How to set up your first crypto wallet

Setting up a wallet takes about five minutes. Doing the backup properly is what separates people who keep their crypto from people who do not.

Step 1: Understand what you are creating

A wallet does not hold your coins. Your coins live on the blockchain. The wallet holds the private key that proves they are yours and authorises spending.

The practical consequence: if your phone is lost or destroyed, your coins are fine — you restore from the seed phrase. If the seed phrase is lost, the coins are unrecoverable by anyone, including you. And if someone else gets the phrase, they can take everything immediately and irreversibly.

Step 2: Choose a wallet

For a first self-custody wallet, pick something well established and widely reviewed. The important criteria are: it is open source or independently audited, it has a long track record, it supports the chains you intend to use, and it gives you the seed phrase (rather than holding keys for you).

Download only from the official website, typed directly or reached from a bookmark. Do not click search advertisements — fake wallet apps and cloned extensions promoted through ads are a common and effective attack. Check the developer name in an app store before installing.

Step 3: Create the wallet

Choose “create a new wallet”, not “import”. You will be asked to set a password or PIN. This protects the app on this device — it is not the seed phrase and cannot recover your funds elsewhere. Use something strong and distinct.

Step 4: Write down the seed phrase — properly

The wallet will display 12 or 24 words. This is the single most important moment in the process.

• Write them on paper, in order, numbered. Check spelling — the words come from a fixed list and a wrong word breaks the restore.
• Do not screenshot it. Screenshots go to cloud backups, which are a target.
• Do not type it into anything — not a notes app, not a password manager, not an email to yourself, not a spreadsheet.
• Make two copies and store them in different physical locations, so a fire or flood does not destroy your only one.
• Store them somewhere private. Anyone who finds the paper owns your crypto.

For larger holdings, consider a metal backup plate — paper does not survive fire or water.

Step 5: Verify the backup

The wallet will ask you to confirm some of the words. Do it honestly from your paper, not from memory or a screenshot.

Then go further: test a real restore before you deposit anything meaningful. Delete the wallet app, reinstall it, choose “import” and enter your phrase. If your (empty) wallet comes back with the same address, your backup works. Discovering the backup is wrong after you have funded it is a category of disaster you can simply avoid.

Step 6: Send a test transaction

Send a small amount first — a few pounds’ worth. Confirm it arrives at the address you expect. Only then move a real amount. This catches address errors, wrong-network mistakes and clipboard malware before they are expensive.

Mistakes that cost people everything

• Storing the phrase digitally. Cloud notes and photo backups get breached.
• Entering the phrase into a website. No legitimate site ever needs it. See how to spot a crypto scam.
• Only one copy. One accident and it is gone.
• Assuming the app is the backup. It is not. The phrase is.
• Buying a pre-configured wallet. A device or card arriving with a printed phrase is a theft in progress.

What to read next

Next in this path: seed phrases: how to back up properly, which goes deeper on storage strategies.