Workshop: Your first time using cryptocurrency

I‘ll walk you through it in 10 minutes, without spending a dime or taking any risk. You’ll see how easy it is to become your own bank (why is that so cool?)

Introduction - The essentials

If you wish to open up your own digital bank account, you need a ‘wallet’ which contains:

1. A public address
   Think of it as your bank account number. You can share this ‘address’ or ‘Public Key’ with people who need to pay you.
2. A ‘private key’ and/or ‘seed’
   Consider these the combinations to your vault. You’ll get them when you create a wallet. Save them carefully and never share these with anyone.
3. Cryptocurrency. Don’t worry; We’ll send a small amount to your new wallet for free(!) for you to play around with.

In this guide we’ll use a digital coin called ‘Nano’. It allows you to send any amount to anyone in the world for free and it will arrive instantly. Also, it doesn’t waste any energy, so you don’t have to feel guilty using it.

Step 1/3 - Create a wallet address (2 min)

Go to this website and click the orange button ‘Generate a random wallet now’:

You can see it filled out 3 random strings of text:

1. The first one is your ‘seed’,
2. the second one is your ‘private key’,
3. the third one is your address.

You must backup this information! So save these codes in a document or better yet: click the ‘create your paper wallet’ button:

This creates a fancy representation of your new Nano wallet. Click the ‘Print your paper wallet’ to save it as a PDF or to actually print it.

Step 2/3 - Get some free cryptocurrency in your new wallet (30 sec)

• Go to nano-faucet.org
• Fill out your ‘Public Key’ (the one that starts with xrb_…)
• Verify that you’re not a robot and click ‘Send Nano’. And you’re done!

Final step - Use your digital money with wallet software (5 min)

Just like banking apps, you need an app to check your balances, send coins and create other wallets.

Here you can download the wallet software for Android or iOS. (there are apps for Mac/PC as well, but mobile apps are easy to use on the go)

1. When you first open the app, select ‘import wallet’
2. Enter the ‘Seed’ or better: tap the QR-icon to scan it (it’s the small QR-code, on the right side of your PDF/paper wallet)
3. You can skip the password part and just configure a pin code.

You’re now ready to use Nano-currency!

You should see some balance in your account. Let’s send 0.0001 Nano to another Nano-address.

1. Tap the ‘Send’ button
2. type in the amount you’d like to send. E.g. 0.0001 Nano.
3. Press ‘scan QR code’ or type/paste a receiving address. You could ask a friend to make an address to join in on the fun, or just use my donations address:

4. Press ‘confirm’ (and confirm with your fingerprint or face-ID)

Congratulations! You’ve just sent your very first transaction with cryptocurrency. And that’s all there is to it. You can now send money for free and instantly to anybody on the planet, and nobody can ever stop you!

Bonus - keep in mind:

• The process of setting up & using other cryptocurrencies is very similar to what we just did with Nano.
• Different cryptocurrencies (like Bitcoin or Ethereum) work on completely different ‘blockchains’. This means they have different rules, wallets, wallet-software, transaction costs/speed, energy requirements… So NEVER EVER send Bitcoin to a Nano address, or Nano to a Bitcoin Address. This will NOT work as they are NOT the same!
• keep in mind that with the creation/use of any wallet (software), you should always use reliable sources, official and preferably open-source software.

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Thanks for reading! I enjoy helping/informing people. I spent about a day writing this article, if you feel supporting me, any amount would be greatly appreciated!

Donate Nano: xrb_31h76so8n8gzgy69dq6fairn7n4zh4h9yktzagzmbreht6gfw7oci44ypg3o

Donate BTC:
38nUJcf4993v6y8aLftstZ1dM9LYMhzXLc

Check out my other article: Why our world needs digital currency