Feb 10, 2022 4 min read Web3

How to create an Ethereum wallet (using MetaMask)

A wallet is your gateway to interacting with the Ethereum blockchain. We’ll go through the step-by-step of how to create a MetaMask Ethereum wallet.

How to create an Ethereum wallet (Link: OpenSea)

A wallet is your gateway to interacting with the Ethereum blockchain. In this post, we’ll go through the step-by-step of how to create a MetaMask Ethereum wallet.

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This article was first published on geekinmy.com

Before we start, let’s clear out few terminologies revolving around this topic:

Ethereum account: an entity that can send Ether (ETH), transaction and has a balance.
Ethereum address: every account have an address. You’ll need an address when sending funds, receiving them. (it looks something like this: 0x…. )
Ethereum wallet: a program where you can manage your account, like viewing balance, send transactions, connect to decentralised apps and more.

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s talk about wallets. There are 2 main types Ethereum wallets, hardware and software wallets.

Software wallets: wallets in the form of programs or apps. This is the easiest way to start your Ethereum blockchain journey.
Web wallets: wallets that lives on your browsers like Chrome, Firefox or Brave. The wallet in this guide, MetaMask, is web-baseb)
Desktop wallets: wallets in the form of desktop program/app
Mobile wallets: wallets on mobile phones
Hardware wallets: these physical devices that holds the public and private keys for your cryptocurrency. They essentially “offline” and are generally more secure. These are best for large accounts and long-term ETH holders. Two of the popular ones are made by Trezor and Ledger.

On to the how to!

Creating MetaMask Ethereum wallet

Downloading MetaMask

Step 1: Go to https://metamask.io/
Step 2: Click download.

Step 3: Choose your platform (mine is showing Brave as this is the browser i used. Other supported browsers are Chrome, Firefox and Edge).
Step 4: Click “Install MetaMask”.

You’ll be pointed to the browser extensions store.
Step 5: Install the extension.
Step 6: You’ll be prompted to confirm adding MetaMask extension. Click “Add extension”.

Creating your MetaMask Wallet

Step 7: Get excited! MetaMask is welcoming you. Click “Get Started”

If you previously used a wallet, you can use import it into the wallet by using the seed phrase. Seed phrase is a set of 12 words that is allows access to a cryptocurrency wallet. Other alternative names are also known as the recovery phrase or backup phrase. It’s VERY IMPORTANT that you keep them safe, offline. Once someone else gets it, they are free to use the wallet to do any transaction they desire. That also means, DO NOT ever give your seed phrase to anyone that asks for it. A lot of scammers will tell you that you won an amount of crypto and they’ll ask for the phrase to “transfer” the prize to you. Now that’s clear, let’s continue.

Step 8: Create a new Wallet.
Step 9: You’ll be prompted to create a password. Please do so.

Step 10: Reveal your seed phrase.
Step 11 (VERY IMPORTANT): Write down the words on a piece of paper or in a book and keep it safe. To be extra safe, make multiple copies and keep them where you will never lose them. Remember, if you lose the phrase, you lose access to the wallet.
Step 12: Click next when you’re done writing down your seed phrase.