Metamask Crash Course - Part Deux

Free test ETH & Using a DEX

Feb 02, 2021

In case you missed Metamask Crash Course… the most important item when firing up a new wallet is securing and documenting your seed words, and password.

Testnets

Ethereum has several test networks designed to allow the free testing of apps for developers. We can also utilize this to practice sending a few transactions, and getting a feel for crypto operations without costing ourselves and risking our assets.

Visit this Testnet ETH Faucet
Switch from Ethereum Mainnet at the top of Metamask wallet, to Goerli.
Click the account name area in Metamask to copy your wallet address:
paste this address into the Goerli testnnet faucet page, and move through the bot test menu.
Click “Request Goeth" button

Occasionally these faucets and other items can act up and may require patience and some finesse.

Appreciating that in blockchain, physical changes are taking place within hardware, computations are occurring, and we are utilizing network storage, occasionally miners, and “the network mesh” in general in order to transmit the data (ETH), we have to imagine that this works something like a Rube Goldberg machine.

New Wallet

By clicking the varied and multi-colored bubble towards the top of Metamask, you will find some menu options.

Select Create Account (these two accounts are backed up with the same seed words, so you do not need to write anything)
If you’ve forgotten your seed words already, you can have them displayed again by clicking into Settings > Security & Privacy > “Reveal Seed Words”.
CAUTION: Revealing your seed words puts you at risk with malware and viruses designed to screen capture, capture your clipboard, and even giving remote access to your computer. Do this only when absolutely necessary, and only on secure machines.
Give the new account an appropriate name, and you now have a secondary account. Notice the different colors in the circle to differentiate accounts at a glance.
You can also import a previously seeded wallet using the backup phrase, or connect a hardware wallet.

Transactions

Click the name of the secondary account you just created, copying the address to the clipboard.
Your public address is like your e-mail address, it can be given out safely, but you don’t want your main personal wallet address all over the place, as it leads to some security issues, to be discussed later.
Switch back to the Main account, the one where we sent the Goerli testnet ETH. (You should have 0.1 testnet ETH in this wallet now)
Find the send button.
Input the secondary address
From the sending screen, you will select an asset, for now ETH, an amount of ETH to send, and a gas cost.
Let’s send 0.025 ETH to our secondary account, and leave the gas as it is. Confirm the information on the next screen and click “Confirm” to submit the transaction for processing by the network.
You should be returned to the main Metamask screen, but will find a pending transaction now. (It may have already sent, and will not say pending)
Check the secondary to verify the Tx.

Connecting to a DEX

Visit your favorite DEX: Mine is Uniswap
You should be able to connect your wallet in the top right corner, like we did with the Goerli testnet faucet. It should look like this when connected:
Swap from ETH to UNI (or whatever)
1. I selected UNI and inputted 0.015 ETH, you can click MAX here and it will factor gas costs as well.
2. Click “Swap” and then observe the details before clicking “Confirm Swap”. This will open your wallet for verification before broadcasting to the network.
3. Click “confirm” again, like our previous send transaction.
4. Once you’ve completed, and the transaction says success, there will be a menu to click that says “View on Etherscan". Click this for the next few steps.
…Coming Soon…..Metamask Crash Course - Part C
We will cover:
- Examining the blockchain
- Tracking transactions from send to receive
- Adding Custom Tokens to Metamask
- Providing Liquidity with Uniswap and others.
- Researching ERC20 (ETH tokens) to avoid goof-ups
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