Do you find yourself managing multiple wallets across multiple chains? This is the exact situation I’ve found myself in recently after playing around with Sovryn. There is actually a trick to wallet management. I’ve heard from many people that they have a hard time managing all their 12 word phrases.
Beginner Tip: Your 12 word phrase is often called the Seed Phrase. The same 12 word phrase can be used to generate a virtually limitless number of addresses and their private keys. Those private keys are what allow you to act (transfer/spend) any given cryptocurrency. What is beautiful is that the same 12 word phrase can be used on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, etc.
This is the letter that helps you keep your keys straight!
One Key, Infinite Possibilities
One Key giving near Infinite Accounts is an innovation yet to be properly understood. This wallet and key structure is how the future will be banking on cryptocurrency.
For the record, I have dozens of keys. You just naturally stumble into creating a new one each time you encounter a new wallet or blockchain. But I think with a little foresight and organization, you can benefit from having one key control multiple pools of funds.
I had funds on Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum, and Sovryn, but I was using 3 different wallets, and 3 different keys. Recently, I consolidated my wallet into being derived from a single key. My intention moving forward is to always use the accounts associated with that one key, in the interest of keeping things simple.
To be clear, only my wallets, the ones I am using to interact with platforms on a regular basis, will be derived from this single key. This has nothing to do with the bitcoin that I am keeping in cold storage. It will certainly help around tax season to not have to go searching for all the addresses I used.
A quick disclaimer: I do not recommend creating multiple addresses from your COLD WALLET to use for MetaMask or anything that requires you to input them into something connected to the internet!
My MetaMask Wallet Structure
The wallet that I use most often when interacting directly with platforms like Binance Smart Chain and Sovryn is MetaMask. That’s that fox icon you see in the graphic. Let’s take a look at how this all works out.
I currently have two accounts within my MetaMask wallet. Two accounts, and two keys. I’ve named them aptly. One is the Main Account I am consolidating things into, and the other is the old Legacy Account.
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Let’s zoom in on my Main Account for a moment and check out some balances that I have on various networks.
Ethereum Account
When you open your MetaMask account for the first time, it will by default be connected to the Ethereum Mainnet. In order for us to interact with other chains, we will need to tell (configure) MetaMask that those other networks exist.
From the above information, you can see
I am connected to Ethereum
My Address is REDACTED:
and I have 0 ETH.
Sovryn Account
MetaMask doesn’t actually know about Sovryn by default so we need to add some configurations that tell MetaMask that Sovryn is a network it can connect to.
Adding Sovryn to MetaMask
Clicking on the dropdown will reveal a long list of networks you can connect to. Everything that isn’t Ethereum Mainnet is a Testnet and can be ignored. You can add new networks by selecting the Custom RPC option from the bottom.
That will reveal a screen with five inputs.
You can find the connection information on Sovryn's wiki or paste it from below.
Safety Tip: Always get connection URLs from the official website of the project, otherwise you could be connecting to malicious networks.
After you’re connected, you can select RSK Mainnet from the dropdown and connect to Sovryn.
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From the above information, you can see
I am connected to RSK Mainnet (the Bitcoin sidechain that Sovryn lives on
My Address is REDACTED
and I have 0.0001 rBTC.
Binance Smart Chain Account
Just like Sovyrn, you need to add Binance Smart Chain to the list of known chains. Get the connection info from Binance Academy.
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From the above information, you can see
I am connected to Binance Smart Chain
My Address is REDACTED
and I have 0.0096 BNB.
In all three instances, my wallet address was the same
Using the Same Wallet on Multiple Chains
Sovryn
My MetaMask is set to RSK Mainnet. Next to my address, I now see a green indicator letting me know that I am successfully connected to Sovryn.
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Making a Transaction
Once I am connected, I am fully capable of broadcasting a transaction if I want to. Any prompts to interact with Sovryn will be answered with a popup that looks like the following. This is a pretty typical transaction screen across most cryptocurrency wallets. It indicates to me that there is a fee to broadcast the transaction.
Making sure that fee is low is really the most important aspect of broadcasting any transaction. In this case, the fee is 0.00001 rBTC which works out to be about $0.50.
Binance Smart Chain
If I want to use a Binance Smart Chain service like PancakeSwap, then I can easily switch the chain, and connect my wallet.
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Making a Transaction
Making a transaction on Binance Smart Chain is the exact same familiar transaction screen that we saw from Sovryn.
Bottom Line About Wallet Management
If I had to start from scratch, I would use only one, maybe two keys for actively managing all of my cryptocurrency wallets. The reason is that you can use the same wallet to manage different chains. The experience of interacting with various chains may differ a little bit, but the core concepts remain the same.
If you learn how to use MetaMask, then you’ve basically learned how to use 80% or more of the other wallets out there. I recommend that you start thinking hard about the best way to manage your keys and implement that schema immediately! It will save you so much headache, and possibly even prevent you from losing track of your money in the future.
I hope this helps,
Keegan
Resources
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