crypto

How to install MetaMask – Tutorial for beginners

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MetaMask is the pretty much the standard if it comes to storing crypto currencies. As per their webpage, over 30 millions of users are using. This tutorial is for beginners.

What is MetaMask

If you are new in the crypto currencies world, you are probably overwhelmed by the number of options and wallets available and you might not be sure where to start? Right? No worries, I got you covered. Here you will find an easy step-by-step guide on how to install the MetaMask wallet to store (many of) the coins and tokens secure.

MetaMask can store all of the ERC-20 tokens. ERC-20 tokens you said? ERC-20 is a expression from the Ethereum vocabulary and defines a standard for all fungible tokens. You might have heared about ETH, BNB, Drip. There are many, many more. All tokens from the Etherum blockchain, from the BNB blockchain and all blockchains based on Etherum can be stored in MetaMask. It is a lot. Hence, MetaMask is a good starting point. But enough of the technical stuff, lets gets back to the basics and start with the installation.

Download MetaMask

Make sure you download the extension only from the official side. Navigate to www.metamask.io and click on the button “Download for <your browser>”. I am using Firefox, hence that icon is showed. This will guide you to the extension repository of your browser. Click “Add to Firefox” or “Add to Chrome, if you are using Chrome. And then endorse again, if your browser ask to confirm the installation. Your browser will confirm, that the new extension is added. Click “Okay”.

If your MetaMask extension got installed successfully, you should see a little Fox icon at the top right corner in your browser. Together with all your other extensions installed.

Great, now you got MetaMask installed, now we have to create your personal wallet. The installation might look a bit lengthy, but that is only because I added a screenshot for every step to guide you safely through the whole installation process.

Create your wallet

Click on the MetaMask item and a page like the below will load. Click on “Get started”.

As the next step, the MetaMask developer ask you if you like to provide data to improve the product going forward. Up to you, if you like to send your data or not. I would argue it is safe, but at the end it is your decision. Click either on “No thanks” or “I agree”.

As the next step, you click on “Create a wallet”.

Next you have to define your password. Make sure you use a complex password, a mixture of upper and lower cases, numbers and special characters. Lengthwise go for at least 12 characters. Yes, harder to remember. But for sure more secure. And you like to store your digital money here and you like to sleep well during the night. Convinced? And to make thing even more secure, do not store the password on your computer. Don’t take a digital picture of it. Write it down on a piece of paper and store it somewhere safe.

Click on “Create”.

Then a learning video about the Secret Recovery Phase follows. I highly recommend to watch it.

After you watch that video, you will get your personal Secret Recovery Phase. Click on “Click here to reveal secret words”. As the text says already, never disclose this phrase to anyone. Never. No matter who asks.

Treat the the Secret Recovery Phrase the same as your password: Do not store this phrase anywhere digitally. Only on a piece of paper. Keep it as safe as possible.

After you wrote that phrase down on your piece of paper (and again, not digitally) MetaMask asks you to confirm your Secret Recovery Phase. Just click all of your words in the correct order to ensure you got it written down correctly. Once you clicked on all the 12 words in the correct order, click “Confirm”.

If everything went fine, you are the proud owner of your personal MetaMask wallet and are ready to store your coins in it. Congratulations. Click on “All done”.

You will find your wallet address below “Account 1”. Many numbers. No need to remember it. My test wallet for this article is “0xdA194DD3815C41DC8deB96FbEDd13778C7417B9d”. Whenever you need it, like to send some coins to your wallet, you can copy it by simply clicking on it.

Adding BNB Chain

So you got now your wallet ready and it is connected to the Ethereum Mainnet. We will now add the Binance BNB Chain, as one of the most popular Blockchains. I am following the guide from the official Binance website:

Click on your MetaMask item in the top right corner of your browser, click on “Ethereum Mainnet” and then on “Add Network”.

The below screen pops up. Fill in the information as per the screenshot I took for you. You can copy/paste the information from below. Or copy it from the Binance page I linked.

Once you filled in all the information, click on “Save”. And done. You are now connected to the BNB Chain. You can choose your network by simply clicking on MetaMask icon and then on the current network and select the one you need in the menu popping up.

Whats next?

The next step is then to transfer some tokens to your MetaMask wallet and trade for the first time. We will cover this topic in one of our next articles soon.

Comments about such beginner articles are highly welcome and appreciated. Too challenging? Too complex? Too lengthy? Let me know. Thanks for reading.