There’re tons of Polkadot wallets out there that it might seem overwhelming at first to decide on which wallet to use. Substrate-based accounts are easy to create. However, substrate-based chains have some intricacies. These often get new users confused when creating accounts
This guide aims to distill these intricacies and walk you through setting up a Polkadot account.
By the end of this guide, you’ll be able to:
- Understand substrate-based addresses and their formats
- Set up and use an account using PolkadotJs wallet and UI
- Set up and use A Polkadot account on any wallet.
- Understand the best principles for avoiding the loss of access to your account.
Note: substrate chains refer to all blockchains built with Substrate. This includes relay chains like Polkadot and Kusama, Parachains like Moonbeam, and standalone substrate chains
How Polkadot Addresses are formed
This concept is very important to understand. This will ensure that you don’t mix up address formats, and are able to identify the chains of substrate addresses.
When you create a substrate account (like a Polkadot account for example), it generates an account and a public key that is compatible with all substrate chains.
However, all substrate chains have unique identifiers for their addresses. Therefore, each substrate network has its own address format. This allows for easy identification of the chain to which an address belongs.
What this means for your Account
This means that when you create an account, your account will automatically be compatible with all Substrate-based chains. This is because you’ll be able to convert your account to any address format. In essence, you’ll be able to use one account for all substrate blockchains.
This is possible because the public key remains the same. Only the address format changes.
How to recognize the chain an address belongs to
The first alphanumeric on a substrate chain’s address is what determines which chain the address is for. For example, all Polkadot network addresses begin with the number 1. All generic substrate addresses begin with the number 5.
However, the prefix alone isn’t enough to identify the chain. For example, multiple networks might have the same prefix. An example is Phalanetwork and Robonomic network‘s addresses, which both start with the number 4. Also, some networks could have multiple prefixes for their addresses. An example is the Kusama network, which has 5 prefixes (C D, F, G, H, J).
Therefore, the most objective way to determine which chain an address belongs to is by using an address converter.
About existential deposit
To avoid clogging up the network with empty accounts, Polkadot (and Kusama) introduced the concept of an “existential deposit“. This is the minimum deposit that must be in your account for it to be added to (and remain on) the chain state.
This amount is currently 1 DOT for Polkadot, and 0.0000333333 KSM for Kusama.
Here’s what this means:
- You need at least 1 DOT on your Polkadot account (or 0.0000333333 KSM on Kusama) for it to be added to the chain (your address will be inactive until it has this existential deposit).
- You need at least the amount above on your account at all times to keep your account active. If your address drops below the above, your account will be removed from the chain state. This essentially means you’ll lose the remaining deposits in your account. For example, if you have 2 DOTs and transferred 1.2 DOTs, you’ll lose the remaining 0.8 DOTs. This is because 0.8 DOT is less than the existential deposit. Hence it’ll be reaped since your account will be removed from the chain.
- You can always re-activate your account at any time by depositing at least the existential deposit.
Note, however, that:
- Getting your account reaped doesn’t affect any crowdloans you participated in. You won’t lose access to crowdloan funds.
- You’ll get a warning when you try to make a transaction that will jeopardize your existential deposit.
- In the case of some transactions (eg when you’re participating in crowdloans), you won’t get a warning. In such cases, confirm that you’ll have a post-transaction existential deposit before You make the transaction.
Choosing a Polkadot/substrate wallet
Choosing a wallet depends on the platform you’re using, what you’d want to accomplish with the wallet, and how important your wallet’s UI is to you.
A list of wallets can be found here.
Our top recommendations are:
- Talisman if you’re on desktop, and want the ease of use.
- PolkadotJs if you’re techy and will be dealing with a lot of on-chain interactions
- Novawallet or Fearless wallet if you’re on mobile.
How to create and use an account with PolkaotJs UI and Extension
To create an account with PolkadotJs,
- Visit the extension’s page and install the plugin. You can currently access the extension using either Firefox or Chrome.
- Once you’ve installed the extension, open it and click on the “+” Symbol. Then click on “create new account”
- This will take you to the mnemonics page. Copy your mnemonics down correctly, and click on “Next”. Make sure you store your mnemonics in a safe place!
- On the next page, select the network you’ll be using the account on (you can change this later, but you can select Polkadot for now). Enter a name for the account, and enter the desired password.
- Click on the “Add account” button
- Congratulations! you now have A Polkadot (and Substrate) account on PolkadotJs.
Downloading the JSON file for your account
It’s also a good idea to download the JSON file of your account. This will create another route for you to access your account, in case you ever lose your mnemonic phrase. To create a JSON file of your account,
- Click on the “+”, and click on “export accounts”
- Enter your password and select the location where you’d like to store the JSON file
- The JSON file will be downloaded to the specified location. You can unlock your account with this JSON file (and your account password) at any time.
How to restore an account in PolkadotJs extension
In case you’d like to add your account to another PC or a newly downloaded extension, you can import your account by using either the mnemonic seed or the JSON file.
Importing your account using the mnemonic seed
To import your account using the mnemonic seed,
- Click on the “+” sign on your extension. Then click on “import account using pre-existing seed”.
- Enter your mnemonic seed.
- choose the network you’d like to display and click on next
- On the next page, enter the desired password and the desired name for your account.
- Click on the “import” button.
- You should now see the account in the extension.
Importing an account using the JSON file
To import an account using the JSON file,
- Click on the “+” sign on your extension. Then click on “restore account from backup JSON file”
- A new page will open up. Select the JSON file, or Drag and drop it into the page.
- Enter your password for the JSON file (this is the password of your account when you downloaded the file), and click on the “restore” button.
How to perform transactions using your PolkadotJs Account.
Extensions like MetaMask and Talisman allow you to perform transactions from the extension itself. But to perform transactions with the PolkadotJs extension, you’ll need a UI. The commonest UI used is PolkadotJs UI, which can be found here.
To perform transactions with PolkadotJs,
- Set your wallet’s network to the desired network you’d want to transact with. This can be done via the extension. To do this, click on the ellipsis symbol (⋮) next to your account, and select the desired chain. This is important because your account won’t show up in the UI if you don’t select the right network. For example, if you’d like to make transactions on Kusama, select the Kusama network.
- Visit the PolkadotJs UI and click on the first tab. Then select the network you’ll like to connect to. The page will reload and switch to that network.
- Click on the “accounts” button. You can find this in the “accounts menu in the top left corner.
- This will take you to a page that contains all the accounts that the UI has access to. This includes the account in your extension. Note that the UI has no access to the extension’s private keys. Therefore, you’ll still be signing all transactions with the extension.
- You can send funds by using the “send” button next to the desired account.
- You can also use the extrinsics to perform various on-chain transactions. This will be discussed in future guides.
You can apply the basic principles above when setting up other Polkadot wallets. Note that you can also import PolkadotJs accounts to other wallets.
Think PolkadotJS is complicated? Use Talisman
If you’re a casual user who just wants to do basic stuff like sending and receiving funds, staking, participating in governance, etc, then you might be better off using Talisman. wallet
Talisman wallet is a super-friendly browser extension for managing Substrate accounts and making transactions. It has the advantage of:
- Having better UI,
- Supporting Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) – based accounts (just like MetaMask),
- Having its own UI within the extension. You don’t have to use an external UI to perform transactions
- And more.
You can check out Talisman here.
Using Polkadot accounts on Mobile
There’re a lot of Polkadot wallets on Mobile. These include
- Novawallet
- Fearless wallet
Click here to check out a list of supported wallets.
Using hardware wallets
- Ledger supports both Polkadot and Kusama. However, you can’t use Ledger to participate in crowdloans yet.
- Parity also created Parity Signer, which allows you to turn your phone into a hardware wallet. This is still in beta, so use it with caution.
- Safepal also supports Polkadot and Kusama and has recently added Moonbeam to its list of supported substrate chains.
How to avoid loss of access to your Polkadot account.
Incidences can happen. Firstly, You can lose your mnemonic seeds. Also, hackers could compromise your account. It’s your responsibility to keep your seeds away from the hands of scammers:
- Never click unknown links.
- bookmark important pages, and use these bookmarks. This reduces the chances of phishing attacks.
- Never share your seeds with anyone.
- Always confirm the details of what you’re signing.
Here’re a couple of ways to help ensure you regain access to your account. These ensure that you can still perform transactions, even after losing access to your account. However, most of these options will involve a third party. But these options could prove useful, especially for accounts with large funds.
- Making your account recoverable
- Using a Multi-Sig account
- Use a proxy
We’ll be discussing these methods in future articles.
For more info on how to keep your accounts safe in the ecosystem, check out this article.
Conclusion
In conclusion, The type of wallet you choose depends on what you want to achieve. However, what’s more important, is to understand how substrate accounts work, how to interact with the chain, and how to keep your accounts safe. Finally, If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to our telegram channel or the official Polkadot Discord server.
Thank you!