Crypto for Beginners: How to Set up a MetaMask Wallet
The Bitcoin halving event of last month put crypto back on the mainstream news agenda. A flurry of cryptocurrency stories generates a lot of public interest and incites the FOMO crowd who might not know that much about the crypto-sphere.
With this in mind here’s a 101 on setting up a MetaMask wallet — often the keystone of the crypto journey.
Crypto wallets
There are many varieties of crypto wallet out there and they fall into two camps: custodial and non-custodial (also referred to as self-custodial). Self-custodial means users have complete ownership and control over their cryptocurrency assets, as they are the only ones with access to their private keys (which are a bit like a password). This is as opposed to a custodial wallet, which stores these private keys and funds on a centralised platform controlled by a third-party service provider.
MetaMask — self-custodial wallet
MetaMask is the leading self-custodial wallet used to interact with the Ethereum blockchain; the primary chain for DeFi applications as well as NFTs and NFT-based apps.
Setting up a MetaMask Wallet in 5 easy steps
- Go to the MetaMask website at https://metamask.io/ and click on the “Download” button.
- Click Install for the browser you use. MetaMask supports Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Edge and Opera.
3. Follow the very easy to complete prompts to install the MetaMask extension in your browser.
4. Click on the “Create a new wallet” button to do exactly what it says!
5. Follow the prompts to create a new password and backup/recovery phrase for your wallet. Be sure to write down this 12-word backup phrase (aka seed phrase) and store it safely.
🎉 Congratulations, that’s it! You now have a MetaMask wallet set up and ready to use. You can use it to store and manage your cryptocurrencies and to interact with decentralized applications (dApps) on the Ethereum blockchain.
