At Vault, we’re all about getting people up and running on the blockchain with collectibles. That’s why we’re giving away a free collectible to new users and that’s why Vault is focused on showing off your amazing items instead of just letting you trade coins.
But you’re new, you just heard about this crypto thing, maybe you’ve heard some phrases like ERC-721, collectible, or digital asset?
So what the heck is a crypto collectible?
A collectible on the blockchain is also known as a Non-Fungible Token, which means unlike a dollar bill or a bitcoin where each one is worth the same as every other one, every collectible is uniquely valued.
Like a baseball card, some are worth pennies and others are worth tens of thousands of dollars.
Collectibles take on many forms. They can quite literally be digital baseball cards, or they can be cute cats, or even space ships. Unlike their physical equivalents, collectibles on the blockchain don’t just look pretty, they often offer unique digital features. Cats can breed, space ships can battle, fighters can, well, fight!
We’re in the very early days of collectibles right now, and just like the early days of baseball cards, it’s possible that some of these items worth pennies today may be worth thousands in a few years, but more exciting is all the creative things we don’t know yet that collectible creators are still thinking up because crypto collectibles aren’t just pieces of paper, they’re living, digital smart contracts.
Owning a crypto collectible today puts you on the cutting edge of a new technology and lets you experience this world of unstoppable digital assets as it’s being built.
OK I want one! How do I get one?
Getting started is a breeze and is getting easier every day.
Here’s how it’s done…
1. Download Vault, the dapp and collectible-focused Ethereum wallet
This is the easy part, just fire up your iOS device and you can either:
- Visit https://vault.io and click the download link
- Visit the app page directly: https://itunes.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1332117090?pt=118935556&ct=medium.intro.post&mt=8
- Search for Vault in the app store (try: “vault crypto wallet”)
2. Launch Vault and receive your first collectible for free!
- Just sign up with your name and phone number. We’ll ask for biometric access so your wallet can be secured directly on your device. Vault wallet keys are generated and stored in such a way that they are yours and only yours, we couldn’t take them away if we wanted to.
- We’ll let you know which free collectible you’ll be receiving right away!
- Make sure to enable notifications so we can tell you when your collectible arrives.
It’ll take just a little bit (usually a few minutes) for the ethereum network to register the transaction that assigns ownership of your new item to you.
When your shiny new collectible arrives in your wallet, you’ll get a notification like this one.
This means the network has recorded your ownership of the collectible! The distributed nature of the blockchain guarantees that the collectible is unassailably yours and no one can take it away from you!
3. Check out your shiny new item!
You can view your new collectible in your wallet. Just open Vault and click on the wallet tab at the bottom of the screen.
4. Buy more collectibles, or sell the ones you have with exchanges and dApps
Vault is filled with fun dApps (blockchain powered decentralized applications) and exchanges that let you interact with your collectibles.
One example is OpenSea, a collectible trading marketplace where you can buy, sell, and trade all kinds of collectibles on the blockchain.
You can also open games like MLB Crypto Baseball, Gods Unchained, Crypto Space Commander, or others that are available in the main Vault feed.
If you know of a dApp that isn’t on the list, just pop open the web3 browser and type in the address, your Vault wallet will work on any Ethereum enabled websites. Check out stateofthedapps.com, dapps.com, and dappradar.com for exciting other dApps!
5. While you’re here, a few pieces of housekeeping.
- You can set up a profile photo to make it easier for others to find you on the Vault contact network. Just open your wallet and click the photo.
- You should save your passphrase so that you can recover your wallet if you ever lose your device or access to the application. If you haven’t done this yet there will be a banner notice at the top of the main Vault screen
That’s it! We’ll be posting more guides for using Vault over the next few
