This post serves as a friendly introduction to XDEFI wallet. It covers what XDEFI wallet is, how to download and set up your first wallet, how to navigate the XDEFI wallet user interface, and how to connect XDEFI to web applications. If you’d like to view the content as a video, we have a series of 4 videos that covers the same material.
In crypto, we use digital wallets to easily store and manage our cryptoassets. There are many different types of crypto wallets, each with tradeoffs on security and convenience, among other factors. Three of the most common types of wallets are hardware wallets, phone wallets, and browser wallets.
XDEFI wallet falls into this last category. As a browser wallet, you install XDEFI as a browser extension and can then connect it to web apps. Metamask is the most popular browser wallet, and in many ways XDEFI works similarly. So if browser wallets already exist, why do we need another one?
You may recall that THORChain is a groundbreaking protocol that allows individuals to easily move assets across blockchains in a decentralized and secure way.
A major problem with older browser wallets is that they’re designed to support only a single chain. But we increasingly live in a multi-chain world. Protocols like THORChain make managing assets on multiple chains much easier. In contrast to other browser wallets, XDEFI supports multiple chains with many more being added in the coming months.
The assets for each chain are easily managed from a single XDEFI wallet. Moreover, XDEFI is easy to connect to leading THORChain interfaces like ThorSwap:
But XDEFI wallet is not an innovation merely because it supports multiple chains. It also has an extremely clean user interface, allows for powerful transaction specificity, and has a great NFT display.
By the end of this tutorial, you'll be ready to take advantage of all the amazing features that XDEFI wallet offers!
XDEFI is currently available on both Chrome and Brave, with support for Firefox coming soon. In this tutorial, we’ll be using Chrome. To install XDEFI wallet, open up a new browser and search for chrome.google.com/webstore.
Once you’re in the chrome web store, search for “XDEFI” in the search box.
After clicking on XDEFI wallet, you’ll see the option to install XDEFI to chrome. Click on “add to chrome”. Then a popup will appear asking you to “add extension”.
This will download XDEFI wallet as a chrome extension.
Now that you have XDEFI installed, let’s see how to set up our first wallet. Let’s start by opening up XDEFI. To do this go to your chrome extensions, which is the little puzzle piece in the top right hand corner of your browser. You’ll see XDEFI wallet, as well as any other extensions you may have installed. Now click on XDEFI. This will open up the wallet.
Since XDEFI was just installed, it will ask you to set up a wallet. Click on “let’s get started”. This will open up a new tab in your browser.
After agreeing to the terms and conditions, you’ll have the option to create an XDEFI wallet or to restore an existing XDEFI wallet. Since you’re setting up a wallet for the first time, select “Create XDEFI Wallet”. You’ll then be asked to create a password.
After clicking next, you’ll be given your secret phrase. This is a series of 12 words that grants access to your address on each blockchain. It is crucial that you carefully copy down the words in order and store them somewhere securely. Do not share these words with anyone. Anyone with access to your words has access to all your funds. We've blocked out the words in the image below.
After you’ve written down your secret phrase and have double-checked its correctness, click next. You’ll be asked to re-enter the first 4 words.
Next, you’ll be asked to select a name for your wallet. You’re welcome to name the wallet whatever you like. You can easily come back later and change the name in your settings.
After entering your wallet’s name, you’ll be asked if you’d like to make XDEFI your default browser wallet. This is relevant if you have multiple browser wallets. Turning this on means that XDEFI will open instead of any other browser wallet when using any relevant web app. You can always come back and change this later in your settings.
The last step will ask you to select which chains to use with your XDEFI wallet. If you know that you won’t be using some chain with XDEFI, you can turn that chain off. Turning a chain off merely hides that chain’s assets from your wallet. You still have an address on that chain and control the assets associated with that address. Chains can be re-enabled in your settings.
After selecting your chains, click “complete”. You can close your browser tab. Now, if you reopen your XDEFI wallet, you’ll see that you’re ready to go!
In part 2, you learned how to install XDEFI and set up your first wallet. In this section, we’ll walk through the XDEFI user interface.
In the middle of the home tab, you have a list of crypto assets. In each row, you have the ticker of the asset, the quantity of the asset that you own, and the dollar value of that position on the left side. If you look on the right side, you see the chain that the asset is on, as well as a button to view some options.
Clicking on the three dots on the right side of each asset will show us some options.
The first option will open up the block explorer, which is an interface to view transactions that have occurred with your address. There will be a different block explorer for each chain. The second option allows you to quickly copy your address for that chain. The third option allows you to pin the asset to the top of your list. You can unpin it in the same way. The final option "delete token" removes it from your list. Deleting the token merely removes it from the interface. You still own whatever tokens you deleted.
To add a token, click on the blue plus button in the bottom right corner.
You can then search for that token. A list of matching tokens will appear. Select the token you want, click next, and then click confirm.
The token will now be on your token list.
We can filter our token list by selecting only tokens on a certain chain. We can also search for a specific asset by its ticker.
Now let’s see what the other tabs in XDEFI wallet are for. If we click on the 2nd tab, we can see our NFTs.
The third tab shows us our transaction history.
If your wallet is brand new, the NFT and recent activity tabs will be empty.
The last tab is for managing your account(s).
If you click on the 3 dots next to your account name, you’ll see some options regarding your wallet. You can rename your wallet, view the secret phrase again, back up the wallet (which will download an encrypted file), or delete it. If you delete the wallet, you can still recover it using either the secret phrase or the encrypted file backup.
You also have the ability to create an entirely new account with completely distinct addresses for each chain by clicking on the “Create Account” button. This separate account will have its own secret phrase.
Lastly, let’s take a look at our options and settings. You can view these by clicking on the hamburger menu in the top right corner.
“Contacts” allows you to manage a list of addresses you want to save for quick access in the future. This is useful for addresses you frequently interact with or own.
The “Wallet Management” tab allows you to connect to a hardware wallet, import an existing wallet via a seed phrase or keystore file, or to save a backup of your wallet(s).
In the settings, you have the ability to change your password, implement additional security measures, and much more.
We discussed prioritizing XDEFI in part 2, and you can see the ability to change that option in the hamburger menu. Dark mode just changes the colors of the XDEFI app to be dark instead of light. “Give us feedback” links you to the XDEFI discord channel. The Lock button signs you out of your XDEFI account.
That’s all for part 3! There’s lots to XDEFI wallet, and at this point, you’re familiar with much of it! We’ll be filling most of the remaining holes in part 4.
Now that we’re familiar with XDEFI wallet’s interface, let’s learn how we can use it! Like any crypto wallet, you can receive assets by having anyone send them to one of your addresses. Remember to send assets to the correct address on the correct chain. There are many places in XDEFI to grab your addresses, but perhaps the easiest is by clicking on the “receive” button on the home page.
The procedure to send assets is similar. Click on the “send” button, and fill in the transaction specifications. Since different chains have different ways of processing transactions, the transaction details may be different.
You can also buy crypto with fiat using XDEFI’s fiat on-ramp.
Just like other browser wallets, you can connect XDEFI to web applications. Doing so is straightforward. Let’s go back to our options and prioritize XDEFI, and then go to sushi.com and open up its web app.
When you do so, XDEFI will automatically pop up. You'll be asked to select the network you want to use. You must also select an account, then click “next” and “connect”. And with that, you've connected XDEFI wallet to SushiSwap!
XDEFI can also connect to multichain applications. Let’s go to thorswap.finance and open up their web app.
Now click on “connect” in the top right corner, and select “connect XDEFI wallet”.
You’ll now be asked what chains’ addresses you want to connect.
You can choose as many as you want. After clicking connect, XDEFI will pop up asking for confirmation that you want to connect to the web app. Once you approve, your wallet will be connected to ThorSwap. You can view your addresses by clicking on “wallet” and can use any of your connected addresses with any of ThorSwap’s features.
That’s it for our friendly introduction to XDEFI wallet! We hope it gives you a strong understanding of what XDEFI is and how to set it up, navigate its interface, and connect it to web applications. There is certainly more to XDEFI than what we covered here, but at this point you are familiar with all the main components. Have fun with your new wallet!
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