Metamask is a cryptocurrency software wallet used to interact with the ethereum blockchain. It allows users to access their ethereum or other ethereum virtual machine (EVM) wallets through a browser extension or mobile app. Two key characteristics of the metamask wallet are; it works perfectly for all EVMs and it is interactive with decentralized applications such as DEXs.
As a newbie in the crypto space, it is necessary to know how to install and configure metamask because it is by far the most used cryptocurrency wallet. For mobiles, it can easily be downloaded from google playstore or apple app store but for web browsers like chrome, it is mainly used as an extension. Let’s walk through the process of installing and configuring metamask on google chrome.
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STEP 1: Visit the official metamask website and click the ‘download now‘ button.
STEP 2: After clicking the ‘download now’ button, select the chrome option and click ‘install metamask for chrome‘.
STEP 3: Clicking the ‘install metamask button‘ further directs the user to the official ‘metamask for chrome’ extension page. From here, you can check the overview, reviews and number of installs. After going through all these, click the ‘add to chrome‘ button. It then brings up a pop up notifying you of all permissions granted to the metamask extension. You can either read this or ignore and then click on the ‘add extension‘ button.
STEP4: At this point, metamask has been succesfully installed in google chrome and can be found by clicking the extensions tab on chrome. To make things easier, we will pin the metamask extension on google chrome so we can find it easily. To pin the metamask extension, click the extension tab close to the search bar and select the pin icon next to the metamask extension.
STEP 5: Once installation is complete, open metamask and click the ‘get started‘ button.
STEP 6: Since it is your first time creating a wallet, click the ‘create a wallet‘ button. If you already have a wallet, click the ‘import wallet‘ button to import your already existing wallet.
STEP 7: After clicking the ‘create a wallet‘ button, it prompts you to either allow or disallow data collection to help improve metamask. Select any option suitable by you in this case.
STEP 8: Next is to create a password for metamask. This password must be secure and should be known only to the user. The password would be entered whenever metamask is launched on the browser. Accept the terms and conditions and click the ‘create‘ button.
STEP 9: Go through the security tips on the next page and and click the ‘next‘ button thereafter.
STEP 10: Click the dark area which says ‘click here to reveal secret words‘ to get access to your secret phrase. Copy out your secret phrase on a piece of paper and store it in a secure place. You can also store your secret phrase in a password manager and make sure not to grant any other person access to it. Your secret phrase is the only way to access your wallet if you forget your password. You must never reveal your secret phrase to anybody because it can be used to access your wallet. Once done click the ‘next‘ button.
STEP 11: The next step is to verify that you have copied your secret phrase correctly. Click the buttons corresponding with the correct order of the words in the secret phrase. If this is done correctly, the ‘confirm‘ button would turn blue.
STEP 12: After selecting the correct order of your secret phrase and clicking ‘confirm‘, metamask displays a page congratulating you on successfully creating your wallet. Please follow all the security tips displayed on this page. Click the ‘all done‘ button to see your wallet.
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STEP 13: You can see your balance and copy your wallet address by clicking the ‘account 1‘ area.
STEP 14: To add more accounts to your metamask wallet, click the circle next to the ethereum mainnet tab and select ‘create account‘.
