One of the initial steps to be taken for Blockchain development is to get yourself familiar with build toolkit of cryptocurrency which is programmable, first cryptocurrency of the world i.e. Bitcoin is not programmable.

Ethereum

Gavin Wood and Vitalik

In 2013 Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood launched Ether (from the Ethereum Network Protocol), which is a programmable cryptocurrency, due to the implementation of state machines via Patricia Merkle tree data structure which helps in storing the states.

Patricia Tree

In order to store Ethers to make payments across all the different web 3.0 applications to be used across the globe we will use Metamask.

Metamask

Since Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology we will need to sync and download the ledger aka Blockchain for every transaction that we participate in, Metamask as a wallet allows us to store Ethereum and all other tokens from ERC-20 (Ethereum Protocol standard ) tokens without the need to download the whole blockchain in the process.

Sharing of Ledgers

It was created in 2016 by ConsenSys, a Brooklyn-based blockchain software company focusing on Ethereum-related tools and infrastructure.

I feel fortunate to learn have learned Ethereum Development in the mid of 2017, followed by working as a Blockchain Developer in couple of startups.

We will install it as a cryptocurrency wallet that operates as a plug-in for standard internet browsers such as Chrome and Firefox.

To install metamask , just go to this link .

Home page of the metamask website looks like this :

metamask homepage

In case you are using chrome browser, just select the chrome section, and click upon Install Metamask from Chrome:

chrome section metamask

Once done with the install part, just click upon the Add extension button as shown below.

To get started with the metamask , just Click upon the Get Started button :

Metamask getting started

To establish identity , it will ask you to enter the credentials , you can give a relevant password:

Metmask password setup

To use a metamask account at some other place, or import it on some other device , or to recover your account we have this system for using Seed Words:

Seedwords collection

Once you have setup the metamask account , you can click upon all done.

After setting up metamask

To make it easily available in the browser , just click upon pinning the metamask:

Pin Metamask

Once you pin it, you can clearly see it on the top right.

By default Ethreum main network is the only one available :

As a developer you will require test networks also, because main net is going to charge money, whereas test networks allow you to test your codes without any payments.

Option to Show test networks

Just click upon the toggle button to show the networks:

You will be able to see all the test networks one by one :

To test your codes Ropsten is a good test network, just click upon the Buy sign:

Click upon Get ETHER:

Request for 1 ether from the faucet.

Alternatively you can also ask a friend of yours to lend some ethereum tokens to you by sharing your public key.

For any further Queries or anything related to Blockchain, Cryptos, Ethereum / Dapp Development you can DM me on Linkedin or instagram id=acanubhav94.