Web3 moves quickly. In this space, it is vital to stay up to date on the best safety practices. Here are some general guidelines we suggest following to help keep your assets safe and secure:
1.) Never share your seed phrase with anybody. Write the unique sequence down and be sure to store it in a safe place that only you have access to. Some often consider additional safety measures such as splitting up their seed phrase across several secure locations. No person, company, or project should ever be asking for your seed phrase.
2.) When entering a new project’s Discord, the first thing to do is turn off your DM’s for that server to prevent phishing scams.
It’s simple but often overlooked - don’t click on links from people you don’t trust. It is always better to be safe than sorry so feel free to check-in with a few friends to confirm any security concerns.
Discord phishing scams often rely on getting you to act on impulse and “FOMO” into a scam. If it’s a message from a random person, it’s almost guaranteed to be a scam. No mint will ever happen from a random DM; it will always be announced from a project’s official social channels. Use common sense and always ask around for help and other perspectives when unsure.
3.) Our stance is to never mint or interact with NFT’s on a mobile device; there are too many things that can go wrong. Only use your phone when absolutely necessary; there really should never be an excuse. The only activities we use our phones for related to crypto are buying ETH with Apple Pay through MetaMask or transferring ETH to USD on an exchange such as Coinbase. Some of our team avoid mobile altogether and only make transactions on a computer.
4.) To avoid being tagged in scams and by people you don’t know on Twitter, go to “Settings and privacy” → “Notifications” →”Filters” → Turn on “Quality filter” → “Muted notifications” → Turn on “With a new account”/”Who haven’t confirmed their email”/”Who haven’t confirmed their phone number”
5.) Keep your valuable NFTs and larger amounts of crypto locked up in a hardware wallet (cold wallet) and don’t use this for minting or signing any permissions. Keep this wallet disconnected and offline. This way, you’re in control of your wallet vs. trusting a browser extension with all of your assets. We suggest a Ledger, our team’s preferred crypto hardware wallet; make sure you’re buying from the official site (https://www.ledger.com/)
6.) For free mints or mints you want to partake in but aren’t totally trustworthy of, we highly suggest creating a new MetaMask wallet that will be for this purpose only. This is also known as creating a burner wallet or hot wallet. It takes less than 15 minutes to set up a new MetaMask wallet, which is a much better alternative to potentially losing all of your NFT’s/crypto.
7.) Only connect your wallet to trusted platforms; certainly easier said than done. Have a separate wallet for free mints, a separate wallet for buying and selling, and a separate cold wallet for storing your valuables. Most importantly, never act on impulse and always ask a friend or two before jumping into something. Remember, if it seems too good to be true - it usually is.