The bitshares web browser wallet – the basics

Once you have set up your bitshares web browser wallet https://steemit.com/bitshares/@embracingchaos/setting-up-a-bitshares-web-browser-wallet-easy-when-you-know-how you can access it by going to bitshares.org on any computer.

Click ‘try online exchange’ to get an interface that looks like this:

If you click ‘create account’ in the top right corner you will see your account name next to a padlock. (If you are using your regular computer- if not, go straight to cloud wallet login).

Click on the padlock to open the log-in page.

Here, you enter the computer-generated password you received on registering and then Login to access your account.

There is a lot of stuff here that I don’t understand and that I don’t think I will ever need.

Some things, like the dashboard, exchange, and send options at the top, are self-explanatory.

The Dashboard shows your portfolio, open orders, margin positions and activity.

Remember that your bitshares account is totally transparent! Anybody can click on your account name and see every transaction that you have carried out. Dan refers to this as an Aikido move. You can read his interesting thoughts on transparency in his article here: https://steemit.com/eos/@dan/does-freedom-require-radical-transparency-or-radical-privacy

The Exchange looks like this:

Explore gives a load of blockchain stuff that as a non-techy I am never going to use!

And the Send option is pretty straightforward.

To send funds, just enter the account name of the person you are sending them to. The memo is whatever you want to write in there for your reference.

To access the main menu, click the three short lines to the right of the account name, at the very top right of the screen.

This opens these options:

To get lifetime membership, go to ‘Membership stats’. You don't need it, but as it’s priced in bitshares, at the current market cost it's great value. For your 110 Bitshares you get 80% back on your fees and can potentially receive referral income.

Click ‘Deposit’ to send funds to your account.

It’s easy for withdrawing or sending BTS – just give your account name.
For BTC scroll further down the page.

This is where my head begins to fry a bit. It seems they use Openledger as the gateway service for BTC, but basically you don’t need to worry about that: just click get new address to create your bitcoin address. There is also a FIAT gateway but it’s not available at the moment.

That’s it for the basics of the bitshares web browser wallet. There are lots of other options in the menu that I still haven’t got my head around, not to mention trying to understand the ‘market-pegged assets such as bitGold and bitUSD’, but all that can wait until later. Right now I’ll settle for getting comfortable with the exchange.

Onwards and upwards…