Whoo. It's been a whirlwind. I'm going to try to keep this short. After coding non-stop last week and then being under manual review from Google Chrome since Thursday, IT'S FINALLY HERE!
Here's the original reddit post, which covers the basics, in case you missed it.
And the hubski thread:
We are ready to let anyone who is familiar with Ethereum play with the extension. It's pretty freakin' awesome and I'm exhausted but massively happy with the outcome.
First, the important stuff.
Yes. This is in Beta. No matter how much internal testing we do, we are all familiar with Ether, creating wallets, and sending transactions. We need more eyes on it and we want more people to use it in unpredictable ways before we launch-launch..
Your data is almost certainly safe. We store all your data (nickname, wallet address, and private key) in chrome.storage. This is the same place Chrome saves your passwords. The private key is encrypted. The majority of code comes directly from MyEtherWallet.com. Sending transactions still signs the transaction and then sends just the signed transaction, not your private key. That said,
- Please DON'T save wallets with more Ether than you are willing to lose.
- Please DON'T forget to save your private key / password when you create a new wallet. Save them externally - not just on your computer! We wrote thorough instructions on the help page in the extension.
- Please DO make sure you are sending to the correct address.
- Please DO reach out to us with any and all feedback you have, especially little bugs, things that confused you, or error messages that don't make sense / have typos. You can also barf up all feedback in this thread.
Now, the fun stuff!
- The dashboard has all your saved wallets listed with their balance (in ETH, BTC, USD, EUR). This alone has been amazing to look at. You can view all their details and save or re-save the private key, JSON file, paper wallet, etc.
- You can create a new wallet by uploading a JSON, pasting your private key, or just generate a new wallet, all within a few clicks.
- We've sent a massive amount of transactions from too many wallets to count while testing this. We've made the process and smooth and easy as possible and encountered no failures or unexpected issues. If you manage to screw something up, there are well written error messages to let you know how to fix it! For example, you can't send to the same wallet you are sending from. Yay!
- There is also a new and improved help page within the extension that we've spent so much time in order to make the process even easier for new folks. It puts the MyEtherWallet.com help page to page to shame.
Now, what you actually want
Download in the Google Chrome Web Store
Or check out the repo on Github..
Or just look at how pretty it is and stuff.
This is so awesome! I'll have to buy some ETH tonight. I'll probably go with the 'Buy it, forget about it' model of investing, unless something interesting comes up that warrants a secure purchase. I know that some vendors accept BTC, is there a list of ones that accept ETH?
What's the easiest way to get from USD to ETH? A few days ago I was gonna go USD to BTC via Coinbase, BTC to ETH via Shapeshift, but there was a random issue with my Coinbase account and I didn't try too hard to figure it out. Is there an easier way, preferably just USD -> ETH?
Awesome work. How much potential does Ether have in terms of growth from where it is today? Is it even predictable, and how stable is it compared to Bitcoin, or a physical currency? With BTC at almost $400 I'd love to chip in for some full shares of ETH and see where it takes me, but I don't have the $tack$ for a worthwhile investment yet. edit: I say shares, I mean 1.00 ETH
A month ago the potential on BTC was $4400. Not sure anybody would back those numbers today. They might. As a pirate currency BTC is still well-positioned. You're currently seeing the speculating phase of ETH, while everyone who was in BTC decides that it's so last year and jumps into the hot new thing. At the same time, ETH is the underpinning of, like, real things. It can certainly go higher. It can also go to zero.
The exact moment I gave up on btc (and in full disclosure I've never been a Believer) was the exact moment I learned that like 8 miners--or mining consortia, or whatever) control the fate of the software. Isn't that exactly the opposite of what "decentralized" means? ETH makes me raise an eyebrow, and I find it to be an interesting experiment. Not an experiment that I'm going to gamble any more money on than I would playing blackjack, but interesting nonetheless. If it goes on a BTC-like run and pops to $1000 bucks good for me, but I won't cry that I didn't put more money in. Don't gamble what you can't afford to lose.
It really is pretty, well done. Now, let the money roll in… :-) Good luck!