Changing to a testnet and accessing free tokens

(upbeat music) <v ->Now that we’ve installed a web wallet MetaMask,</v> we’re gonna need some cryptocurrency to play with. The most obvious way to do this is to buy some cryptocurrency say from a major cryptocurrency exchange, such as Coinbase or Binance or FTX. But I’m going to show you how to interact with the tester and the Ethereum network, which developers use to test their applications before they go live on the main Ethereum network or what we call main net. So the first thing that we need to do is to switch our MetaMask wallet from main net to a testnet. If we open up MetaMask and click on Ethereum main net up here, we can choose between a range of testnets.

For our purposes, we’re going to choose the Ropsten testnetwork. Now that we’re on the testnetwork, there are a number of websites which will give us test Ethereum to play with these test tokens are valueless, but at least they’re free. So I’m going to visit what we call a Testnet faucet. The one I’ll use is provided by a company called the dimensions network. But if you search for any Ropsten testnet faucet in any search engine, there are many to choose from. Once you’re there though, getting testnet tokens is pretty simple. I simply open MetaMask. I click on my public Ethereum address up here to copy it, and I paste it into the address box on the website.

Then I click send Ropsten ETH. After a few minutes, the transaction goes through and now I’ve got Robsten Testnet Ethereum, five of them, in my wallet. If I return to the blockchain Explorer Etherscan, I can see that transfer of funds from the faucet to my wallet on the blockchain itself right here. So in this video, we’ve moved our Metamask wallet to the Testnet, interacted with a Testnet faucet, and observed the transaction on a blockchain explorer. (upbeat music fades)