Get An Arweave Wallet

Many of our tutorials require a crypto wallet with a small amount of cryptocurrency ready to use. If you’re already set up and ready to go, you can skip over this one. If you’re new to Web3 development, we recommend starting right here and getting set up with an Arweave wallet and a small bit of AR.

Just as a normal wallet lets you store and use your cash, a crypto wallet lets you store and use your crypto. In blockchains you use crypto to pay each time you use the blockchain, these blockchain interactions or transactions are all digitally signed using your wallet.

Different blockchains use different types of cryptography, which leads to different wallet software for each blockchain. When first starting out in crypto it can all seem quite confusing, especially since there are often more than one wallet option for each blockchain.

At Bundlr we took the approach of making your life easier by letting you use wallets from any of our supported blockchains when paying to store your data and when signing transactions.

The quickest way to get up and running with Bundlr is to create a wallet on the Arweave blockchain, the wallet will come funded with enough AR to let you upload multiple megabytes of data. This guide details how to set up and create an Arweave wallet. If you already have Metamask set up to use the Ethereum or Polygon blockchains or the Phantom wallet set up to use the Solana blockchain, you’re more than welcome to use those wallets instead.

There are multiple websites you can use to create an Arweave wallet and they all let you immediately start using Bundlr. This guide uses https://faucet.arweave.net/ to create a wallet funded with 0.02 AR. The guide finishes at https://www.arconnect.io/ a browser plugin to manage your wallet.

1. Go to https://faucet.arweave.net/
2. Click the checkbox at the bottom of the page and then click “Continue”.
3. Again click the checkbox and click “Download Wallet”. This file you download contains both your private and public keys, it is THE ONLY way to access your Arweve wallet. If you lose it, nobody can help you recover it. Anyone who has the wallet can access your stored crypto and sign transactions, so keep it very very secret.
4. Click “Next”.
5. To get your free AR, you’ll need to perform a Twitter verification. Each unique Twitter account can request free AR only once. This verification helps ensure people don’t try to game the system and repeatedly claim free tokens. Click “Open Tweet Popup”, then “Tweet” the provided Tweet exactly as it is.
6. Finally click “Next”, and allow Arweave to verify the Tweet.
7. If you want, you can now go to your timeline and delete the Tweet you just posted.

Now that you have your wallet and some AR, you can manage your wallet and check your balance using https://www.arconnect.io/.

1. Go to https://www.arconnect.io/.
2. Click “Download ArConnect”.
3. Follow through and install the plugin for your browser, shown here is the Chrome install screen. Create a password used to access your wallet. Pick something secure that is different from other wallets you use. BE VERY CAREFUL WITH THIS PASSWORD as it controls access to any cryptocurrency you may store on the Arweave blockchain.
4. Click “Load Wallet(s)”.
5. Click “Load keyfile(s) from filesystem”.
6. Choose the file you downloaded from https://faucet.arweave.net/. Opening ARConnect, you should now see your wallet balance or 0.02 AR. At the time this tutorial was written, 0.02 AR is worth $0.18 USD. Your USD balance will likely differ based on the current asset price. 0.02 AR might not seem like a lot, but you’ll be surprised how much you can upload with it.

You may want to pin ARConnect to your browser’s top bar next. This guide shows how to pin using Google Chrome, other browsers should have a similar flow.

1. In the top right corner of your browser, open the Extensions by clicking the puzzle icon next to your profile avatar.
2. Next to ARConnect click the “pin” icon.

You can now easily access your wallet from the top bar.