After it’s generated, confirm it with Send Transaction.Īnother confirmation window will appear, listing all the thus far provided information: Set the amount to less than maximum and click Generate Transaction. Copy this newly generated address’ public key ( Account Address) to the To Address field of the original unlocked wallet with test Ether. In a new tab, open MEW again and generate another wallet, following instructions from before. The Ether should arrive within a minute or two, depending on how busy the testnet is. Copy it from the Account Address part of MEW. In the recipient field, enter your wallet’s address. It’s a page which lets us request free Ropsten Ether: :3001 Testnets are environments for playing around and testing the Ethereum blockchain without financial consequences. No QR codes and the balance will be in ROPSTEN ETH, not ETH. After re-entering via the Send Ether & Tokens tab, the interface will be a little different. The screen will refresh and you’ll have to re-enter the wallet. In the upper right corner of the screen you can pick the network to connect to: To receive some Ether, let’s switch to the Ropsten test network.
The value of the code is equivalent to the value in Your Address at the top, and the Account Address value in the right sidebar. On the View Wallet Info screen, the QR code in the lower left is the address to which tokens and ether can be sent. When sending tokens or ether, the option to use is Send Ether and Tokens. This screen is visible because you’re on the View Wallet Info option to which MEW automatically redirects you after creation.
Because of a large number of available tokens out there, you first need to click Show all tokens to load them. A little lower you can see the Token Balances frame which shows you how many of which tokens you have. On the right, you can see your account’s balance: 0 Eth. The QR code for the private key can be read by clicking the eye icon under the black rectangle in the bottom of the screen. This interface lets you print the wallet again if you lost or destroyed the previous one, or to re-download the JSON file if you lost it and accessed the wallet with the private key. Unlock your wallet and you should see something like the image below:
You can generate a Paper Wallet on the same screen.
The fewer ways to access your wallet there are, the safer the money is. Therefore, it’s safer to only keep one method around: either store the file and remember the password, or store only the private key in a very secure location.
If you import the previously downloaded file into any wallet software, it will require a password before letting you access it fully. But there is an important difference: the private key does not require a password! If you enter a private key into another tool like MetaMask, the address will immediately become unlocked without a password and can be used for sending Ether and tokens.
Both can be imported into wallet software and used to unlock an address to spend money on it. Very imporant!! The private key is equivalent in access level to the file you downloaded previously. After you’ve stored it safely, the next screen will display the private key. The first part is the date of creation, the second is the address itself.
Click Download Keystore File (UTC / JSON) and store it on a USB drive, then hide it from curious family members. For as long as you haven’t saved the Keystore file somewhere safe, you cannot proceed.
The address is immediately generated in the background, but MEW won’t let you see it yet.
(Make it something complex but easy to remember or use a password generator like LastPass.) The first screen of MEW is the “input password” screen.