# Emerald Help > Emerald Wallet support and documentation — account setup, hardware wallets, transactions, and stablecoin management. ## Concepts ### What Are Cold Wallets and Hot Wallets? The definition of cold or hot wallets depends on where the private keys are located and if they have ever been used to sign and send transactions to the blockchain. ## What is a cold wallet? A "cold wallet" holds private keys associated to addresses on the blockchain where the private key is on paper or on a hardware wallet, but has never been used to sign a transaction. This is considered the highest level of security in the blockchain industry because once you sign and send a transaction to a blockchain there is some traceability and information now on the public domain that could conceivably, however unlikely, be used to access your crypto assets. Although improbable, this marginal risk is sufficient to warrant keeping large amounts of crypto in this type of wallet, however inconvenient they may be to manage. When a cold wallet is used to sign a transaction, then it becomes a "hot wallet", even if it's on a hardware wallet or paper. If a private key is on a software wallet, it is "hot" even if it has never been used to sign a transaction as it is connected to the internet inside your machine or phone, which is a less secure environment. ## What is a hot wallet? A hot wallet is where the private keys associated to addresses on the blockchain have been used to sign one or more transactions. It doesn't matter if it's in a hardware wallet or software wallet. Any keys, used or not, on software wallets are considered hot wallets because they are readily available to sign transactions and are in a less secure environment than hardware wallets or cold wallets. ### What Are Hardware Wallets and Software Wallets? The concept of wallet types is a function of security vs convenience. Some wallet types are less convenient, but more secure. Others are more convenient, but less secure. Choosing between wallet types depends on the use case and value stored in them. In general terms, smaller amounts of crypto and high frequency use are better managed in less secure wallets such as software hot wallets. This is because the crypto is always ready to use and sending transactions is as simple as a touch of a button from a computer or phone. Larger amounts of crypto and low frequency use are better managed in highly secure wallets such as hardware and cold wallets. Wallet types are defined by where the private keys are and in what format. All private keys are used to control addresses inside blockchains, and these addresses are the ones that hold people's cryptocurrencies and crypto assets. This is why the location of the private keys is what constitutes the type of wallet. ## What is a hardware wallet? A hardware wallet holds the private keys in a separate hardware device that never touches the internet nor your computer or phone. The private keys are kept in a sort of pen drive that is connected to your computer or phone with a cable only when a transaction needs to be signed. However, the transaction is signed inside the hardware wallet, so the private keys never touch your machines or the internet, where hackers may gain access and steal your crypto. Because of this feature, hardware wallets are considered more secure than software wallets. IMPORTANT: A HARDWARE WALLET IS NOT A COLD WALLET PER SE. A HARDWARE WALLET MAY CONTAIN COLD WALLETS OR HOT WALLETS, THOUGH. IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHETHER THE PRIVATE KEYS HAVE BEEN USED TO SIGN TRANSACTIONS. PLEASE SEE THE DEFINITION OF COLD AND HOT WALLETS BELOW. ## What is a software wallet? Software wallets hold the private keys encrypted inside your computer or phone. Usually, they are encrypted with a password you select to use the wallet app you are using, such as Emerald. Although this high level of encryption is extremely secure, machines and phones may be lost or hacked and there is a chance that someone else may gain access to your crypto if they can guess or reverse engineer your password. For these reasons, software wallets are considered less secure than hardware wallets. However, they are more convenient to use because they don't require connecting your hardware or cold wallets each time you need to transact on the blockchain. ## What is a cold wallet? A "cold wallet" is the highest level of security in terms of managing private keys. It holds private keys associated to addresses on the blockchain where the private key is on paper or on a hardware wallet, but has never been used to sign a transaction. This is considered the highest level of security in the blockchain industry because once you sign and send a transaction to a blockchain there is some traceability and information now on the public domain that could conceivably, however unlikely, be used to access your crypto assets. Although improbable, this marginal risk is sufficient to warrant keeping large amounts of crypto in this type of wallet, however inconvenient they may be to manage. When a cold wallet is used to sign a transaction, then it becomes a "hot wallet", even if it's on a hardware wallet or a paper wallet. If a private key is on a software wallet, it is "hot" even if it has never been used to sign a transaction as it is connected to the internet inside your machine or phone, which a less secure environment. ## What is a hot wallet? A hot wallet is one in which the private keys associated to addresses on the blockchain have been used to sign one or more transactions regardless of whether it is in a hardware wallet or a software wallet. Any keys, used or not, on software wallets are considered hot wallets because they are readily available to sign transactions and are in a less secure environment than hardware wallets or cold wallets. ### What Are Private and Public Keys? A private key is a secret password that is unique that controls a public key inside a blockchain. The public key is named "public" because it is visible to anyone on the blockchain. The private key is named "private" because it must be kept secret and secure as it is the only way to control the public key. The private and public keys are associated because the public key is created by passing the private key through a cryptographic mathematical function. In this way they are inherently connected and are usually called a "private and public key pair". ## The Private Key Must Be Kept in a Safe Place Non-custodial wallets such as Emerald give you the ability to keep control of your public keys by letting you only create wallets that are connected to your private keys, which you and only you control. The 4 ways in which you can create accounts on the blockchains Emerald supports are: 1. **Using your hardware wallet:** In this way, your private keys are secure inside a hardware wallet, such as Ledger Nano, and never touch your computer or phone, so they are not exposed to the internet. 2. **Creating a 24 word seed or secret passphrase:** In this way, you write down the 24 secret words of the seed or secret passphrase and keep them somewhere secure. Then, these words are used to create your private and pubic keys, which are kept secure and encrypted inside the Emerald app on your machine. 3. **Using a raw private key:** If you have a private key in clear text, this format is usually called "raw private key". In this way, you can keep it in a safe place and create a wallet on Emerald which will keep it secure and encrypted inside the Emerald app on your machine. 4. **Using a Private Key JSON file:** For Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and other Ethereum compatible blockchains, you can also have a Private Key JSON file and create your Emerald wallet using it, which will be kept secure and encrypted inside the Emerald app on your machine. In all 4 cases above, you control your private keys, and it is imperative that you keep them secure and in a safe place. ## The Public Key Is Your Account on the Blockchain The function of your public key is to be the account where you keep your assets on the blockchain. For example, if you have 1 BTC in the Bitcoin network, it will be booked under your Bitcoin public key; if you have ETH, USDT, DAI, NFTs or any other crypto asset inside Ethereum, they will be booked under your Ethereum public key. This is what gives you "ownership" and control of the assets inside the blockchains. Then, with your private keys that are associated with your public keys you can sign transactions that move your assets or transfer them to other accounts, smart contracts, or dapps. ## How Do Private and Public Keys Look Like? Below are examples of how raw private keys look like and their associated public keys for the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains: Bitcoin Raw Private Key: `L4Va7VUjJoHA32PwjTSuYx8JPNFnS9WWboHA2AwC7FnRRZJxF1Xf` Associated Bitcoin Public Key: `1WwrULWdMVd3bxmwVJxjJ1inKXqrePHtN` Ethereum Raw Private Key: `36fdbed2213dd215e1c81b4d581697a9f006f24567953ab067677132108e11c8` Associated Ethereum Public Key: `0xa71c2ae1ec42fc1b78694eefb99f00b6de71038b` **WARNING: DO NOT USE THE EXAMPLES ABOVE FOR YOUR ACTUAL USE ON BLOCKCHAINS. THE ABOVE ARE JUST FOR PURPOSES OF THIS EXAMPLE. YOU MUST USE YOUR OWN PRIVATE KEYS AND PUBLIC KEYS.** ### What Are Smart Contracts? Smart contracts are a type of software programme conceptualized by Nick Szabo in 1994. They are software programs that act autonomously on the internet to execute certain roles to aid in economic transactions, agreements between people and businesses, and to power applications. One of the original examples that Nick Szabo proposed for the function of smart contracts was to serve as autonomous escrow agents. For example, when two parties would be engaged in a transaction, the buyer would deposit the money for the payment in advance in a smart contract, then the seller would deliver the product or service agreed, and when the smart contract saw this delivery it would pay the money to the seller, but if there was no delivery, then it would return the money to the buyer. In this fashion, the transaction would be secure for both sides, but it would not require the use of a trusted third party, such as a bank or lawyer to perform these tasks. Blockchain networks are optimal for smart contracts because they enable these programs to exist and work autonomously and in a decentralized way. However, smart contracts can only exist inside programmable blockchains such as Ethereum or Ethereum Classic. The software programs that comprise smart contracts become decentralized when they are sent to blockchains because they are replicated in all the machines participating in such networks. As smart contracts may power applications, and because when they are sent to blockchains they become decentralized, these applications are called decentralized applications or dapps. ### What Are Stablecoins? A stablecoin cryptocurrency, or just stablecoin, is a non-native cryptocurrency or ERC-20 token inside a programmable or smart contracts blockchain that is pegged or associated to a national currency, such that 1 token equals 1 unit of the national currency. These tokens or cryptocurrencies are called "stablecoins" because they are always worth 1 unit of the underlying national currency despite market conditions. Examples of these stablecoins may be DAI, USDT, and USDC, which are all worth \$1 because they are pegged to real US dollars deposited in a bank account or are guaranteed by other crypto assets to be worth \$1 all the time. ### What Are Transaction Fees? Blockchains such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ethereum Classic accept new transactions so people may move cryptocurrencies from address to address or to use smart contracts or dapps in the case of Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. In most blockchains users have to pay a fee per transaction so that miners or stakers include them in blocks and then are executed and included inside the blockchain. In the case of blockchains such as Bitcoin, that only have accounts and balances, the transaction fee is just a straight forward amount you add to the transaction amount you want to transfer. For example, if you want to transfer 1 BTC to another address, you just add something like 0.0001 BTC (this is just an example, fees may vary) in the "fee" field and the blockchain will process your transaction and transfer the fee to the miner's account for a total debit of 1.0001 BTC from your account. In the case of smart contract blockchains such as Ethereum and Ethereum Classic, each transaction uses up what is called GAS and GAS has a market price that is paid to miners or stakers. For example if a dapp transaction uses 100,000 in GAS, and the price of GAS is 0.000000181 ETH (this is just an example, GAS prices may vary), then the transaction fee will be 100,000 x 0.000000181 = 0.0181 ETH. So, if you are going to use 1 ETH in that transaction on that dapp, the total cost will be 1.0181 ETH. This is the amount that will be debited from your account. Transaction fees are paid to miners or stakers who are the block producers in blockchains such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ethereum Classic. ### What Cryptocurrencies Does Emerald Wallet Support? Emerald supports the following cryptocurrencies: 1. Bitcoin 2. Ethereum 3. Ethereum Classic In addition to the above blockchains, Emerald also support the following stablecoins inside Ethereum: 1. USDT 2. USDC 3. DAI On Ethereum it also supports most of the ERC-20 tokens. To use dapps on Ethereum, Emerald also enables the conversion from Ether (ETH) to Wrapped Ether (WETH). ### What Is a 24 Word Secret Phrase, Mnemonic Phrase, or Seed Phrase? The 24 Word Secret Phrase (also known as Mnemonic Phrase or Seed Phrase) is a group of randomly selected 24 words in a special order that can be transformed into your addresses and private keys in the various blockchains Emerald supports. It is the source of information to create your accounts and wallets, so it is of critical importance that you keep them safe. The way it works is that when you create a wallet inside Emerald using a secret phrase, Emerald will give you 24 words in a specific order that are unique to you, and you must write them down on paper and put them in a safe place. Then, Emerald creates all your addresses and private keys in all the blockchains that you wish to use based on those 24 words and stores them inside the app in an encrypted vault, which is extremely secure. Once you have written down your secret phrase, nobody else in the world knows about it, not even Emerald because it is encrypted inside the app. The secret phrase is unique and must be kept secret and in a safe place because, through those words, whoever has them may re-generate all your addresses and private keys and steal your crypto assets. If you need to restore your wallets because you lost your machine or phone, they broke, or you lost access, then you can use your secret phrase again to create them on Emerald and gain access. The way it works is that you go to Emerald to restore your wallets and the app will go through this process: 1. Ask you to enter the 24 word of the secret phrase into a form in the same order as they were originally provided. 2. Then, you press "GENERATE" and Emerald will create a root private key. 3. From the root private key, Emerald will use various HD Paths to create you private keys and addresses on the various blockchains you selected. The method of the 24 word secret phrase (some wallets use 12 words) is an industry standard, and you may use the same words to restore your wallets in other wallets and apps as well. ### What Is a Blockchain? A blockchain is a decentralized network of computers around the world where all have exactly the same copy of the database of accounts, balances, smart contracts, NFTs, dapps, and other crypto assets. Emerald Wallet is an app that may be used to create accounts and manage your assets on those blockchains, but it is not a blockchain in itself. It is just a user interface to send transactions to the blockchains we support. Blockchains are sometimes called "public networks" because they are permissionless and anyone in the world can download the protocol to a machine and start running it to be part of the blockchain. All the computers in the world that participate in a blockchain run exactly the same protocol as well! ## Miners and Stakers Of all the participating machines in a blockchain, a subgroup of the machines may be miners or stakers. Miners or stakers are the ones that accept new transactions to put them in a block and send the blocks to the rest of the machines. ## Why Are They Called "Blockchains"? Because the way in which new transactions are included in the database is by adding the blocks of data created by miners or stakers, these networks are called "blockchains" as the blocks form a chain of data as time passes by. It is just the way that new data is included. In blockchains such as Bitcoin these new blocks of data are added every 10 minutes and in networks such as Ethereum or Ethereum Classic they are included every 12-15 seconds. ## Proof of Work Blockchains These are the networks that use miners to create blocks. The term "miner" is just an analogy to gold miners as these cryptocurrencies are considered "digital gold". Miners use a lot of computing power and electricity to create the blocks and this work generates a cryptographic stamp that is added to the block. This cryptographic stamp is called a "Proof of Work (PoW)", hence "Proof of Work blockchains". Miners are paid a reward in the native cryptocurrency for creating blocks this way. ## Proof of Stake Blockchains These are the networks that use stakers who put money in the native cryptocurrency inside the blockchain instead of using computing power and electricity to earn the right to create blocks. The term "staker" is just because the assumption is that they are trustworthy because they have a "stake" in the network. Stakers are paid a reward in the native cryptocurrency for creating blocks this way. ### What Is a Cryptocurrency? A cryptocurrency is a new form of money invented by Satoshi Nakamoto when he published his Bitcoin white paper in October of 2008, and launched the Bitcoin blockchain network by releasing and running the first node software in January of 2009 with Hal Finney as the first other user. Up until then, money was usually either a commodity product; such as gold; or a national currency; such as the dollar, euro, ruble, yen, yuan, or peso, also known as fiat currencies, which are issued by national governments. The term "crypto" in "cryptocurrency" is used because blockchain networks are built with cryptographic components created by cryptologists. Some of these components are hashcash, the proof of work component of blockchains; public key cryptography, the private key and addresses component; Merkle trees, the way in which transactions are transformed into smaller, concise snippets of information and stored in the data base; and hash functions, which are cryptographic functions that transform any amounts of transaction and block data into fixed size values. The term "currency" in "cryptocurrency" is used because the units that are issued as money inside blockchains are scarce, durable, costly to create, portable, divisible, fungible, and transferable. The term "blockchain" is a neologism that has been adopted to name these networks as they are effectively chains of blocks of data, as new transactions are grouped in blocks and added to the network every 15 seconds to 10 minutes by miners or stakers, depending on the network. Examples of cryptocurrencies are Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), DAI, USDT, USDC, and WETH, which Emerald supports. Other non-supported cryptocurrencies yet may be Litecoin (LTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Polkadot (DOT), BNB, Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), and Shiba Inu (SHIB). ## What is a native cryptocurrency? A native cryptocurrency is the one that is created by the blockchain network itself to pay for miner or staker rewards and to pay for transaction fees. These cryptocurrencies have a real economic use since inception as they are issued only in exchange for the work or staking by miners or stakers. Aside, from being issued and used for the internal economics of the blockchains where they exist, these cryptocurrencies can be bought, sold, transferred, and used for payments freely in the broader economy. Examples of native cryptocurrencies are Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Litecoin (LTC) and Dogecoin (DOGE). ## What is a programmable native cryptocurrency? A programmable native cryptocurrency is a native cryptocurrency that exists inside a blockchain that supports smart contracts, which are decentralized software programs. The programs allow the accounts and balances inside these networks to be programmable as they may respond to instructions from these smart contracts. Examples of programmable native cryptocurrencies are Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Polkadot (DOT), Binance Smartchain (BNB), Solana (SOL), and Cardano (ADA). ## What is a non-native cryptocurrency or ERC-20 token? Because in smart contracts or programmable blockchains people can create any types of software programs and dapps (decentralized applications), one type of software program may be to create a new cryptocurrency, but that is not native to the network. These cryptocurrencies or tokens exist inside the blockchain as well, but they are not issued by the blockchain network. They are just created by developers to issue new cryptocurrencies for different purposes. The term "ERC-20 token", which is used to create these non-native cryptocurrencies, stands for "Ethereum Request for Comment" or "ERC" and the number "20" is the number of that particular ERC. The ERC-20 definition of rules and ways to create non-native cryptocurrencies is now an industry standard. Examples of these non-native cryptocurrencies or ERC-20 tokens may be Shiba Inu (SHIB), DAI, USDT, USDC, and HEX. ## What is a stablecoin cryptocurrency? A stablecoin cryptocurrency, or just stablecoin, is a non-native cryptocurrency or ERC-20 token that is pegged or associated to a national currency such that 1 token equals 1 unit of the national currency. These tokens or cryptocurrencies are called "stablecoins" because they are always worth 1 unit of the underlying national currency despite market conditions. Examples of these stablecoins may be DAI, USDT, and USDC which are all worth \$1 because they are pegged to real US dollars deposited in a bank account or are guaranteed by other crypto assets to be worth \$1 all the time. ### What Is a DAO? DAOs are code on the blockchain that represent organizations of people to get together for different objectives. In the future DAOs may be recognized legally as legal persons of many types. The term "DAO" is an acronym for "Decentralized Autonomous Organization". The term "autonomous" is used to describe a DAO because it is an immutable smart contract on a blockchain and it is practically impossible to stop or tamper with it by any traditional organization, corporation, or government. The term "decentralized" is also used to describe a DAO because when the smart contract is sent to the blockchain it becomes replicated globally in all the participating machines of the network. ## Structure Like traditional organizations, DAOs usually have the following structure: **Participants:** Participants may be persons who become DAO token owners by purchasing them in the market or acquiring them at issuance. DAOs may have boards, management, and people with different functions with different permissions to sign certain types of transactions with their wallets. **Purchase and sale of participations:** Token ownership of DAOs may be bought and sold in the market. **Transfers:** DAO tokens may be transferred from address to address just like ERC-20 tokens or other crypto assets. **Rules:** DAOs usually have rules similar to traditional organizations for their decision making, distribution of funds, and future changes in their rules. **Treasury:** The main objective of DAOs is usually to have a treasury with funds in crypto assets that are used for different objectives. ## What Objectives a DAO May Have and Legal Personhood? DAOs may be recognized as legal persons such as investment companies, corporations, charities or foundations, trusts and pension plans. The objectives that DAOs may have include the following: **Investment:** A DAO may have the structure of an investment company where token holders vote on projects and other crypto assets to invest in or they may hire professional investment managers. **Business:** DAOs may be recognized as legal persons in the future such as corporations, LLCs, partnerships, etc. As such, they will have very similar structures and rules as their traditional counterparts. **Charity:** A DAO may be organized just for the purpose of a charity to give money to beneficiaries and may even be recognized legally in the future for tax breaks and deductions. **Trusts:** A DAO may have rules very similar or identical to legal trusts and may have the same purpose and its token holders the same fiduciary duties. **Pensions:** A DAO may be a pension plan or retirement plan for employees or individuals that belong to different kinds of organizations. ### What Is a Dapp? ## What are apps? When you use your computer or phone and you use software programmes like Facebook, Instagram, PayPal, SnapChat, Excel, Word, or Gmail, those are what are called "applications" or "apps" for short. All of these applications and more run on your computer or phone and connect to the centralized servers of the providers of the apps to render their services. These providers are tech companies such as Google, Meta, PayPal, Snap, Microsoft, Netflix, or Amazon, amongst many others. Until the advent of the blockchain industry, nearly all of these apps that we used and still use are essentially centralized services that have certain risks such as lack of privacy, censorship, surveillance, cooperation with government to suppress dissent, and general abuse of their power as monolithic and monopolistic services in their respective segments. Because blockchain technology is decentralized and some blockchains are programmable, now there is the real possibility of creating and providing decentralized applications. ## What are dapps? Applications that run on blockchains instead of the servers of the giant tech companies are called "decentralized applications" or "dapps" for short. The way they work is that you have your wallet installed on your computer or phone and from the wallet you can interact with these dapps, but instead of being hosted on centralized servers, they exist inside public blockchains which are decentralized, hence they are not controlled by the big tech companies or governments. The benefit of decentralization and dapps is that they greatly minimize the risks of centralized services as mentioned above. ## What is Web 3? When the web first started to get popular in the 1990s, that was what was called "web 1", which were the first generation web apps like Yahoo and AOL. The web 2 was the next generation of web apps and smart phone apps that came after web 1 during the 2000s and 2010s. These may be Netflix and social media apps in general. Now, with the advent of blockchain technology and the ability to provide services in a decentralized manner powered by crypto, the new generation of dapps are called web 3. This is because decentralization is a new paradigm in tech. When you use a centralized web 1 or 2 app, the back end code, front end code, images, text, and data are always retrieved from centralized servers that belong to the tech companies. When you use a decentralized web 3 dapps, the back end code, front end code, images, text, and data are always retrieved from decentralized blockchains that host all of these components. ### What Is a Non-custodial or Self-custody Wallet? To own or control cryptocurrencies and assets inside blockchains they are all under public keys, also known as accounts or addresses. Each of those accounts are controlled by private keys. A private key is like a unique password that controls a public key. When someone has a private key, they have absolute control of an account that is associated to that private key in a blockchain. Nobody else has such control. ## Custodial However, some people don't have the private keys to their cryptocurrencies. Instead, they delegate to another person or service the "custody" of their assets, so the other person or service has control of the private keys to the accounts. This means that you are trusting a third party with your assets. When you have delegated the control of your assets to a third party, this kind of relationship is called "custodial" because the service, which may be an exchange or a wallet service, really has ownership and control of the crypto. You just interact with them through their app or website. This is very similar to how banks or brokers work today. ## Non-custodial or Self-custody With non-custodial or self-custody relationships or services such as Emerald Wallet, you have total control of your private keys, and therefore of your accounts inside the blockchains and your assets. This is a lot of responsibility, but also much more secure and the purpose of the blockchain industry! The way Emerald gives you this control and security is by having only options to create wallets inside Emerald that use hardware wallets, seed phrases (24 word secret phrase), your raw private keys, or Private Key JSON files. Emerald does not, and will never have your private keys. ### What Is a Private Key JSON File? JSON file is an acronym for JavaScript Object Notation file. It is an open standard type of file widely used in computing. On blockchains, Private Key JSON files contain the information of your private and public keys. They are usually encrypted with a password you select when creating them. On Emerald, you can create a wallet using your JSON file as the source of your address. In that case the key in JSON file is added to the Emerald Vault and reencrypted with its own key. ### What Is a Raw Private Key? A private key is a secret password that is unique that controls a public key inside a blockchain. The public key is named "public" because it is visible to anyone on the blockchain. The private key is named "private" because it must be kept secret and secure as it is the only way to control the public key. The private and public keys are associated because the public key is created by passing the private key through a cryptographic mathematical function. In this way they are inherently connected and are usually called a "private and public key pair". If you have a private key in clear text, this format is usually called **"raw private key"**. ### What Is a Transaction? A transaction is a signed instruction sent to a blockchain by whoever has the private key associated with an address to move cryptocurrency from that address to another address, or to execute a smart contract, also known as a decentralized software program, or Dapp. Transactions are created by apps like Emerald Wallet, where users have their cryptocurrency balances, private keys, and blockchain addresses. When users wish to send a transaction to move money in a blockchain or to use a smart contract or dapp, they write the appropriate address of the receiver or the smart contract or dapp, they select what fee they will pay for that transaction, and they sign the transaction with their private key, which corresponds to the address of the user. Once the transaction is written and signed inside Emerald, then the user sends the transaction to the blockchain in question through the app. Then, Emerald processes and sends the transaction through its blockchain nodes, which are machines that form part of the wider blockchain networks. ### What Is an ERC-20 Token? An ERC-20 is a non-native cryptocurrency inside a programmable or Smart Contracts blockchain. Because in smart contracts or programmable blockchains people can create any types of software programs and dapps (decentralized applications), one type of software program may be to create a new cryptocurrency, but that is not native to the network. These cryptocurrencies or tokens exist inside the blockchain as well, but they are not issued by the blockchain network. They are just created by developers to issue new cryptocurrencies for different purposes. The term "ERC-20 token", which is used to create these non-native cryptocurrencies, stands for "Ethereum Request for Comment" or "ERC" and the number "20" is the number of that particular ERC. The ERC-20 definition of rules and ways to create non-native cryptocurrencies is now an industry standard. Examples of these non-native cryptocurrencies or ERC-20 tokens may be Shiba Inu (SHIB), DAI, USDT, USDC, and HEX. ### What Is an NFT? The term NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token Standard. The smart contract standard of NFTs is the ERC-721. They are decentralized programs on a programmable blockchain. Instead of being an ERC-20 standard for fungible units, they are non-fungible or unique objects inside a blockchain. Although NFTs are best known for representing images and digital art for now, they can be associated with any other physical or digital object external to the blockchain through metadata. NFTs are transferable, can be bought and sold, and can be rented just like any physical object in the real world. They can be used as collateral for loans, so this, combined with the fact that they may represent a wide variety of physical and digital objects, lends itself to build complex structures in the future for the trading, hypothecating, lending, and leasing of all sorts of objects on the blockchain. The blockchain in itself, with the private and public key system, serves as the property registry for NFTs. ## NFTs may serve many use cases **Collectibles:** This is the first and most well known use case for now. NFTs are practically a synonym for digital art and images on the blockchain. **Intellectual property:** Other kinds of intellectual property may be represented as NFTs on programmable blockchains, these may include music, movies, books, scientific papers, articles, documentaries, and other kinds of IP. **Movable property:** Cars, trucks, boats, and all sorts of movable property may be represented on the blockchain as NFTs. **Real estate:** Houses, apartments, hotel rooms, buildings, office space and all sorts of real estate may be represented as NFTs on the blockchain. **Cash flows:** Non-fungible future cash flows, for example invoice discounting, may be represented as NFTs on the blockchain. **Supply chain objects in general:** Containers, ships, goods, pallets, and other supply chain objects may be represented as NFTs on the blockchain. ### What Is Bitcoin? Bitcoin was created by a Cypherpunk under the pseudonym "Satoshi Nakamoto" and it is the first and largest blockchain. Bitcoin is a simple ledger with accounts and balances which accepts new transactions to move balances from account to account. One of the critical security points of Bitcoin is that is does full transmission and full replication of every single transaction to all the 50,000 to 100,000 machines that participate in the peer-to-peer network. This means that all the data and information from all the accounts, balances, and transactions is copied identically across all the nodes of the network. These nodes are located in many countries, on all continents, and even space! the Bitcoin network includes new transactions into the network by producing blocks of transactions every 10 minutes that are connected in a chain of blocks since inception. This is why it is called a "blockchain". Each block is created by a subset of all the machines in the network that are called "miners". The term "miners" is just an analogy to gold mining in the real world since Bitcoin is considered "digital gold". To build each block, miners do a lot of work and spend a lot of electricity in order to create a cryptographic hash, also known as a cryptographic stamp. When they create each block, they immediately send it to the rest of the network for verification. When the non-miner machines, or "verifiers", receive and check that the block is well formed and built with a lot of work, they pay the miner who built it a reward in Bitcoin or BTC into their account. Since inception, miners have been paid per block a decreasing amount of BTC every 10 minutes that was 50 BTC in the first 210,000 blocks, or 4 years. Then, it went down by 1/2 to 25 BTC, then 12.50 BTC, then 6.25 BTC, and so on into the future every 4 years. Because this schedule is 50% less or 1/2 every 210,000 block period, this discount every 4 years is called "the having". This schedule will go to 0 in about the year 2130 and the total amount of Bitcoin that will ever exist will be 21,000,000. The process that the miners use to build blocks by creating a very costly cryptographic stamp per block is called "Proof of Work". Proof of work has 5 great benefits: 1. The cost of creating blocks is equal to the cost of creating the currency. 2. It enables global consensus between all computers. 3. It is a safe focal point for entry, exit, and reentry to the network by anyone with no permission. 4. It provides protection for new incoming transactions. 5. It provides protection for all the history of transactions since inception. The whole process of the Bitcoin network is called "Nakamoto Consensus" in honor of its creator. This process includes, as mentioned above: 1. Full transmission 2. Full replication 3. Proof of Work 4. Block production 5. Fixed supply of 21,000,000 BTC ## What does Bitcoin accomplish? All the components of the Bitcoin network guarantee the following features: 1. Decentralization and a high level of security. 2. Bitcoin can survive a nuclear war. 3. Bitcoin is hard money. ### What is Emerald Wallet? Emerald Wallet is a non-custodial or self-custody cryptocurrency wallet. You can [download](https://emerald.cash/download) it to your computer; either Windows, Mac, or Linux; and start using Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ethereum Classic. We also support stablecoins such as USDT, USDC, and DAI. A non-custodial wallet like Emerald means that you hold your accounts with your private keys, so you have complete control of your cryptocurrencies and assets. The custodial services such as exchanges and custodial wallets, basically have all the assets in their own accounts in the different blockchains, so they control your money and cryptocurrencies. On Emerald Wallet you may have many wallets with different blockchains enabled inside each one. This means you may have a wallet with Ethereum and Bitcoin and another with Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Ethereum Classic, and so on. When you enable Ethereum in any wallet inside Emerald, you will automatically have access to some stablecoins in that blockchain as well, such as USDT, USDC, and DAI. Once you have your wallets, blockchains, and accounts inside Emerald, you can send and receive cryptocurrencies, transform Ethereum into Wrapped Ethereum to use with dapps, organize your finances, make payments, and manage your address book. On Emerald, you can create new wallets in different ways: 1. Using a hardware wallet such as Ledger Nano 2. Creating a new seed phrase (24 word secret phrase) 3. With a Private Key JSON file 4. With a raw private key ### What Is Ethereum Classic? Ethereum Classic is the original Ethereum blockchain. Both blockchains were one until July of 2016 when the Ethereum community decided to fork and split from the original chain to reverse a hack that happened to a dapp called "The DAO". This split occurred on the block 1,920,000. ![](https://images.prismic.io/emerald-help/c4938085-7fff-4477-a78b-cd42c01d4676_ETC+is+the+original+chain.png?auto=compress,format&rect=2,0,3044,548&w=800&h=144) At the time, a large portion of the Ethereum community decided to continue working and operating the forked Ethereum blockchain and a minority continued with Ethereum Classic to preserve its principle of "Code Is Law". ## Main Differences Between Ethereum Classic and Ethereum Ethereum will move to Proof of Stake as its consensus mechanism and has no fixed monetary policy. Ethereum Classic will stay with Proof of Work as its consensus mechanism and has a fixed monetary policy. Like Bitcoin, which will have a total final amount of BTC of 21,000,000 in its history, Ethereum Classic will have a total final amount of ETC of 210,000,000. In other words, Ethereum Classic is the technology of Ethereum with the philosophy of Bitcoin. ## Components As Ethereum Classic is, in practice, the same as Ethereum, the components that make it programmable are the following: **- A virtual machine (the Ethereum Virtual Machine or EVM):** It is a software component to the node software, that is replicated across all the participating machines, that can receive and execute computing instructions. **- A programming language called Solidity:** It is a programming language very similar to JavaScript, but adapted to a blockchain network. **- State transition:** Instead of using the UTXO model that Bitcoin uses, which means that all the history of transactions must be verified every time to know the balance of an account, Ethereum Classic debits an account and credits the other account in 2 steps. This enables something called "state transition" which is critical for computing. This model eliminates the need to verify the history of transactions for each account and enables programmability. **- The gas system:** Because machines can enter into an infinite loop when executing complex software programs (e.g. when Windows or MacOS computers show the clock or infinite circle when programs can't be executed) and they need to be shut down and re-started, this may happen in Ethereum Classic. But, because there can't be a central arbiter telling all the machines of the network to re-start every time this happens, the Ethereum Classic creators (Ethereum originally) invented the gas system, which basically puts a limit in "gas" per transaction. So, when machines enter into an infinite loop, they know they only have to use up the gas and cancel the transaction. Gas has a cost, so it is another form of income for the Ethereum Classic machines that produce blocks (miners). **- Stores programs in the ledger:** As Bitcoin stores accounts and balances and nothing more, Ethereum Classic stores accounts, balances, and also software programmes inside the blockchain. ## What Does Ethereum Classic Accomplish? **- Dapps:** When a software program or smart contract is sent to the Ethereum Classic network, it becomes decentralized because it is replicated across all the machines that participate in the network. This enables applications (apps) that become decentralized (dapps) when they "live" inside Ethereum Classic. **- Decentralization: **Because of the above feature, dapps are essentially like apps in your phone or computer, but decentralized. **- Web 3:** Dapps can be used for all sorts of functions. This includes for websites, domain names, money, payments, and many other applications. This is what is called the "web 3" because instead of dealing with centralized tech companies, people will use these decentralized apps or dapps in Ethereum Classic. **- Stablecoins:** Among many of the applications that Ethereum Classic enables are stablecoins which are cryptocurrencies linked to national currencies, so they become pegged to them, hence "stable". Some examples may be USDT, USDC, and DAI. **- NFTs:** Another kind of dapps are NFTs, which are collectables powered by a special kind of smart contract that makes them unique. **- Many more applications:** Because Ethereum Classic is programmable, and programmability may be very complex and full of features, then it may enable many more kinds of applications in the future that we haven't even imagined! ## Ethereum Classic Will Not Migrate to Proof of Stake, But Ethereum Will An important point in the history of Ethereum is that it is moving to Proof of Stake, eliminating proof of work mining. However, all the functionality will be the same. However, Ethereum Classic will not migrate from proof of work to proof of stake as it has opted to stick with its principles of Code Is Law and immutability. The most important benefit of proof of stake systems networks is that they are more scalable so fees will be lower and they will process larger volumes of transactions. The tradeoff is that they are more centralized than proof of work blockchains. As proof of work is much more secure than proof of stake, Ethereum Classic will offer services to dapp developers and end users of strong safety and decentralization, but with less scalability. This will make Ethereum Classic optimal for high value and low volume applications. ### What Is Ethereum? Bitcoin is the first and largest blockchain, but it doesn't have smart contracts, which are decentralized software programs inside the network. This is why Vitalik Buterin, a brilliant programmer, but not a Cypherpunk, invented Ethereum. Ethereum is the same as Bitcoin but adds programmability. Ethereum does not have a fixed monetary policy as it has been changed several times. The cool thing is that the Ethereum ledger stores accounts, balances, and software programs. This transforms it into a fully programmable blockchain. ## Components: The following are the components that Buterin added to Ethereum to make it programmable: **- A virtual machine (the Ethereum Virtual Machine or EVM):** It is a software component to the node software, that is replicated across all the participating machines which can receive and execute computing instructions. **- A programming language called Solidity:** It is a programming language very similar to JavaScript, but adapted to a blockchain network. **- State transition:** Instead of using the UTXO model that Bitcoin uses, which means that all the history of transactions must be verified every time to know the balance of an account, Ethereum debits an account and credits the other account in 2 steps. This enables something called "state transition" which is critical for computing. This model eliminates the need to verify the history of transactions for each account and enables programmability. **- The gas system:** Because machines can enter into an infinite loop when executing complex software programs necessitating a shutdown and re-start, this may happen in Ethereum. However, since there can't be a central arbiter telling all the machines of the network to re-start every time this happens, Vitalik invented the gas system, which basically puts a limit in "gas" per transaction. When machines enter into an infinite loop, they know they only have to use up the gas and then cancel the transaction. Gas has a cost, and that is what you pay when sending an Ethereum transaction. **- Stores programs in the ledger:** As Bitcoin stores accounts and balances and nothing more, Ethereum stores accounts, balances, and also software programs inside the blockchain. ## What Does Ethereum Accomplish? **- Dapps:** When a software program or smart contract is sent to the Ethereum network, it becomes decentralized because it is replicated across all the machines that participate in the network. This enables applications (apps) which become decentralized (dapps) when they "live" inside Ethereum. **- Decentralization:** Because of the above feature, dapps are essentially like apps in your phone or computer, but decentralized. **- Web 3:** Dapps can be used for all sorts of functions. This includes for websites, domain names, money, payments, and many other applications. This is what is called the "web 3" because instead of dealing with centralized tech companies, people will use these decentralized apps or dapps in Ethereum. **- Stablecoins:** Among many of the applications that Ethereum enables are stablecoins, which are cryptocurrencies linked or pegged to national currencies, hence "stable". Some examples may be USDT, USDC, and DAI. **- NFTs:** Another kind of dapps are NFTs, which are collectables powered by a special kind of smart contract that makes them unique. **- Many more applications:** Because Ethereum is programmable, and programmability may be very complex and full of features, then it may enable a multitude of other applications in the future that we haven't even yet imagined! ## Proof of Stake An important difference between Ethereum and Bitcoin is that Ethereum uses Proof of Stake, but Bitcoin is based on Proof of Work mining. The most important benefit of Proof of Stake systems networks is that they can be much faster to process a block, which improves the throughput and decreases the fees. The tradeoff is that they are a bit more centralized than Proof of Work blockchains. ### What Is the Difference Between a Wallet, a Blockchain, an Account, and an Address in Emerald Wallet? On Emerald, you may have many wallets, each wallet may have many blockchains, and in each blockchain you may have many accounts, which are also called "addresses". ## What Is a Wallet? A wallet inside Emerald is like a compartment where you may have several blockchains with several cryptocurrencies. Each wallet in Emerald has a wallet ID which you can label. For example, if you have a wallet called "wallet 1" you may have Bitcoin and Ethereum enabled there. If you have a second wallet called "wallet 2" you may have Ethereum and Ethereum Classic there. So, the term "wallet" in Emerald means a separate place where you can have several cryptocurrencies. ## What is a blockchain? As explained above, each wallet in Emerald may have several blockchains. A blockchain is a cryptocurrency network such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. So, "wallets" are like containers where you may have several blockchains inside Emerald so you can better organize your money! ## What is an account? An account or address (which are the same thing) in a blockchain is analogous to an account in a bank. It is a long string of digits that is your account inside said blockchain. This means that all the assets, cryptos, NFTs, and balances that you have in that account belong to you, and you control them with your private keys. For example, this is how accounts or addresses look in the blockchains we support: 1. Bitcoin: bc1qtr4dxskads7awt77qjuwd6n8ap7vvjfhgvyxgf 2. Ethereum: 0x5be6ce1b0b91764b0dceb5bd32643693a5873cca 3. Ethereum Classic: 0x978B158c282A5C97a1eD2F03377f62F3D8E69fDa ## What is an address? An address is exactly the same as an account, it is just another term that people use. ### What Is Wrapped Ethereum (WETH)? Ether (ETH) is the native token of the Ethereum blockchain and wrapped Ethereum (WETH) is a 1 to 1 representation of ETH but in an ERC-20 token format. When you transform ETH into WETH, 1 WETH is worth 1 ETH because people may transform it back to ETH whenever they want. Basically, you send ETH to an ERC-20 standard smart contract, and it sends you back WETH to your same account. In the same way, when you send WETH to the ERC-20 smart contract it will send you back ETH to your same account. This is how the 1 to 1 convertibility is kept. On Emerald you may transform ETH into WETH or back whenever you want. The function is inside your wallet under the symbol WETH, where it has a small circle arrow beside it to transform ETH into WETH or vice versa. The process of transforming ETH into WETH is called wrapping. The function of transforming WETH back into ETH is called unwrapping. ## What is WETH used for? If you transform ETH into WETH inside the Ethereum blockchain, you may use it to operate with Dapps. Dapps on Ethereum are usually compatible with ERC-20 tokens, so using WETH instead of ETH is convenient. Such dapps may be decentralized exchanges like Uniswap, which is used to trade ERC-20 tokens inside Ethereum, but cannot support ETH itself. ## Guides ### How Do I Enable and Disable Blockchains in Emerald Wallet? Whether you have one or several wallets inside Emerald, you can have several cryptocurrencies or blockchains enabled inside each wallet. To enable blockchains in an existing wallet you need to follow these steps: 1. Open the Emerald Wallet app. 2. Open the wallet you want to add a blockchain to. 3. At the top you will see the name or label of this wallet. 4. To the right of the name or label you will see three dots, which is a menu to manage this particular wallet. 5. Press the three dots to open the menu. 6. Of the options in the menu press "Set Up Supported Coins". 7. In the next screen you will see the enabled and disabled blockchains Emerald supports. 8. To the right of each blockchain you will see a button to enable each blockchain. 9. Press on that button for any blockchain you wish to enable. 10. Press the "NEXT" button. 11. Now Emerald will ask you for your password or global key for security reasons, enter it. 12. Then, press "SAVE Changes". Once you enable blockchains for a wallet inside Emerald, you cannot disable them for security reasons. This is because once you have accounts in a blockchain they will be there, publicly seen, and may be used forever so people may send you assets there. So, if you were to disable one, you may lose access to those accounts and value forever. ### How to Add More Ethereum Addresses to an Emerald Wallet 1. Open Emerald and select the wallet in which you wish to add a new Ethereum address. 2. Open the sub-menu on the right of the name of the wallet. 3. Select the option "Use Additional Addresses". 4. In the next screen enter your Emerald global password and press "UNLOCK". 5. In the next screen select "Ethereum" from the dropdown menu at the top. 6. Then, press "ADD" on any of the Ethereum addresses shown below. 7. Emerald will take you back to your wallet automatically and you will see the new address added at the bottom. ### How to Back Up Your Wallets to an Emerald Vault Backup File 1. Open Emerald and see your wallets on the dashboard. 2. Open the main menu on the top right of Emerald. 3. Press on the "Settings" option. 4. On the left menu, press on "EXPORT VAULT". 5. NOTE: Remember your Emerald global password because you will need it to restore your wallets back again in the future if necessary. 6. Press on the "EXPORT" button. 7. Name your Emerald Vault backup file. 8. Press "Save". 9. All your wallets are backed up in an Emerald Vault on your computer! PLEASE REMEMBER TO KEEP YOUR BACKUP FILE IN A SAFE PLACE. ### How to Change the Label of a Wallet 1. Open Emerald. 2. See all wallets on the dashboard. 3. Open the wallet you wish to change the label to. 4. Where you see the name of the wallet, you will see a pencil icon to its right, click it. 5. The form of the label will open. Write a label. 6. To the right, click the green checkmark. You have changed the label of your wallet. ### How to Change the Language 1. Open the Emerald main menu, which is on the top right of the app. 2. Select "Settings". 3. On the left of the screen your will see the options ""COMMON" and "GLOBAL KEY". 4. Select "COMMON". 5. On the screen you will see a dropdown menu called "Language". 6. On that dropdown menu, select the language you wish to use. 7. Press "SAVE". 8. You will se a message that says "Settings has been saved". 9. You have changed the language. ### How to Change the Reference Currency 1. Open the Emerald main menu, which is on the top right of the app. 2. Select "Settings". 3. On the left of the screen your will see the options ""COMMON" and "GLOBAL KEY". 4. Select "COMMON". 5. On the screen you will see a dropdown menu called "Equivalent currency". 6. On that dropdown menu, select the reference currency you wish to use. 7. Press "SAVE". 8. You will se a message that says "Settings has been saved". 9. You have changed the reference currency. ### How to Change Your Password or Global Key 1. Open the Emerald main menu, which is on the top right of the app. 2. Select "Settings". 3. On the left of the screen your will see the options ""COMMON" and "GLOBAL KEY". 4. Select "GLOBAL KEY". 5. In the form provided, enter your current password and then your new password and confirmation. 6. Press "CHANGE". 7. You will see a message that says "Global key successfully changed". 8. You password or global key has been changed. ### How to Create a New Ethereum Classic Wallet on Emerald by Importing a Private Key JSON File 1. First download Emerald Wallet to your computer and open it. To start using Emerald, download it here: [https://emerald.cash/download](https://emerald.cash/download) 2. Because you may have already created an Ethereum account using your JSON file, you will see that wallet on the Emerald home. 3. To create a new Ethereum Classic account in a new wallet go to the menu on the top right of Emerald. 4. Of the 4 menu options press "Create wallet". 5. In the next screen you will see 6 options to create wallets. Press on "Import existing Private Key JSON file". 6. In the next step Emerald will ask you to name this new wallet. This is because you may have many wallets inside Emerald. When you label your wallet, press "NEXT". 7. In the next step Emerald will ask you to upload your JSON file from your computer. Press on that area. 8. Select your Private Key JSON file from your computer. 9. In the next screen, you will see that Emerald has recognized your account. Also, that it's the same one as Ethereum if you created one for that blockchain. This is because Ethereum Classic is compatible with Ethereum. In this step you have to enter your Emerald password and the password to your JSON file. Then, press "SAVE" and "NEXT". 10. Now, Emerald will ask you to enable the blockchains you wish to use in this particular wallet. Because we are going to set up ETC, then we select that blockchain and press "NEXT". 11. And voila! Your new wallet with an ETC account has been created! Emerald will show you the wallet ID, but that is just for identification purposes because you can have many wallets inside Emerald. No need to write it down. Press "OPEN WALLET" to go to your new wallet. 12. Check out your new wallet with an Ethereum Classic account. When you see your wallet you will notice that the account in ETC is the same as the account in your ETH wallet. This is because we used the same JSON file and both networks are fully compatible. You will see ETC is enabled for this one and the name at the top. Thank you for following this tutorial! ### How to Create a New Ethereum Classic Wallet on Emerald by Importing a Raw Private Key 1. First open Emerald Wallet on your computer and open it. If you don't have it, download it here: [https://emerald.cash/download](https://emerald.cash/download) 2. See a previous Ethereum wallet you may have created using the same raw private key. 3. To create a new Ethereum Classic wallet open the menu at the top right. 4. Of the menu options, select "Create wallet". 5. Of the 6 options select "Import existing Raw Private Key". 6. In the next step, Emerald will ask you to label this wallet. This is because you can have many wallets inside Emerald. Once you name it, press "NEXT". 7. In the next step Emerald will ask you to enter the raw private. When you copy and paste it, remember to add "0x" at the front because that is an industry standard. Then, Emerald asks for your password. Enter it and press "SAVE" and "NEXT". 8. In the next screen, Emerald will ask you to select the blockchain you wish to enable for this wallet. Because we are using a raw private key to create an Ethereum Classic account, we will select that network. then, press "NEXT". 9. And voila! Your new Ethereum Classic wallet using your raw private key is created! In this screen, Emerald will show you the ID for this wallet in particular, but you do not need to write it down. It is just to organize the wallets as you may have many inside Emerald. Press "OPEN WALLET" to see your new Ethereum Classic wallet. 10. Check out your new Ethereum Classic wallet on Emerald! You will see the name of the wallet at the top, that the Ethereum Classic blockchain is enabled, and that the account is the same as for the Ethereum wallet you may have created before because ETH and ETC are compatible blockchains and we used the same raw private key. Thank you for following this tutorial! ### How to Create a New Ethereum Wallet on Emerald by Importing a Private Key JSON File 1. First download Emerald Wallet to your computer and open it. To start using Emerald, download it here: [https://emerald.cash/download](https://emerald.cash/download) 2. If this is your first time using Emerald it will ask you to set up a global key or password for your Emerald app. Once you enter a strong password, press "CREATE". 3. Because you may not have any wallets yet, Emerald will ask you to create one. Press "CREATE FIRST WALLET". 4. Of the 6 options to create new wallets, select the one that says "Import existing Private Key JSON file". 5. Because you can have many wallets inside Emerald to organize your finances, it will ask you to label this new wallet. Label your wallet and then press "NEXT". 6. In the next step, you will see that Emerald will ask you to upload the Private Key JSON file of your Ethereum account. Click there to select your file. Upload your JSON file. 7. When Emerald recognizes your JSON file, it will identify the Ethereum account and show it. Then, you need to enter both your Emerald password (the one you set up at the beginning) and the password of the JSON file. Then, press "SAVE" and "NEXT". 8. In the next step Emerald will ask you to select the blockchain you want to enable for this wallet. Because we want to set up an Ethereum account using our JSON file, we will select Ethereum and press "NEXT". 9. Success! Your wallet is created! Now Emerald will show you the ID of the wallet, but you do not need to write it down. It is just a way of identifying your new wallet because you may have several wallets inside Emerald. Press "OPEN WALLET" to go to your wallet. 10. Check out your new wallet! As you can see, your new wallet is created with its name at the top, the Ethereum blockchain enabled, and the account imported from the JSON file with its balance below. Thank you for following this tutorial! ### How to Create a New Ethereum Wallet on Emerald by Importing a Raw Private Key 1. First download Emerald Wallet to your computer and open it. To start using Emerald, download it here: [https://emerald.cash/download](https://emerald.cash/download) 2. The first thing you need to do is to set a global key or password for your Emerald Wallet. This is to use the app in general and is necessary for different functions within Emerald Wallet. Once you established your 8 character password press "CREATE". 3. You will see a welcome message and then you need to create your first wallet. Press the button "CREATE FIRST WALLET". 4. Of the six options select the one that says "Import existing raw private key". 5. In the next screen, Emerald will ask you to label this wallet. This is because you may have many wallets inside Emerald. Press "NEXT". 6. In the next screen, Emerald will ask you to enter your raw private key. Remember to write "0x" in front as this is an industry standard practice. Also enter your global password or global key for Emerald. Then, press "SAVE" and "NEXT". 7. In the next step Emerald will ask you what blockchains you wish to enable for this wallet. Because we are using an Ethereum raw private key, we will enable Ethereum for this particular wallet. Press "NEXT". 8. And voila! Your new wallet with an Ethereum account using your raw private key is created! In this screen, Emerald shows you the wallet ID for this wallet, but this is just for identification purposes, there is no need to write down this number. Press "OPEN WALLET" to see it. 9. Checkout your new wallet! When you open your wallet, you will see the label at the top and that the Ethereum blockchain is enabled with the stablecoins that we support and WETH. You will also notice below the balance and public key on Ethereum. Thank you for following this tutorial! ### How to Create a New Wallet on Emerald With a 24 Word Secret Phrase 1. Start by downloading Emerald Wallet. Download it here and open it: [https://emerald.cash/download](https://emerald.cash/download) 2. When you open Emerald for the first time, the first thing you need to do is to set a global key or password for your Emerald Wallet. This is to use the app in general and is necessary for different functions within Emerald Wallet. 3. Once you established your 8 character password press "CREATE". 4. In the next screen, you will see a welcome message and then you need to create your first wallet. Press the button "CREATE FIRST WALLET". 5. Of the six options to create wallets, select the second one which says "Create new seed". 6. The next step is to give a name or label to your wallet, as you can have several wallets, so it is easier to identify them! This is done in the blank space that says "Label". Press "NEXT". 7. Now you are ready to create your secret 24 word phrase. Press "GENERATE PHRASE". 8. In the next step you will see the newly created 24 words of your secret or mnemonic phrase. 9. **IMPORTANT: Write down on paper these 24 words. They are the backup to your accounts of this wallet and will be used to generate your same accounts again in case you lose your device!** 10. Once you wrote down the 24 words in order, Emerald Wallet will ask you to enter them back. Enter the 24 words back again on the app IN THE SAME ORDER to make sure you got them right! Once you entered back the 24 words of your mnemonic phrase in order press the "CONFIRM" button. 11. In the next step you will have to enter the global password. 12. In the next step, you can select what cryptocurrencies you want to manage in this particular wallet. We support three blockchain for now, and those are Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ethereum Classic. Select the coins you want to manage in this wallet by enabling them. then, press "NEXT". 13. In the next step, Emerald will show you something called an HD Path for each coin in your wallet. This may be important to use the same paths if in the future you need to generate your accounts again. Here, you only need to press "NEXT" to create your accounts. 14. SUCCESS!! Your wallet has been created! Press "OPEN WALLET" to see your accounts. 15. As you can see Emerald Wallet supports ETH, USDC, USDT, ETC and BTC, and most of ERC20 tokens. Thank you for following this tutorial! ### How to Create a Wallet on Emerald Backed by Ledger Nano Model S or X 1. Start by downloading Emerald Wallet. Download it here and open it: [https://emerald.cash/download](https://emerald.cash/download) 2. The first thing you need to do is to set a global key or password for your Emerald Wallet. This is to use the app in general and is necessary for different functions within Emerald Wallet. 3. Once you established your 8 character password press "CREATE". 4. You will see a welcome message and then you need to create your first wallet. Press the button "CREATE FIRST WALLET": 5. Of the six options to create wallets, select the first one which says "Create from Ledger Nano". 6. The next step is to give a name or label to your wallet, as you can have several wallets, so it is easier to identify them! When you label your wallet press "NEXT". 7. Now Emerald is ready to create your new wallet using Ledger Nano. It will wait for you to connect your hardware wallet to your computer. Please connect and unlock your Ledger Nano X or S in this step. 8. Emerald will immediately recognize that your Ledger is unlocked and will go to the next step. 9. In the next screen, select the coins you want to manage in this wallet by enabling them and press "NEXT". 10. In the next step, Emerald will ask you to open your apps on Ledger Nano for the selected blockchains in the previous step. 11. In the next step, Emerald will generate your account and show you an HD Path. This will happen for each coin in your new wallet. This may be important to use the same path if in the future you need to generate your account/s again. Press "NEXT". 12. SUCCESS!! Your wallet using Ledger Nano has been created! Press "OPEN WALLET" to see your account/s. ### How to Import or Restore a Wallet on Emerald With an Existing 24 Word Secret Phrase 1. In case you lost your computer or phone, they broke, or you had to reset them, this is how to restore your Emerald Wallet again: First download Emerald here: [https://emerald.cash/download](https://emerald.cash/download) Then, open it. 2. The first thing you will see is that Emerald Wallet will ask you to setup a global key. The global key is a password to use Emerald and may be needed for some functions that need security so Emerald knows it's you. Once you enter a strong 8 character password, press "CREATE". 3. After creating the global password for Emerald Wallet in general, it is going to ask you "CREATE FIRST WALLET". This is because this is a new install, but you will be able to restore your existing wallet again in the next few steps. Press "CREATE FIRST WALLET". 4. In the next screen you will see 6 options again to create a wallet. Because we want to restore an existing wallet, we are going to use the "Import existing seed" option. 5. Name this wallet again. Before entering the 24 word passphrase, and because you can have many wallets in Emerald, it will ask you to name this wallet again. Press "NEXT". 6. In the next step is where the high security part happens. Emerald will give you an empty form so you can enter the 24 words of your secret passphrase. These words, are the ones you wrote down when you set up your wallet for the first time. Fill the form. 7. Once you enter the 24 words, Emerald will realize that your entered them correctly and will ask you to save them. If you had used an additional password in the past to create your 24 words, then use it again. Press "SAVE". 8. In the next step, before re-generating your wallet again, Emerald will ask you to enter your global key (the password you set up at the beginning) so it confirms it's you! Press "SAVE" to restore your wallet. 9. In the next step, Emerald will ask you to enable the blockchains to use with this wallet. Because this is a wallet that existed before, we recommend that you enable the same networks that you had before. Then, press "NEXT". 10. In the next step, Emerald will show you what HD Paths will be used. It is important that you select the same HD Paths as before so the same accounts are generated in each blockchain. This is not secret information, so you don't need to write them down. Press "NEXT". 11. Now your wallet is restored! Emerald will first show you the wallet ID, which is not secret information, it is just to identify your wallets because you can have many in the app. Press "OPEN WALLET". 12. Wallet restored! As you can see all your accounts on the selected blockchains were restored and you will be able to see your balances. Thank you for following this tutorial! ### How to Restore Your Wallets From an Emerald Vault Backup File 1. First, download Emerald here and open it: [https://emerald.cash/download](https://emerald.cash/download) 2. You will see two options on your new install: "New setup" and "Restore from backup". Select "Restore from backup". 3. In the next screen you will need to enter your old Emerald password (the one you used to create the Emerald Vault backup file), and then click on the space provided to select the backup file from your machine. 4. Select the Emerald Vault backup file from your computer. 5. In the next screen press "IMPORT". 6. Now your wallets have been restored to your new Emerald installation. ### How to Send and Receive Cryptocurrencies ## How to send cryptocurrencies 1. Open Emerald Wallet. 2. Select the wallet you wish to send cryptocurrency from. 3. On the right of the screen you will see two buttons that say "SEND" and "RECEIVE". 4. Press "SEND". 5. In the next screen, you will see a list of the cryptocurrencies you have in that wallet in the various blockchains. 6. On the right of each balance you will see a "SEND" button. 7. Press on the "SEND" button for the cryptocurrency you wish to send. 8. In the next screen you will see a form with the following lines: From, Token, To, Amount, Gas price. 9. In the space provides in the line "To" enter the address where you wish to send cryptocurrency to. 10. In the space provided in the line "Amount" enter the amount of cryptocurrency you wish to send or press the "MAX" button beside it if you wish to send the whole balance. 11. In the line that says "Gas price" select "Standard Gas Price" or deselect it and choose the amount of gas you wish to pay. 12. Once the information for the transaction has been entered, press "CREATE TRANSACTION". 13. In the next screen, Emerald will show you the information of the transaction you are about to send to the blockchain and will ask you to enter your password. 14. Enter your Emerald password or global key if the transaction is correct. 15. Then, press "SIGN TRANSACTION". 16. In the next screen Emerald will show you the transaction data that it will send to the corresponding blockchain. 17. Press "SEND" if all is correct. 18. In the next screen, Emerald will show you the transaction details and bellow you will see a button that says "OPEN RECEIPT". 19. Press "OPEN RECEIPT" to see your transaction status on the Emerald Receipt website. **WARNING**: MAKE SURE TO DOUBLE CHECK THAT THE ACCOUNT YOU ARE SENDING TO AND AMOUNTS ARE CORRECT AS BLOCKCHAIN TRANSACTIONS ARE IRREVERSIBLE. ## How to receive cryptocurrencies 1. Open Emerald Wallet. 2. Select the wallet you wish to receive cryptocurrency to. 3. On the right of the screen you will see two buttons that say "SEND" and "RECEIVE". 4. Press "RECEIVE". 5. In the next screen, you will see a dropdown menu on the left that is called "Blockchain". 6. In that dropdown menu select the cryptocurrency you want to receive. 7. Below the dropdown menu you will see the address of the cryptocurrency you want to receive and to the right of it a button that says "Copy". 8. Press "Copy" and give that address to whoever is going to send you cryptocurrency. 9. Alternatively, use the QR code given on the right for that address and show it to whoever is going to send you cryptocurrency. **WARNING**: MAKE SURE YOU SELECTED THE RIGHT BLOCKCHAIN WHERE YOU ARE GOING TO RECEIVE CRYPTO BECAUSE, IF THERE IS A MISTAKE OR YOU SELECTED THE WRONG ONE, THEY WILL SEND IT TO YOU TO THE WRONG ADDRESS. ### How to Set Manually the Gas Fee When Sending Ethereum or ETC Using Emerald 1. Open Emerald and select the wallet you wish to send cryptocurrency from. 2. Press the "SEND" button on the right. 3. Select the cryptocurrency you wish to send. 4. Deselect the "Standard Price" button. 5. Now move the point along the bar provided to select the gas fee you wish to pay. 6. Press "CREATE TRANSACTION"  and proceed with the rest of the process. ### How to Store the 24 Word Secret Phrase Safely ## 1. Do NOT store your 24 word secret phrase on cloud services. Do not store your 24 word secret phrase on cloud services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive, or any of the others. Cloud services have a policy of accessing your files and data you store with them. This is a norm which is general in all tech services and apps everywhere in the world. ## 2. Do NOT send your 24 word secret phrase by email or text. You must NOT send your 24 word secret phrase through email services such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, ProtonMail, or others. Also, never send it by text services such as Messages, Messenger, WhatsApp, SnapChat, or any other text app or social media platform. ## 3. Only store your 24 word secret phrase on paper and in a safe place. The best way to store your 24 word secret phrase is to write it down manually on paper and to store it in a safe place so it never touches your computer, phone, or even the internet. ## Other Languages - [es-es](es-es/llms-full.txt)