Greetings, readers! (or Gm, as we say in crypto). The purpose of this newsletter is to provide digestible breakdowns of complex protocols and products in the Ethereum ecosystem. You can expect quality substantive content (no hype pieces, shilling, or paywall) written for crypto-curious readers who are either newer to crypto or seasoned users who value refreshers on the fundamentals. You can learn more about this newsletter in the introductory post.

ΞTH Market Capitalization = 282 billion) ΞTH Price = 2.3 thousand)

Introduction

What is a wallet? A

Useful Definitions

*Note: all of these definitions are from Ethereum.org_, a leading educational resource.

  1. What is Ethereum?

    • Ethereum is a public network, a blockchain, and an open-source protocol — operated, governed, managed, and owned by a global community of tens of thousands of developers, node operators, ETH holders, and users.
  2. What is Ether (a.k.a. ETH)?

    • Ether (also known by its ticker symbol ETH) is the native currency transacted on Ethereum. ETH is needed to pay for usage of the Ethereum network (in the form of transaction fees). ETH is also used to secure the network with staking.
  3. What is an Ethereum Account?

    • An Ethereum account is an entity with an ether (ETH) balance that can send transactions on Ethereum. Accounts can be user-controlled or deployed as smart contracts.
  4. Externally-owned account (EOA)

    • One of the two types of accounts on Ethereum. An externally-owned account is controlled by anyone with the private keys
  5. Contract account

    • One of the two types of accounts on Ethereum. A smart contract account is deployed to the Ethereum network, controlled by code

All wallets are bad, haha, proto.eth https://x.com/protolambda/status/1728823287646499154?s=20 (from tally newsletter)

Ledger Wallet — need to see what you’re signing. Blind signing is problem. Clear signing should be the standard. - Phishing attack where a bad actor uploaded a piece of malicious code to NPMJS (a package manager for JS code shared btwn apps). - Ledger said they will make everyone whole.

Hook: Our phone is our wallet. Credit card is on Apple Pay. On Google Pay. Don’t need to carry around a wallet anymore.

Crypto also needs to live on a wallet. Wallet on your computer. And wallet on your phone.

I want this guide to be NOT BORING. That means it needs to be unique. What unique information do I wanna share with my readers?


What would it mean for a guide to be not boring?

I could scare readers / intrigue them with something about a hack. Ha! Got u. Be safe. Don’t use Ledger. Don’t use crypto.

Many people are scared of crypto because there are so many hacks and bad actors. But that’s not a reason to not participate in the pot of gold. In the riches. Not really…no riches for me. Yet. I really don’t think that’s the goal. CZ has 25 billion in crypto riches. So what? He has fame and power too. Not my path..or most people’s path. He’s a weird exception unicorn.

Wallets are a new and unique thing to crypto. The way to use them is different. If you’re going to learn about crypto, you need to learn about wallets. What do people need to know?

  1. What is a Web3 wallet?
  2. What are the different brands of wallets out there?
  3. Is one better than the other?

==Info + real-world application of that info (e.g., go into brave wallet & do something) could potentially make a guide not boring. & graphics?


Why even have an Ethereum wallet? Its for financial freedom.


References:

https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/accounts/ https://takenobu-hs.github.io/downloads/ethereum_evm_illustrated.pdf