Not Your Keys, Not Your Litecoin
Setting up your first mobile Litecoin Wallet
If you’ve bought some Litecoin but you’ve never taken that next step of setting up your own Litecoin wallet, then this is for you.
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Storing your own Litecoin is surprisingly easy. You’ve probably heard that there are many different types of wallets – mobile wallets, software wallets, hardware wallets, multi-sig wallets, custodial services, collaborative custody etc.
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There are lots of Litecoin wallets for both iOS and Android. LiteWallet is supported by the Litecoin Foundation and is available on both iOS and Android, we’ll use that as our example.
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Seeds, wallets, keys and addresses
There are four things in particular you’ll hear about regarding Litecoin wallets:
Seeds
Wallets
Keys
Addresses
They’re related to each other as shown, each Wallet has a Key – all managed by the software.
Litecoin wallets have three jobs:
the creation of Seeds, wallets, keys and addresses
the storage and protection of wallets, keys and addresses
the use of wallets, keys and addresses for sending and receiving Litecoin
We’ll cover off each of them as we go along.
The Seed phrase is just a list of either 12 or 24 words; LiteWallet uses 12 words. This approach for wallets is a standard now, is called Hierarchical Deterministic wallets.
It is of supreme importance that you keep the Seed phrase safe and secure – we’ll get to that later!
Doing it
Creating your wallet and sending your first tiny Litecoin transaction
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Before we start
You’ll need these four things:
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your mobile phone
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some paper
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a pen
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some uninterrupted quiet time
Part 2 – Setup your first litecoin wallet
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Download and install
Head over to your phone’s App Store and download LiteWallet.
Create your wallet
Open LiteWallet for the first time and you’ll get two options:
Create New Wallet OR Restore LiteWallet Wallet
We’re going to start by creating a new wallet, so select that for now.
Write down your seed phrase
LiteWallet now prompts you to write down your mnemonic on paper. Mnemonic is just another name for the seed phrase – and you’re already prepared with the pen and paper. Their advice NOT to store the seed phrase electronically is important and good advice.
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Grab your pen and paper and start writing these words down. We recommend numbering the words as you write them, so that there’s no confusion about the sequence later. Write down all of the words in order.
Validate your seed words
LiteWallet will now prompt you for specific words from the list you wrote down. This validates that you’ve written them down correctly.
Create a PIN
Your LiteWallet wallet has a PIN code just like your ATM card – it’s a sequence of 6 digits known only to you. Write this down along with your seed words.
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Your first Litecoin address
Time to press the Receive button. This tells LiteWallet that you’re expecting to receive some Litecoin, and it generates a Litecoin address. You can see there is a QR code, and a string of letters and digits underneath it – they are different representations of the same Litecoin address. This is the address that you’re going to send your first small Litecoin transaction to.
Transferring Litecoin to an address
Litecoin addresses are those big strings of upper- and lower-case letters and digits. And the case of those letters matters. We always copy and paste.
If you need to copy and paste between devices, you can copy, then message and paste, to achieve that.
Sending from your exchange
On your exchange, you’ll need to head over to the section called Withdraw – or similar. There you will need to enter two pieces of information:
the amount of Litecoin you’re sending
the Address you’re sending those valuable litecoin to
We suggest a small initial transaction like .1 litecoin.
The Litecoin destination Address is the address from your LiteWallet wallet.
Finally, hit the send button on your Exchange, to send those Litecoin's to your wallet.
Watching your first transaction
After a little while (usually a few minutes), you’ll see the transaction appear in your LiteWallet wallet. It will initially show as Received, but “Unconfirmed”. This means the Exchange has sent the transaction, and it’s waiting to be mined into a permanent Litecoin block.
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Part 2 – Restoring your wallet and sending your remaining Litecoin
Delete your wallet
After you see your transaction has confirmed, you have actual ownership and control of your Litecoin. Well done!
Now we’re going to cover how the Restore Wallet function works, so that you experience zero stress if your phone is lost, stolen, broken, or you get a new one. This is about peace of mind, so don’t skip it!
Remember how you wrote down that seed phrase at the beginning? We’re going to need that, and we’ll learn why it’s so important to keep it in a safe and secure place.
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The first step in this part is to delete the LiteWallet wallet app from your phone. Yep, you read that correctly. It’s not a typo, and you’re not going to lose your Litecoin either. Go on – delete the LiteWallet wallet app.
Restore your wallet
Start by re-installing the LiteWallet wallet app like you did in Part 1. Except this time, when you start it up, instead of Create New Wallet, you’re going to choose Restore LiteWallet Wallet.
Re-enter your seed words
To restore your wallet, enter in all of the seed words you carefully wrote down before. All of the wallet details, transactions, and addresses, are derived from that seed phrase. So when you recover your wallet, you are back to exactly where you were, with nothing lost. Seriously though, how cool is that!? This is very sophisticated cryptography.
Store your seed phrase safely
Now you have seen firsthand how powerful your seed phrase is. Anyone who has it can restore your Litecoin wallet on another phone, and freely spend any Litecoin in it. So, you want your seed phrase kept very safe in case you need it, and you also definitely don’t want it falling into the wrong hands. Keep it secure and keep it safe.
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Crypto-Keys® are one way to keep your seed phrase backed up.
Send your remaining Litecoin
Now that you know how your wallet works, you can send any remaining Litecoin you have on exchanges to your Litecoin wallet. Only when the Litecoin you have bought have safely arrived in a wallet under your control, is it actually your Litecoin. Until then, it’s a hopeful “IOU” from an exchange you trusted with a bunch of your hard-earned money.
Remember
Your keys, your Litecoin; not your keys, not your Litecoin.
Keep your seed phrase safe – it is the key to your Litecoin kingdom.
There’s no-one to call if you lose your wallet *and* you lose your seed phrase.
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If you lose access to your wallet and your seed phrase, your Litecoins are irretrievably lost.
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As you accumulate more Litecoin, and as it accumulates more value over time, level up your security.
