if you wish to try the technology without using live coins. Computers that dedicate some of their processing power as part of the mining network will get a reward in the form of Ether, an incentive that ensures quality applications are being created and that the network itself runs smoothly.
To send Ether, you would first need to create a Wallet using Mist (or other wallet software) where you can store and send Ether, the virtual currency via the Ethereum network. The wallet is actually composed of two parts. A public key which you give out and a private key you have to protect for yourself. You send Ether by going to the “Send” page of your Wallet and inputting the public address of the party that’s receiving the Ether, which is composed of a series of unique letters and numbers beginning with “0x”. You would then choose the amount of Ether you wish to send, enter your password before completing the transaction and that’s it. That’s also how you would participate in our crowdsale, essentially sending Ether from your wallet to ours. We would send Enjin Coin tokens back to your address. The private key though, that’s what you want to protect. It’s essentially a pointer to your actual coins which is why it’s password protected. Even if someone found you private wallet address they’d still have to crack the password. Don’t have Ether? The fastest way to get some is to buy it on one of the many exchanges out there. It can also be mined but that’s beyond this simple beginner user’s guide.
The safest way to store Ether, or any kind of cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, is through hardware wallets like Ledger Wallet, which can be in the form of a USB stick, a USB smartcard or a credit card-sized smartcard that embeds an open source Java Card application and is compatible with all NFC (near-field communication) enabled Android phones (at the time of writing, iPhone 8+). You can also store it through the Mist browser program via Ethereum. For information on how to use hardware wallets like the Ledger Wallet, you can read about it here.
That’s it for now, it may be a lot to take in for the first time but if you’re reading this during our crowdsale period, we will be around to answer all of your questions on Telegram.
The Enjin Coin Crowdsale is almost here.
The best way to get some of your own Enjin Coin is through the public crowdsale which starts on October 3rd, at 8:00 am (Eastern Time).
Tiffany C. Lockhart has written creative non-fiction pieces that have been published in Point Grey Living Magazine as well as on the websites of Western Living and Vancouver Magazine. She is currently working as a writer for TVOvermind and Vanbex.
