Crypto Noobs #22 - What is a Cryptocurrency Wallet?
Welcome back to Crypto Noobs!
It's the most popular crypto educational series on the blockchain! Not really. Maybe. Who knows. We like to have fun here. If you've never read a Crypto Noobs post, it's a series where I show people how to do different things with cryptocurrency and blockchain. I'm just a regular dude that admittedly smokes too much and likes to be a complete degenerate with crypto. I'm no expert, I just like to spread knowledge. In the last issue, we looked at how you can secure your Hive account even if you don't have another account or person to list as a recovery account. Today we're talking about the basics of what a cryptocurrency wallet is.
Understanding cryptocurrency wallets
From time to time, I get asked for help with different cryptocurrency or NFT related things. This happens here on Hive and in the real world, so I think of my self as kinda crypto tech support. I've always enjoyed helping others, especially when it comes to learning about a new asset class like cryptocurrency that can most certainly be intimidating. I started the Crypto Noobs series because I saw a need for content that absolute newbies could use to their benefit.
Don't get me wrong, I love the super technical content and guides. I think we often get tunnel vision in this space though, and there's a need for more outward-facing content. With more and more users coming to Hive and LeoFinance every day, we have more and more people here that have literally never used cryptocurrency. They come to us for answers and help. That's what I'm here to try and provide.
Anyway - the focus today is the absolute most basic thing that users need to understand, which is Cryptocurrency wallets.
When you think of a cryptocurrency wallet you may think of Metamask or a hardware wallet like the Ledger wallets. You might also think "I have no idea what that is". I'm not talking about those wallets. I'm talking about the wallet that exists on the blockchain. Not the fancy user interfaces that you think of when you imagine a crypto wallet.
For example, let's look at an Ethereum wallet or a Hive wallet. When you use the fancy user interface of whatever flavor (Metamask, Trust Wallet, Safepal, etc...) you like to create a crypto wallet, you're not just creating an account within that app. You're creating an account on the Ethereum blockchain. This means that the wallet created can be accessed from any of these wallet applications or hardware wallets. This may seem like common sense for those that have been using crypto for a while, to a person that's new, it is not.
This is something that you learn by doing, or at least that's how I learn. When you create a wallet in Metamask, for example, you're given a public address and a private key. Of course you are also given a secret recovery phrase which acts as a way to unlock the wallet. Depending on what wallet application you're using, wallets can be added with the private key or the secret recovery phrase.
With Ethereum, your public wallet address is going to look something like this - 0xn3unfo34jgoieg98dfldlkndfg394k. Obviously this is not a real wallet, it's just an example. Your private key will look similar. The difference is, you don't just go giving out your private key. If someone wants to send you Ethereum tokens, you give them your public wallet address. If you want to access that wallet to interact with different decentralized applications such as PolyCUB, you will need to use something like Metamask browser extension or Trust Wallet on your mobile phone.
As I said, your wallet is just an address and a key that unlocks it. This means that you can use any wallet application you choose to manage your assets. I personally use Trust Wallet on my phone and Metamask on my desktop. I also have a Ledger hardware wallet that I use for cold storage, or offline storage of assets. Regardless of the way I access the wallet, the same tokens are going to be in the wallet. If I have 420 POLYCUB in my wallet, it exists on the blockchain. Therefore no matter which interface I used to access that wallet, the assets are there.
I feel like I just said the same thing over again a couple times. If this sounds silly to explain, it's really not. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked "how can I transfer my crypto from Metamask to Trust Wallet?". Unless you want to use a different wallet as a whole, you don't need to do any transferring. Just import the wallet with your private key or secret recovery phrase.
This pretty interface you look at all the time in Metamask just reads the data from the blockchain. The same wallet even exists across all Ethereum based blockchains like Polygon or BNB Chain. Again, I'm using Ethereum as the example because it is the most well known blockchain aside from Bitcoin. They all work a little bit differently, but the wallets are very similar. Bitcoin has public addresses and private keys. So does Hive.
So I hope I've answered some of your questions or at least provided some sort of useful information. This was longer than I wanted it to be but I really got into it.
Thanks for reading! Much love.
Links 'n Shit
| Play to Earn | Read emails, Earn Crypto | Get free crypto every day | Get a WAX wallet |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gods Unchained | ListNerds | PipeFlare | WAX.io |
| Splinterlands | GoodDollar | ||
| Rising Star | FoldApp |
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