Ethereum is a cryptocurrency close to my heart. I remember having had a good feeling about it in 2015 after the token presale and liquidated a large portion of my Litecoin into Ether. At the time it looked like there was nothing stopping the decentralized smart contract system.
I still believe that today, even though I've had my moments of weakness with the DAO crisis. Now with Ethereum's value at around $90 U.S. and a market cap of over 8 billion, I think we are going to see an incredible future for everything Ethereum.
With so many ICO's from up and coming companies involved in everything decentral, it is important that investors have a wallet where you control your private keys. Exchanges are dangerous and should only be used for market trading as centralized exchanges are the ones who are in control of your private keys and thus money.
If you ever do decide to take part in an ICO(initial coin offering)presale, you will need a wallet like MEW because you will have to have your own private keys. Many mistakes have been made where investors have sent their Ether from an exchange like Kraken or Poloniex only to lose their Ether. This is because exchanges control your private keys and you need to be in control of your own keys in order to receive ICO tokens.
Setting up MyEtherWallet Go to MyEtherWallet
Two things are important at this point
1. Create and remember a strong password.
Write it down on paper until you commit it to memory as typing it and storing it in your computer is less secure.
Example
Strong password: $Tr0ng4@a11tym3
or even stronger: F6HE2Bbat7Io0NxQ3V18JhNdDLlpPs
The stronger the password the more protected from it being compromised from a potential hack.
2. You then download the private key to your computer. It will look like this:
It's recommended that you create a secondary backup to an external drive such as a flash drive. Remember that you are now your own bank so creating backups of your password and private key are essential otherwise all funds will be lost.
MEW will also make this clear once you have created your password for the first time.
Now whenever you return to the MEW service in order to send/receive ETH or ETH related tokens, you'll go to 'send ether and token' at the top which will then bring you here
Now there are some options to open your new wallet. The most common option is using the private key(UTC/JSON)that you just downloaded and backed up. You can use the private key option but I would Not use that method as it exposes your private key.
Using a mnemonic phrase is an option also but also unsecure as the phrase is exposed when typing it in. Nano S and Trezor are hardware wallets are able to be purchased and are the most secure. These wallets will be covered in a later article.
When selecting the Keystone file you're then asked for the password first created and you then unlock the wallet
Now you can send/receive Ethereum and Ethereum related tokens. The address highlighted top left is your deposit address
You now have your own private Ethereum wallet enjoy.
Image sources:
https://www.myetherwallet.com
https://www.ethnews.com/ethereum-outlook-for-2017