<center>![w1.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmVFZtEFADXiNmJ95AhtjyxHmehzYxpaX8bwfDdHcixC4m/w1.png)</center>
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Ethereum is rising like a star in the crypto world. Chances are that you probably own ETH or should own if you want to get into the ICO world. If you are holding your ETH in an exchange then you are exposing it to massive risk, so it's not recommended, at all to hold large amounts of ETH in an exchange, unless you are trading it.

Best way is to just hold it in your own personal wallet, where `YOU CONTROL THE PRIVATE KEY`, otherwise you don't own it. If you are a pro you can download the Mist/Geth wallet from the official website, and verify it, which is what I did, otherwise there is a more easy method, which is also pretty safe, namely [MyEtherWallet](https://www.myetherwallet.com/).

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Go to [MyEtherWallet.com](https://www.myetherwallet.com/) and create your wallet there:

![M1.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmNcQq2xaL3Dsmp3nCoJ8874Ao253hdshEzHnSr9pDrAnp/M1.png)

Make sure the website is `https://www.myetherwallet.com/` verified by Amazon, and bookmark it. You don't want to end up in a phishing website!

Then you can just create a wallet there easily, just enter a password there, it will create your wallet file, you download that and save it, back it up, and optionally back up the private key too (securely). It's extremely easy, a full wallet can be created in 1 minute, clear instructions are there on the website, eventually [read the FAQ if you encounter some issues](https://myetherwallet.groovehq.com/help_center).

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# Offline

However I would not do this, since if you are planning to store larger amounts, this website can also be hacked, malware injected in it, who knows? So it's imperative for the wallet to be generated locally, preferably on an offline computer.

MyEtherWallet is so cool, that you can actually run it offline, where the cryptographic signing operations will all be done offline, hence the `Send Offline` tab, and then you just go to the website and broadcast the transaction manually.

This is the safe method to do it, so what you want to do is to just download this website/wallet on your computer. Go to the lower-right corner of the website and you will see `Github: MyEtherWallet v3 `, go there, it will send you to the github page of the wallet:

<center>![m2.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmdHxGBA2GfK6SwvqGuWnxZY3QyHSwCjicaCydFtiSzECx/m2.png)</center>

<center>https://github.com/kvhnuke/etherwallet</center>

Make sure this is the real link not a phishing link, Github is verified by DigiCert Inc., then just download the latest release which apparently now is  v3.9.8 :

<center>https://github.com/kvhnuke/etherwallet/releases/tag/v3.9.8</center>

* Then verify the download, for the zip file `dist-v3.9.8.zip`, the SHA256 hash is:
`17b2dced26a96e3921cc8421a025ee4635853f0873e5c0c996b6d4cee949cb5c`

* You can check the hash on Linux opening the terminal in the same folder and entering: `sha256sum dist-v3.9.8.zip`
* On Windows or other OS-es use this website to verify it: http://onlinemd5.com

**`But I really not recommend using Windows if you are serious about the safety of your money!`**

Make sure your SHA256 hash output matches mine, above. If all is ok, then your wallet is genuine, then you can just either copy the wallet to a safe offline computer, or generate the wallet locally, even online. The offline version is safer.

* The difference between using the wallet directly from the myetherwallet.com website vs using it locally, but online is that if the wallet is used locally, then no information is sent over to the website, whereas otherwise who knows what kind of bug could exist that could leak private keys. All websites promise that the private key is never sent over, but there could be a bug that could do that. Or the website could be hacked, at which point the code can be switched with a malicious one, and you would be giving out all your money to a hacker. So it's very very important to generate and use the wallet locally from the downloaded file.

* To use the wallet just unpack the `.zip` file and start `index.html`, it's the same as the website version, but this one runs locally.

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That's it, now you have your ETH wallet safe and easy, under 1 minute probably, just make sure your computer stays safe and you have bakcups! Good luck!

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**Sources:**
* Courtesy of MyEtherWallet LLC with [MIT License](http://www.opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
* Courtesy of By Ethereum Foundation [CC BY 3.0](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), via Wikimedia Commons

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