Proud Owner of 31 Golem Coins (MetaMask Tutorial)

I've taken the plunge and finally figured out how to store a cryptocurrency outside of exchanges. Steem doesn't count because Steem is bad ass. In a space like this, account recovery is amazing. Get your keys stolen in the Wild-West and you can kiss that crypto gold goodbye. This is why I've been so afraid to store crypto in my own wallet.

However, storing your money on an exchange is also a terrible idea. Coinbase insures up to a quarter million, but that's only if they get directly hacked. If you get targeted individually Coinbase is not liable for that. Centralizing crypto on an exchange is the equivalent to putting a big target on your head and daring hackers to take a shot. Crypto gets stolen all the time from exchanges and the vandals get away with it the majority of the time. Everyone should know how to store crypto the superior decentralized way.

Storing your cryptocurrency in a primitive wallet is a very stressful process when you're first starting out and you're not exactly sure what you're doing. Waiting for your tokens to appear in your wallet, not knowing if you did it correctly, is nerve wracking. I tried using https://www.MyEtherWallet.com even in the wake of the recent hack. However, MyEtherWallet suggested that you should never directly type your key onto a web site. They suggested using a Chrome plugin called MetaMask, so I gave it a whirl.

Turns out, with the beta version of MetaMask, I was able to store my encrypted wallet right on my hard drive. You never even see your private keys unless you specifically export them. MetaMask feels like a pretty secure option for people in my situation where the overhead cost of a hardware wallet is simply not worth it at this point. If you are bullish on Ethereum or any ERC-20 token I recommend acquainting yourself with this neat little app.

MetaMask is evolving in a nice direction. I haven't even needed to use MyEtherWallet in conjunction with it. You can send Ether and ERC-20 tokens directly to and from MetaMask if you click the "try beta" button. I find the process of mainlining crypto this way to be pretty satisfying. It almost has a hacker feel to it. Here's how it works:

Go to the Chrome store and download the MetaMask Extension. Don't even think about blindly clicking that link without confirming that it's legit. This is your crypto on the line. Skepticism is required.

Once downloaded and opened, MetaMask will ask you to create a password. MetaMask will then create a seed for you. This seed is used to create every single private key of your wallets. Anyone with this seed has access to every coin across all your MetaMask wallets. Here's an example seed:

private betray potato submit trap sword enhance similar capable film junk brain

This is a real MetaMask wallet that I just created on my roommate's computer. I exchanged the word "gun" for "sword" so no bots will scan this post and mess with it. If you would like to access this wallet simply click "restore from seed phrase" on MetaMask.

A "hierarchical deterministic wallet" (HD wallet) like MetaMask can generate an unlimited number of "accounts" (public/private keypairs) from a single "seed phrase". With an HD wallet, it's possible to support multiple accounts, and even multiple cryptocurrencies, and all the user has to record is a single seed phrase.

As shown in this video your password doesn't matter when it comes to account recovery. It only matters for making sure no one hops on your machine and spends your crypto. Your seed phrase is much more important than your password.

You should always log out of MetaMask after you're done using it. If you leave it open the web pages that you open in chrome can technically see your public keys and how much money you have. You wouldn't want to bait a hacker into trying to steal your crypto.

I think it's pretty obvious that the seed phrase is a less secure option than a standalone private key. However, it is still pretty secure.

I was even able to find the words used for the seed phrase here:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/english.txt

I personally wouldn't be willing to risk having too much money on MetaMask. When it comes to crypto, decentralization is the key. Make sure your assets are spread out and not centralized in one place. I have a little in Coinbase, I have a little in Steem, and now I have a little in Metamask.

Soon, I will have a little in EOS.

Don't forget that if you want to move ERC-20 tokens around, Ether is the "gas" of the Ethereum network. It currently takes Ether to move around ERC-20 tokens, but perhaps not for long. Just yesterday an article from CCN showed someone is looking to pay with the ERC-20 tokens themselves.

https://www.ccn.com/this-ethereum-developer-wants-to-let-you-pay-gas-fees-with-tokens/

Blockchain development never stops chugging along.

After all this I forgot to even tell you how I got these tokens into my account. I used Coinbase to transfer the Ether. This was a simple process so I won't go into it. I used a site called https://shapeshift.io/#/coins to get the Golem.

I've never used this service before, but it is pretty awesome. The only thing that wasn't ideal about Shapeshift was I got charged a flat fee of around $2.50 but I only bought like $25 worth of Golem. Without needing to create an account or anything, I was able to transfer Ether to Shapeshift (from Coinbase) and they deposited Golem into my MetaMask wallet. At first, this made me very nervous, because I wasn't sure if I did it right. For example, if you send an ERC-20 token to a coinbase wallet your coins are currently impossible to access. There are many things that can go wrong. In addition, once the transaction was confirmed, my MetaMask wallet wasn't showing the coins, so I was worried. Here's a record of the transaction:

https://etherscan.io/token/0xa74476443119A942dE498590Fe1f2454d7D4aC0d?a=0xA614Afec999F93928F656cCc0eD3CEA0b8410c59

In the end I was able to get my Golem coins to display inside of MetaMask by adding the Golem token contract address. You can see the contract address from that link under "contract". Inside of MetaMask you click "add coin" and copy/paste that address into the form and it will search the blockchain and find the ERC-20 tokens that are specified by the contract.

You can see from that link that I created a new wallet inside MetaMask and sent 1 GNT coin to it just to make sure I know what I'm doing. If you are using MetaMask, make sure to hit the "try beta" button because the beta version is way more functional than not. You can't even transfer ERC-20 tokens if you're not using the beta.

Well that's about all I can think of for now. It's been a rewarding experience and I hope others can benefit from my own trials. Just for kicks, I'm going to send one Golem to my roommate's wallet. First one to steal it gets a golden star. Please leave a comment if you nab it. I'm curious to see how it can be transferred. Would one of you actually risk moving Ether gas into a public account in order to pay the fee to move it out of there? I guess we'll see.