How to Set Up and Use Terra Station Wallet

The Terra ecosystem is amazing. There’s something here for everyone. For those wanting a stable savings solution in the DeFi space, there’s the Anchor Protocol. For those looking for a way to carry out transactions, there’s CHAI, MemePay, and PayWithTerra.

That isn’t all. There’s something for traders and creators too.

For traders, there’s the Mirror Protocol that allows users to create fungible assets that have their prices pegged to real-world assets. These synthetics act as building blocks in smart contracts, bringing all sorts of assets into the DeFi space. Quite an interesting concept, if you ask me.

For creators, there’s Terraform Capital. It provides capital to the creators that enable them to launch their products. So, launch and audit costs are both covered here.

An ecosystem, as interesting as this one, is surely something that moves you. But to access the ecosystem and use it to the fullest, you need to have a Terra Station Wallet. And that is exactly what we’re going to cover in this article.

What is Terra?

Developed by the South Korean firm, Terraform Labs, Terra is a blockchain project with an ecosystem that contains a number of cryptocurrencies and associated financial apps. 

Terra (LUNA) is one of the cryptocurrencies in the Terra ecosystem. It is a stablecoin that was made with a single purpose—reducing the volatility plaguing most of the cryptocurrencies in the market.

Now, stablecoins have been in the market for a long time. Each stablecoin has its own way of, well, remaining stable. And they do remain stable for most of it. But every now and then, you would see surges in their prices which beats the entire purpose of, you know, being a stablecoin.

And that is where the team behind the Terra ecosystem has been able to use their skills and expertise. They have come up with ingenious ways to ensure that the prices of LUNA and UST remain more or less constant.

One of the ways LUNA stabilizes its prices is with a carefully orchestrated balancing act with UST (another cryptocurrency in the Terra ecosystem). For minting new UST tokens, you would always need to burn some LUNA tokens. Doing this ensures that a rise in the demand for UST would lead to more LUNA being burned and sent to community pools. This keeps the prices in check.

Now, it isn’t fool-proof, but it does the job rather well. And at the end of the day, let us not forget that we’re in the DeFi space. As much as the space is growing, it still suffers from many problems plaguing the blockchain industry.

The team has been able to raise quite a lot of capital from renowned investors who find the platform innovative. So there’s definitely something there to it. You too, good reader, find the ecosystem (or at least some part of it) rather interesting. This is why you’re trying to learn how to set up your Terra Station wallet and start using the benefits the ecosystem provides.

I wouldn’t take much of your time and would assume that you have a fair deal of understanding of the Terra ecosystem. So, let’s jump right into how you can download and install the Terra Station wallet.

How to Download and Install the Terra Station Wallet?

To get a Terra Station wallet, you need to download and install the Google Chrome extension for it.

Simply go to the Chrome Web Store and search for “Terra Station”. You then need to click on the “Add to Chrome'' button and voila!

This wallet would allow you to store LUNA (the governance token for the Terra blockchain) and UST (an algorithmic stablecoin that is pegged to the US Dollar by Terra LUNA) tokens.

If you’re on a mobile device, you can still find Terra Station on the Apple App Store for iOS users and the Google Play Store for Android users. Setting the wallet up on those platforms is pretty straightforward.

For now, however, let’s focus on the extension since a web browser is where the majority of you would be using it. Once you’ve installed the extension, it is time for you to create a new Terra wallet (or import one if you already have created one). 

Creating a new wallet is pretty simple and straightforward. To start with, you need to give a name to your wallet. Next up, you need to enter a password and confirm it for security purposes. 

Finally, you have the very important, but often-overlooked seed phrase. I say it is often overlooked because many people copy it hastily on their browsers and paste it into files they would eventually forget about. What they don’t realize is that they might need it sooner than they imagine.

For most of us, hardware failure is not exactly rare. Hard drives crash and fail all the time. A clean wipe of the browser too is something that isn’t unheard of. In all of these cases, you risk losing your wallet and the crypto you have in it. The only thing that can help you if you need to reinstall the wallet is your seed phrase.

The seed phrase is unique to your wallet and is hence used for its identification. So I would strongly recommend you to store it in a safe location. Or perhaps multiple safe locations if you don’t wish to part with your tokens. 

Once done, hit the “Next” button. On the next screen, you would be asked to confirm your seed. If you’ve stored it safely, this won’t be an issue for you. All you need to do is enter the correct word present in the positions you’re asked for and you’re good to go.

Now, you have to click on the “Create a wallet” button, and there you have it, your own Terra Station wallet.

Now, an empty wallet isn’t going to get you anywhere. So, you need to fill that wallet up with some UST and/or LUNA tokens. And how do you do that? Let’s take a look!

How to Buy and Send Tokens to Terra Station Wallet?

Buying UST & LUNA tokens are pretty simple. All you need to do is head over to your favorite exchange and search for it. I have seen it on Kucoin and I can say with a great deal of certainty that you can find it there. 

But if you want to know of all the exchanges where you can find UST, try searching on CoinMarketCap. Search for UST or LUNA, head over to their page on the platform, switch to the markets tab and it is out there that you’ll find a whole list of all the markets they are listed on.

Now that you’ve found them, head over to the market you’re most comfortable with and buy some tokens. Once done, you need to send them over to your Terra Station wallet. 

To do that, you would first need to know what your wallet address is. Luckily for you, that is no rocket science on this platform.

On the main screen of your Terra Station wallet, you would find your address high up such as is shown in the screenshot below. All you need to do is copy this address and paste it as the receiver’s address on your crypto exchange when you’re sending UST or LUNA tokens.

Have you sent some tokens to your wallet? Good. Now you’re ready to use the various products in the Terra ecosystem.

Before You Go…

The Terra ecosystem has shown quite some promise so far. By the looks of it, it still has much to offer. 

One of its platforms, the stable savings solution, Anchor, has stood strong during one of the major crypto crashes that happened not so long ago. Instead of offering the promised 20% APY, it fell down to 18% (which is where it is hovering right now). Now, it might sound like I mean to say it is stagnant at 18% but it isn’t. It is actually trying to rise back up.

If the success of Anchor is any indication of how the entire ecosystem is going to function, it is pretty impressive.

That said, the Terra ecosystem has one major drawback and that comes in the form of the limited number of nodes that the network runs on. The reason why the team went for this approach was to reduce latency. Good thinking, considering the fact that the ecosystem is meant to support a lot of financial transactions.

So, what is the drawback then, you ask? The drawback is that the limited number of nodes makes the platform less decentralized than most of the DeFi platforms out there.

A necessary tradeoff, but surely one that the purists aren’t happy about.

But I leave it on you to decide if you’re fine with it or not. Because if you are fine with it, you have a world of interesting solutions waiting for you!