In the NFT world and the cryptocurrency business sector, in every guide available on the web today, there is a first and fundamental step to enter and begin trading tokens and various NFTs.
Every guide available today puts the creation of a wallet first.
The wallet is the actual virtual wallet where all users hold their cryptocurrencies.
That is why having your wallet today is the first step to beginning your experience.
So we will see what Metamask is and why it is the most popular wallet worldwide. We’ll see how to make the most of each feature too.
What is Metamask
Metamask today represents a name that gets people talking wherever they are. It represents one of the icons of the crypto world due to its popularity and success year after year and month after month.
Metamask is a non-custodial wallet that allows you to hold your funds in cryptocurrencies with a very high level of safety while allowing you to operate by accessing dApps.
Decentralized applications are invading the crypto market today. They are developed on the blockchain and interact with different protocols such as Defi and NFTs.
So what is Metamask?
It is sufficient to think of software specifically written to manage cryptocurrency funds. It puts all its advantages at the disposal of any user through a simple installation. Either a plugin or extension on any operating system.
Metamask now registers more than 10 million active users thanks to two advantages: intuitiveness and compatibility.
Metamask is often described as the easiest-to-use wallet, and it attracted more and more users to its platform. Metamask boasts impressive compatibility by operating on various blockchains: Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, Ethereum, Arbitrum, and others. Metamask allows you to hold funds via private keys. The person who creates the wallet is the only owner who has access to the wallet. It represents the highest degree of safety for wallets today.
How to install Metamask
Metamask was born to make the whole world of cryptocurrency transactions easier, thus suitable even for beginners and newbies.
That’s why its developers tried to make the whole wallet management more intuitive right from its installation.
To start using Metamask, the first step is to download the dedicated extension from the official Metamask website.
The extension boasts compatibility with many browsers, from Chrome to Brave.
After opening the application, choose a password to secure everything.
After looking for a secure sequence of letters and numbers that can provide high-level protection for the funds, it will be enough to click on “Create”.
Then, we move on to the seed phrase registration phase.
After clicking on the wallet creation button, Metamask will display a list of 12 words that will form your seed phrase.
In case of data loss or inaccessibility, these 12 words allow you to recover all the funds in the wallet.
In that case, the application will ask to import the seed phrase into a separate wallet to perform the server restart operation and thus have access to all funds.
You can perform this operation even if the device is physically destroyed (for example Ledger).
That’s why storing the seed phrase is the most important step in managing a wallet. The seed phrase consists of 12 or 24 words arranged in random order.
After writing down the seed phrase, you will find yourself inside the home screen to start using the service. The installation is complete.
Metamask: How it works
Metamask initiates with the platform’s initial request to start with a pre-existing wallet to upload or to create a wallet from scratch.
After creating your wallet, you can send, receive, and hold cryptocurrencies, import tokens, and access dApp services. You can work on different blockchains depending on the token used.
The use of Metamask thus focuses on managing transactions within the blockchain.
To start with your transactions, you will need to add a blockchain.
To do that, you need to go to Settings, Network and click on Add Network.
Once you execute this command, Metamask will ask for some identifying data of the blockchain as the network name, chain ID, the RPC URL, Currency Symbol and Block Explorer.
You can find all these data on the proprietary sites of the blockchain you want to add. It won’t be hard to find it.
Look for the blockchain name followed by Metamask to find them.
After adding the network, we can operate with coins and tokens.
For these functions that represent the majority of the activities on Metamask, the site or application provides a dedicated and very intuitive section.
Metamask has three sections: buy, send and exchange.
It is important to remember that Metamask does not impose fees or commissions on the transactions performed.
That said, remember that there are always gas fees, which, however, are linked to the blockchain used.
Using Metamask with DAPPs
The most interesting feature of Metamask is the ability to use and connect to decentralized applications, namely dApps.
To get an idea of what dApps are today just think of a traditional site with a dedicated, network-connected part of a blockchain such as Ethereum.
This part of the site can only be accessed using a wallet.
Here is where Metamask comes in as it connects with that portal. With the Ethereum network on the one hand and with the functionality that the site provides on the other. A bridge between dApp and the network.
In this case, let’s set some stakes to better understand the circumstances in which you can operate.
Through dApps, you grant the site in question access to your wallet to be able to make primarily token exchanges.
This assumption must make one maintain a certain level of safety before giving access to your funds.
Indeed, you must first carefully check how well-known the project or site is and consequently understand its trustworthiness.
A project with a dedicated and active channel or community represents greater safety than a project lacking these elements.
By inquiring about the project you are joining through dApp, it’s a good idea to check if there have been breaches in the past.
Some sites report any such violations suggested right on Metamask’s official website.
The Metamask App
Metamask is available not only for PCs but also for smartphones.
One of the great revolutions was, in fact, the birth of a simple and intuitive Android and iOS App that brings the plus of being able to use Metamask anywhere.
After downloading it, you will enter your seed phrase to upload your wallet or quickly create one from scratch and you are done.
In this case, the first thing to do is to make sure that the connection was made on Ethereum’s main network and not on the classic test networks used only for configuration.
Now you configured the wallet, and you can start trading. When using cryptocurrencies, it is possible to implement the transfer via the address generated when creating the wallet.
The address is always visible in the section below the name of the network to which you are connected.
The presence of a service like this that is also available on smartphones (easier and more intuitive to use) and not only from the site, represents an undisputed added value for Metamask. That’s why it’s adding more and more users to its assets.
Conclusions
By allowing users to access the famous Ethereum network through services such as dApps, Metamask has opened the door of the crypto world to many people. In this way, they became part of the Ethereum network with all the advantages that this entails: the more users who invest and perform transactions, the more the industry grows.
The second distinction of Metamask was that it made all transactions easier both from the browser and even more so via the proprietary application.
The third advantage lies in the compatibility of Metamask with all networks and with all dApp services available today, or at least with the most reliable ones.
Metamask does not impose fees to do so, except those arising from the network, so-called commissions or gas fees.
Last but not least, safety.
We are still talking about a digital wallet that therefore requires impassable safety.
Since its launch in 2016, no one has managed to hack Metamask. Our conclusions are therefore entirely encouraging for this service.
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