I recently onboarded an old-school art investor to buy his first NFT. Yes it’s still mega painful from 0 to 1. 38 steps to glory – a tale and fun tutorial of how it happened.
We’re still very early.
- Install Firefox (no Safari, sorry)
- Install MetaMask (yes, it’s fine to install some extension you’ve never done before from a guy called @danfinlay, explain it’s like a wallet in real life)
- Choose Password (not “banana123”)
- Choose Seed Recovery Phrase (explain for 30mins why this is actually the most important part to keep safe. Explain why it’s these “silly” words, no you should not take a photo with your phone to remember them)
- Click “next” a couple of times
- Ok, it’s empty. The wallet is empty! What’s this symbol? It’s a currency called ETH, a blockchain you can use to buy NFTs (I didn’t get into other chains nor DeFi, that would’ve been overkill 😂)
- We need to get “money” from a bank to fill the wallet. Clicking on “buy”
- Trying out Wyre: damn, limit is $500 and identification is only possible in the US. Not enough.
- Trying out Transak: filled out 3 steps and somehow the personal document process hangs
- Shiiit, we’ll need to setup an extra account with Coinbase or Bitpanda. Wanted to avoid having to explain sending ETH from an exchange to this funky 0x address + additional identification
- Setting up an account with Bitpanda, phew pretty flawless process
- Top up the account with Euro by credit card.
- 3d secure code shenanigans with him trying to remember what he answered
- Made it, EUR in the account
- We want to buy Ethereum. Explain why it’s not Ethereum Classic we need.
- “Yes I’m aware… Yes I agree .. no I’m not investing into ICOs…”
- Great, we got some ETH. Back to MetaMask.
- Clicking under the account name on this funky 0x address and explain this is where we’ll send the ETH to. Copy…
- Back to Bitpanda clicking on “Send”
- Select Ethereum (not classic)
- Paste 0x address from MetaMask
- Yes…click…yes,yes,yes, confirm.
- Transaction pending… Now is a great time to explain why it’s so cool that multiple nodes across the web are validating the transaction. Showing etherscan spinning loader. 1,2,3..Brief remark by him that all these fees are gangsta
- ETH arrived in metamask.
- Go to Opensea
- Click top right on profile icon
- Click connect metamask
- Confirm sign in
- Looking at NFTs and showing the differences in collections: Fidenzas by @tylerxhobbs, @BoredApeYC and others. Explain floor price, market liquidity, owners, auctions and other important factors.
- Search for a specific NFT
- Click “Buy now”
- Metamask opens, confirm, window closes, nothing happens
- Click again on “Buy now”
- MetaMask confirm, Transaction processing…
- Complete!
- Woohooooo! 😊
- “Eh, so where can I see it?”
- Click on profile to show the NFT. The guy being surprised it is the same view and not some fancy display… but still happy.
We’re used to interacting with all these currencies, exchanges, assets and tools while forgetting there is still a lot of effort needed to onboard the next billion people. This is just the “JPEG case” without staking, not buying land with an NFT, nor DeFi, DAOs or other chains.
We’re still very early. It’s time for better UX. LFG!