MetaMask: 2023 Beginner’s Guide & TOP Security Tips!

Thinking of using metamask well before You do you need to watch this video That's because I'm going to make you Aware of some of the most common Pitfalls that you need to avoid I'll Also give you a complete 101 guide to Using the wallet and safely interacting With defy damps and finally there are Some top tips and other bits that you Can't afford to miss so don't go Anywhere All right I'm going to assume you guys Are familiar with what metamask is and What it's used for there are lots of Other web 3 browser wallets out there of Course many of them very good but Metamask is the most well known and the Most popular I covered it in more detail In a previous video which is linked to Below there's also a guide to using it On our website if you can't bear the Thought of having to watch any more of Me link is in the description I won't be Offended So check those out if you want a Metamask and web wallet 101 otherwise Stick with me as we dive deeper into What metamask can do and how to stay Safe while using it the first thing to Do is download metamask and install it On your browser now I'll state from the Outset that it is a completely free Wallet and is available on most browsers For the purposes of this tutorial I'm

Going to be installing it on Firefox If I was you I would first go to the Metamask website at metamask.io going Directly to the site avoids the risk of Being directed to a fake wallet in Google search results I wouldn't search for it on the Google Chrome Store or Firefox Etc many fake Wallets have been uploaded to these Stores in the past Here I'm going to go right to the Firefox add-on section hit add to Firefox and it's ready to set up hit get Started then agree now this is the Option to either import an old wallet or To set up a new wallet if you've ever Set up a metamask before then you'll Want to import a wallet you will need Your 12 seed words that were generated When you originally set up the wallet Though for the purposes of this demo However we're going to set up a Completely new wallet so select that Option Next step is to choose a password that's Not your birthday or your mother's Maiden name make it long and complex and Don't store it on your computer Next you will get to this page which Gives you all the info about what your Seed phrase is and how important it is Let's just say it is damn important and If you lose access to those seed words You won't be able to recover your crypto

Should you ever lose access to your Computer So you're going to want to guard those Seed words with your life and whatever You do don't copy and paste them you Also don't want them in a digital form As it's something that can easily be Sniffed out with malware I would suggest Writing them down on a piece of paper I Would also make a backup in case you Lose said piece of paper however if you Wanted to go the extra mile then you Could opt for a steel seed card these Are indestructible and they are Resistant to fire and water damage if You want to bag yourself some then we Stock them over in the coin Bureau merch Store I'll leave a link to that down Below for you folks anywho let's move on And take a look at those seed words now I'm blurring this out on mine for Obvious reasons Now that you have your seed you will Need to select the order of the words so That it confirms that you have the right Seed do that and hit all done and we are Ready to start using it now there are Two ways in which you can use and access Your wallet one of them is as a browser Window like this and the other is as an Extension which you can open in your Browser taskbar the latter is useful for When you're interacting with dapps Etc Now there are a few things that you'll

Want to familiarize yourself with over Here you have the assets that you have In your wallet and where they will be Stored and over here you have a Background of all the activity sending Receiving transactions Etc you can add a Number of different metamask accounts And you can also name them differently Let me do that now I'll click over here In the top right and we'll select Account Details I'm going to call this Guys Goods Then in order to do anything on metamask You're going to need to get some eth Into the wallet so I'll grab the eth Address by clicking here it's copied to Clipboard and I'm going to go into Binance and send myself some eth now I Assume you know how to do that and if You don't then there are some handy Binance tutorials out there that can Help you once that's been sent you can See it over here in the wallet as you Send more tokens into the wallet you may Have to hit refresh list in order to Pick up whether there is a new token There however there may be an occasion When the token you're sending is not Picked up automatically You can search for the token and if you Still can't find it there then you can Always import it doing so will require You to copy the token smart contract and Paste it in here now I won't be doing

That right now but remember our metamask Guide is linked to down in the Description if you want more of an Overview When it comes to sending tokens out that Is also pretty damn simple you'll just Have to choose send and then choose the Amount as well as the destination Address and pro tip if there is a Particular address that you're going to Be sending to often then I would Recommend you save this contact easy Access and less room for error in the Future okay now that we have our wallet Set up it's time to do a bit of defy With a simple swap on uni swap So head on over to the website of the DAP in question in this case it's Uniswap.exchange once you're on the Exchange then you can hit connect over Here in the top right or right in the Middle here There are at least three wallet options But we are selecting metamask once That's done it will ask you to approve The connection over in the top right Here quick security 101 approving a Connection to your wallet can also be a Risky Affair especially if you're on a Fishing site what these sometimes do is Trick you into approving a connection That is in actual fact giving them Unlimited approvals on your wallet there Have been a number of people who've

Fallen for this and it can be Circumvented by making 100 sure that you Are on the exact site that's why I said It's preferable for you to navigate to The site's domain instead of clicking Anything in Google anyways I'm confident That I am on the uni swap exchange and I Am happy to connect my wallet once That's done you'll see in the top right Here that your wallet is connected to UNI swap I'm now going to complete a Simple swap for you so that you can see How it all all works in this case I'll Be swapping some of my eth to usdt I'm Going to hit Swap this will pull up the Final confirmation that uni swap has Before asking me to sign the transaction I'm going to scroll down in the wallet Over here and hit confirm That has now officially sent my Transaction to the blockchain and it Should take a few seconds to confirm Once that's done you can see my updated Wallet balance over here I'm just going To refresh my token list and bada bing Bada boom there is my token I just hit Import all and it should be good Now I'm not going to go into the ins and Outs of using uni swap as I have a Separate tutorial for that but I hope You can see why metamask is such a handy Wallet and the process of connecting to Other dapps is pretty much the same for Example let's assume that we want to

Trade some nfts on openc Then we'll head to openc.io I want to Connect my wallet so I will hit the Wallet icon over here in the top right I'm going to connect my metamask again I will then have to hit accept and sign And then sign the transaction in my Wallet over here just make sure that you Are approving a connection to a Legitimate openc smart contract I can See that over here on the signature Request I'll hit sign and we are ready to roll And we are now connected to openc okay So now you know how to set up your Metamask and connect it to dapps now I Will again stress how important it is to Make sure that you are connecting to the Right smart contracts Pro tip you can Actually see exactly what smart Contracts and dapps you have previously Given access to This is thanks to token approval Checkers my favorite is the one on Etherscan and I'll leave a link to it Below By entering your ethereum address over Here it tells you exactly Which smart Contracts you have connected to and the Authorizations that were given if there Are any approvals there that you don't Recognize then I would revoke it just Connect your wallet and hit revoke now As I mentioned earlier metamask is a hot

Wallet and as such you still do run some Risk by keeping some of your most Valuable assets on it but there is a way To upgrade your metamask security and That is through a hardware wallet and Thanks to the seamless integration with Metamask you can use the wallet Effortlessly with the added protection Of Cold Storage so let's take a look at That Now if this is your first time hearing About Hardware wallets then of course I Have a video for you folks which is of Course linked to in the description if You don't have the time to watch it then I'll just tell you that my personal Preference is the Tresor device and if You head on over to the description then We have a number of top tier Hardware Wallet deals for you and we make a Commission on these as well so it's a Win-win for the rest of this demo I am Going to assume that you have already Set up your Hardware wallet if you Haven't then I have a number of unboxing Videos over on our Clips Channel again All in the usual spot okay now there is One really important thing to note here And that is that at no point will you Ever be required to insert a hardware Wallet seed when connecting your wallet To metamask I say this because there was a recent Incident with an nft influencer who

Accidentally used his Hardware wallet Seed words when setting up his metamask The tldr is that malware on his PC was Able to get access to those seed words And exfiltrate all of his digital assets So if you are going to be connecting Your Hardware wallet to a metamask then You're going to want to make sure that You do it the right way so let's look at What that entails You'll first want to connect your Hardware wallet to your PC then you'll Want to open up metamask and hit this Button in the top right over here here You're going to want to hit connect Hardware wallet This will open up a new tab and will ask You to select the hardware wallet in Question given that we're using a trezor We hit that then we hit continue In this case it will open up trezor Connect and will ask you to install the Trezor bridge now this is basically the Software that allows your wallet to Connect with the browser I'll also say That if you've installed trezor's native Tresor Suite then you shouldn't get Asked to install the bridge given that This is a fresh setup though I will Install the bridge Once the bridge has been installed you Can go ahead with the connection as You'll see here they are asking whether You want to allow permission for the

Export of the public key we can hit that Blue button to allow once for this Session Once that's done we have to export the Public key this is why using a hardware Wallet is inherently safer than using Metamask by itself you are exporting the Public key whereas the private key Still Remains on the device away from any Online miscreants Once you're through that then you'll be Required to insert the pin on the trezor Device if you're using a trezor Model T Then the pin will be entered directly on The device whereas if it's on a Tresor One then you'll have to select the pin In the browser like this over here once You've inserted your PIN then you can Enter the separate passphrase that's if You have even set one up when you were Initially configuring your trezor Anyways for the next step we'll want to Select the account that's done by Selecting The Chosen HD paths in the Wallet in this case I'm going to be Selecting number four as this is where My eth is hidden and Bob's your uncle It's ready for you to start using you Can also rename this account if it makes More sense now let's assume that we want To conduct the same swap transaction on Uni swap with this connected wallet well We head on over to The Exchange and We're going to want to connect the

Tresor wallet as the previous one was The hot wallet let's go ahead and do That We're now connected and can attempt to Initiate the swap by signing through the Trezor device now I am ready to do a Swap on uni swap while signing with my Trestle in this case I'm looking to swap Some usdc for eth I'll need to approve The use of usdc in this wallet and Confirm the transaction Now my metamask is asking for permission To read the public keys from my Tresor Device and prepare the device to sign The transaction data The Next Step will be completed on the Hardware wallet where I will confirm This will give the permission for uni Swap to send my usdc you'll also have to Repeat the process when you're executing The Swap and once that is complete and The final transactions assigned in your Tresor the swap will execute now of Course this was just a demonstration of How to use a hardware wallet when Connected to uniswab there are any Number of dapps that you can connect to And the process will be about the same You will need to give metamask Permission to use public keys that are Exported from the trezor transactions Will be signed within the device though And at no point will you ever run the Risk of getting your private Keys

Exposed so get yourself a trezor and Connect it to your metamask it has all The benefits of Cold Storage while still Being able to do all you want in D5 I Will caveat though and say that you are Still susceptible to those phishing Attacks where you give infinite token Approvals Etc so be careful of those Okay so that is some additional security But there are many other quirks and Features of the metamask wallet one of These is the ability to connect to Different layer 1 and layer 2 Networks Now perhaps the easiest of these to Connect to are the layer 2 blockchains That's because the settings required to Connect to these networks are already Pre-built into wallet settings so you Can go to your metamask and you can Click on the top bar over here which Says ethereum Network this will open the Options for other networks to connect to Given that I want to connect to polygon Right now I will hit that the address That you use for this wallet will be the Same as your main wallet given that this Layer 2 is built on top of ethereum if You want a guide on how to use it then You know where to go Now when it comes to switching to the BNB smart chain for example there's an Additional step and that is the add Network tab over here to do that you'll Head back to the networks Tab and you'll

Want to hit add Network Now there are quite a few options but we Are of course interested in the BNB Smart chain so we hit that This will bring up all the network Settings and RPC endpoints required to Connect to this network these are the Exact credentials that you should be Seeing so make doubly sure that you are Using these if all is well then you can Approve the connection and you are ready To start using metamask on BNB In addition to the ability to switch to Different networks metamask also allows You to buy crypto right there in the Wallet this is thanks to their numerous Fiat payment processors and exchange Gateways you just need to head on over To the wallet in question and hit the Buy button once that's done it pulls up The numerous Pathways that you can use Now the benefit of this is that you Won't ever have to use a centralized Exchange to buy your coins and send them To the wallet The downside is that the fees are much More expensive than a standard exchange So it's a trade-off anyway another Pretty neat feature of metamask is the Ability to do an on-chain swap within Your wallet once we get through to the Next step you can select the tokens that You're swapping from as well as the Token that you would like to swap to you

Can view some of the more advanced Options over here These include setting the slippage Tolerance which is basically the max You're willing to accept in price Difference from the impact of your order Once you're comfortable with your order You can go ahead and hit review swap now This will show you the price that you're Getting the token for as well as the Estimated gas fee what metamask is doing Here is aggregating quotes across Numerous different decentralized Exchanges and giving you the best ones However something that is not standard With other dexes is that metamask has an Inbuilt fee spread that they'll charge And this is 0.743 percent so that's why I prefer to just use a DEX directly as It costs less as I showed earlier it's Pretty simple to do this by going right To the source unless you want to help Metamask make millions of course Now another really cool feature that you Have with metamask is their portfolio Site this is basically a user panel Where you can get a high level overview Of the coins in your portfolio across All the different networks there are Also a number of really useful features Here which includes the staking of Tokens to bridging tokens across other Networks you can also load up a number Of other really basic features like

Watch lists Etc Now one more thing that I found really Neat about metamask is the fact that They have dedicated support this is Quite interesting for a wallet that is Effectively a free product And we actually tested this out with a Security question the other night and we Were able to get through to an agent in A matter of minutes pretty impressive Stuff So that's about it for my updated Metamask guide folks if you haven't got A metamask installed then I have linked To the official site below remember if You want the extra security of keeping Your coins cold while still using the Metamask then you will want to bag Yourself a hardware wallet the links to Our deals are down below as well just Remember to keep your seed words secure Be very careful about the smart contract Authorizations that you sign and always Be careful about the sites that you Visit now if you found this video useful Then show your support by smacking a Like on it if you want to see more like It then hit that subscribe button turn On the Bell as well so that YouTube can Give you a tinkle when my next video Drops till next time folks stay cool Stay safe and stay crypto