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Metamask Beginner’s Guide: Everything You Need to Know

Welcome to this post, where we are going to see everything you should know about Metamask if you are totally new or you have already used it once.

Although there are many wallets, metamask is the most used along with trustwallet, and in my case, I use metamask. So, in this video we will focus on how metamask works and everything you need to know. Many aspects will be the same or very similar in other wallets like trustwallet, but there may be certain aspects that are different.

It is possible that if you have already used metamask, there are parts of the video that you already know, so I recommend you skip to the bits you don’t know.

Create a Metamask account

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The first thing we are going to see is how to create a metamask account. You can click on the link in the description to install metamask. Click on download for Chrome ios or Android. Although in this video, we are going to see it on computer, they also have their own mobile app to use metamask on your mobile, either ios or Android.

We install metamask, add to Chrome, and open it. Now, if you are new, click on yes, let’s get set up. Create a wallet, no thanks, and we will create a password for the wallet. In addition to the seed phrase, which is the recovery phrase of your wallet, and you will have to write it down somewhere, because later it will ask for it. Enter the seed phrase and you will have your metamask account created. It is very important to keep your seed phrase in a safe place and not share it with anyone, as this is the only way they can steal your funds from your wallet. So never share your seed phrase to anyone. This is the best advice to keep your cryptocurrencies safe.

How it works

If you are new and it is the first time you see a cryptocurrency wallet, once you open the extension and enter your password, at the top you will see your account name if you have set one and a long sentence of letters and numbers. This is your address, just like your bank account has different numbers, and you can click on the top to copy it. You will need to copy it to send cryptocurrencies to your wallet or share it with other people if they want to send you cryptocurrencies to your wallet.

If you click on the top right, you will see a menu, where you will see options like create account. From metamask, you can set up different wallets, but keep in mind that all of them will be linked to the same seed phrase and password. This is very useful if you want to have a wallet with less funds to use on more unreliable platforms. If you click on create account, give it a name and create and you will have another address. Each account has a different address as you can see. So don’t get confused if you have more than one account, and always make sure you copy the address of the account you are interested in having the funds.

How to add tokens or cryptocurrencies

In assets you will see the different tokens, by default, comes the token of the network itself, and you can add tokens in add token, and search in search for the token name. If, for example, I want to include the uniswap token, it will appear. This is a very common confusion, when you send tokens to your metamask and you see that they do not appear, it is probably because you have not added the token to your metamask wallet, and therefore you can not see them, but they really are there.

Another way to add tokens that you can’t find by searching, is to go to coingecko or coinmarket and search for the cryptocurrency you want to add, let’s say axie infinity. We look for it and we will see in this kind of pages an aspect called contract, if you click next to it you will be able to copy it. Here, notice that the contract belongs to a network, so if you are using the ethereum network, copy the ethereum contract. Go back to metamask, add token, custom token and paste the contract, you will see how it detects it. Click next and confirm, and you will have the token added to your wallet.

Metamask is a wallet that allows you to use different networks, and comes standard with the ethereum network. If you do not know what are the different networks, I will leave in the description a video of my channel for beginners in DEFI.

Configuring networks in a simple way

If you want to use other networks, you will have to include them. This is done by going to the top right, settings, networks and add networks. Here you will need to include the information of the network you want to add. To find out the information you can simply google it and it will show you the information you need to include. With the information included click on save, and if you go up to networks, you will see that now the new network you have included appears.

Another even easier way to add a network is to go to suhiswap. Here we connect our metamask wallet at the top right, click on connect and confirm in metamask. By default sushiswap is in the ethereum network, and if we click on ethereum, you will see that all the networks that sushi has are displayed, click on the one you want to add, in my case fantom. It will open metamask, and we add the network information automatically, click on approve, switch network and we will have the network configured, in this case fantom.

These are the best ways to configure different networks in metamask, although most likely you will use the ethereum network, which comes standard, the binance Smart chain and polygon.

Depositing funds in your wallet

With the configuration of the different networks, now let’s see how you can deposit funds, since when you create it you will not have any cryptocurrency. In metamask you will see a buy button, where you can buy with your credit card different cryptocurrencies directly. Sometimes it can be a great idea and quite convenient if you are totally new and do not use exchanges like Binance.

The other option is to use a centralized exchange like Binance to buy cryptocurrencies there, and send them to your metamask wallet.

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In a nutshell, once you have bought let’s say ethereum on binance, go to wallet, spot wallet and search for the ethereum cryptocurrency and click on withdraw.

Now, open your metamask wallet and click on your address to copy it. If you have more than one account, check that it is the correct account. With the copied address, go back to binance and paste the address, enter the amount and the network, which you must enter ERC20. Check that everything is correct and that you have entered the ERC20 network and click on confirm, enter the codes and confirm the transaction. Note that the ethereum network has a fee of around 6-7$. This is an example for sending cryptocurrencies on the ethereum network, but if you want to send cryptocurrencies to another network, you should select another network. For example, in the binance Smart chain, you should select bep20, in the polygon network, matic, or in the terra network you should select terra network. Always check that you are indicating the correct network in binance, and it is the network you use in metamask. If you send cryptocurrencies with the wrong network, you can lose your funds.

Gas fee

Every time you want to make a transaction with your wallet, you will see that there is an aspect called gas fee. This is the fee paid in the native cryptocurrency of the network. In the case of ethereum, you are going to need ethereum to pay for the fees every time you make a transaction. Therefore, to use metamask, you will always need to have an amount of the network’s native token with which the fees are paid for each transaction, or you will not be able to move your funds.

Activity

In activiity, you will also find every transaction you have made with your metamask, and if you click on any of them, it will open the details. If you want more information, click on the arrow above, and it will open in this case bscan because it is the binance Smart chain, where there is all the information of every transaction you make. This is very useful if you have sent funds and they do not appear, you can use bscan, or etherscan in the case of ethereum, to see the details of the transaction, and see if the transaction has been made, or is still pending.

Withdrawing funds from Metamask

If you want to send funds back to binance or any other Exchange or wallet, you can also do it with metamask. Click on send, paste the address where you want to send the tokens. Make sure that the address you have copied is compatible with the network you are going to use to send the cryptocurrencies, or you may lose them. In asset select the cryptocurrency you want to send, the amount in amount and click next. Finally you will see the cost of the transaction in gas fee and click on confirm. This way you will be able to send your metamask cryptocurrencies to any other wallet or Exchange.

Don’t lose your tokens

Lastly, a mistake I have seen on occasion, is to send cryptocurrencies from binance or any Exchange to your wallet and they do not appear. This can be for several minutes, sometimes the network is congested and is slower or you may not have added the token correctly. The best solution is to connect your wallet to a DEFI Exchange, in the case of using the binance Smart chain, pancakeswap, in the case of etheruem, uniswap, and once you have your wallet connected, go to the swap. In from, look for the cryptocurrency you have sent, and if it is really already in your wallet, you will see in balance the amount you have. This is a common mistake when you send USDT in the binance Smart chain and it may be your case.

To finish, in my channel I have a video of the main errors that happen in metamask and their solutions, you can find the video in the description if it is your case, where you have some problem that you don’t know how to solve in metamask.

I hope this post and video has helped you to know the most basic and important aspects of metamask and you can use it without any problem. Remember that you can find a link to create an account with binance if you don’t have one yet.

Platform: Binance
Min. deposit: $10
License: Cysec

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Exchange with more cryptocurrencies

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