How to Receive Your NFT

A simple guide for collectors

Thank you for collecting my work. The artwork you purchased exists as an NFT — a unique digital token on the Ethereum blockchain that proves your ownership of the piece. To receive it, you need a digital wallet. This guide walks you through everything in plain language. The whole process takes about 15 minutes.

Overview: how the handover works

There are four short steps:

1. You create a personal crypto wallet (free, takes 5–10 minutes).
2. You send your wallet address to the gallery.
3. The gallery forwards your address to me, the artist.
4. I transfer the NFT directly into your wallet. You will see it appear there, usually within minutes.

⚠️ Important: you only ever share your wallet address — a public string of letters and numbers, similar to an IBAN. You never share your password or your 12-word recovery phrase with anyone, including the gallery or me.

Step 1 — Install MetaMask and create a wallet

MetaMask is the most widely used Ethereum wallet. It is free, and works as a browser extension or a phone app. Install only from the official source: metamask.io. Type this directly into your browser; do not install MetaMask from search ad results, as convincing fakes exist.

On a computer (recommended)

1. Open your browser (Chrome, Firefox, Brave, or Edge) and go to metamask.io.
2. Click Download and add the MetaMask extension to your browser.
3. Click the MetaMask icon (a fox) in your browser toolbar.
4. Choose Create a new wallet and follow the prompts.
5. Set a strong password. This password unlocks MetaMask on this device only — it is not the same as your recovery phrase.
6. MetaMask will then show you a 12-word Secret Recovery Phrase. Read Step 2 below carefully before clicking through.

On a phone

Download the MetaMask app from the Apple App Store or Google Play, and check that the publisher is MetaMask. The setup is otherwise identical.

Step 2 — Safeguard your 12-word recovery phrase

This is the single most important section of this guide.

Your 12-word phrase (also called a seed phrase, recovery phrase, or mnemonic) is the master key to your wallet. Whoever has those 12 words, in the correct order, controls everything inside the wallet — forever. There is no customer service, no password reset, and no way to recover the wallet if you lose them or someone steals them.

Two absolute rules

• Never type the 12 words into any website, email, chat, photo, cloud note, password manager, or AI assistant. Legitimate support staff will never ask for them. Anyone who does is trying to rob you.
• Never store them only on a device that connects to the internet. No screenshots, no iCloud notes, no Google Docs, no emails to yourself.

How to record them properly

Use the most boring, lowest-tech method available. The standard approach:

1. Take a clean sheet of paper and a pen.
2. Write the 12 words clearly, in the exact order shown, numbered 1 through 12. Use printed letters, not cursive.
3. Make a second identical copy on a second sheet of paper.
4. Store the two copies in two different secure physical locations — for example, a home safe and a bank safe deposit box, or with a trusted lawyer or family member. The goal is that fire, flood, or theft at one location does not wipe out both.
5. In MetaMask, confirm the phrase when prompted by filling in the words it asks for. This proves you wrote it down correctly.

💡 Tip for serious collectors: for higher-value works, also stamp the 12 words onto a stainless-steel backup plate (search for crypto seed steel backup). Paper can burn or get wet; steel survives far more. For collections beyond a few thousand euros, also consider a hardware wallet such as Ledger or Trezor.

Do not try to memorise the phrase

Even people with excellent memory routinely lose access to wallets they have not opened in a year. Treat the 12 words as a physical document, not as something to remember. Writing them down on paper, twice, in two safe places, is the standard practice followed by professional collectors and institutions.

Step 3 — Send your wallet address to the gallery

Your wallet address is the public identifier of your wallet. It is safe to share. It looks like this made-up example:

0x1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef12345678

It always begins with 0x and is 42 characters long.

How to copy it from MetaMask

1. Open MetaMask.
2. At the top, you will see your account name (e.g. Account 1) and a shortened address below it.
3. Click the address — MetaMask copies the full address to your clipboard and briefly shows Copied!.
4. Paste it into an email to the gallery. The address alone is enough; nothing else is needed.

⚠️ Verify before sending: after pasting, check that the first four and last four characters match what MetaMask shows. Some malware replaces clipboard contents with an attacker's address. A 10-second check prevents the artwork being sent to the wrong place.

Step 4 — Receive the NFT

Once the gallery has forwarded your address to me, I will transfer the NFT from my wallet to yours. The transfer happens on the Ethereum network and is normally confirmed within a few minutes.

What to expect

• You do not need to do anything during the transfer. No transaction to approve, no fee to pay — I cover the network fee from my side.
• Open MetaMask and switch to the NFTs tab; the artwork should appear there. If it does not, use Import NFT in that tab and paste the contract address and token ID, which I will send you with the transfer.
• For a fuller view of the artwork, you can also connect your wallet to an NFT marketplace such as opensea.io, where the piece displays with its image, metadata and provenance.

I will send you a confirmation message containing the transaction hash (a long 0x… string). You can paste it into etherscan.io to see a permanent public record of the transfer.

Quick reference

Questions

If anything in this guide is unclear, please reach out to the gallery or to me directly before installing anything or sending your address. There is no rush — your NFT is reserved for you and will be transferred whenever you are ready.