For ERC20 eMAID on the Ethereum network look: here
*Update 22.12.2023
Native segwit (bc1) addresses are not supported anywhere, do not send MAID to them.
Addresses starting with 3 work, but only if they are generated on a Trezor hardware device.
Hello friends,
This guide provides information on how to buy and move your MAID from an exchange.
Of course, you can buy and hold the MAID on the exchange, but then they are not yours! The normal thing, the responsible thing is that you move them to your wallet.
Why?
We (and the entire crypto world) have a very bad history with the centralized exchanges (CEX):
- Bittrex - closed, how much MAID remained there? over 7 million at the moment
- Coinspot - delist MAID, how much MAID remained there? Unknown
- MasterXchange - closed, how much MAID remained there? Unknown (do you remember that we paid them 150 MAID withdraw fee?)
- Cryptopia - hacked, how much MAID was stolen there? Unknown (I lost “only” a few thousand…)
- Bitker - stole MAID from the MaidSafe company, how much? around 250 000 MAID
- Poloniex - delist MAID, how much MAID remained there? Over 10 000 000 MAID! (and let’s not forget before that they changed the fees from 10 MAID to 80 MAID!)
- Chainrift - closed, how much MAID remained there? Unknown
- Open Ledger DEX - (exit scam), how much MAID remained there? 551 035 MAID
- Altilly - exit scam, how much MAID was stolen there? Unknown
With this brief introduction, here’s the guide:
Initial requirements
You must have Bitcoin and an account in exchange.
There are currently 1 exchange on which to buy MAID - HitBTC, but it is not recommended because of the high withdrawal fee over 800 MAID and numerous complaints about it. I recommend using the ERC20 eMAID on the Ethereum network, look: here
HowTo: Use a hardware or software wallet
You can send your coins to a hardware or software wallet.
Before we go on let’s explain what we do here. Your MAID is in an address on the Bitcoin blockchain. The exchange actually has only the private key to this address. So what we are doing here is to explain how you can move your coins to a new address for which only you have the private key. Whoever has the private key can move the coins on the blockchain.
1. How to send MAID to a hardware wallet
The only hardware wallet that allows you to work directly with MAID to date is Trezor.
Important! if you have a Ledger you can also send MAID to it but you will then need to move the private keys outside to be able to send MAID from the Ledger to an external address.
If you have a Trezor, simply copy the bitcoin address from “Receive Bitcoin (BTC)” tab and send the MAID from an exchange to that address. Bitcoin and MAID use the same address!
Important! do NOT use “Native SegWit account” (address starts with “bc1”)
only use SegWit account (address starts with “3” ) and “Legacy account” (address starts with “1”) in http://wallet.trezor.io to later be able to send MAID using https://trezor.github.io/omni-trezor/
If you do not have a Trezor you can buy from this affiliate link and you will help with the marketing of the SAFE network*: https://affil.trezor.io/aff_c?offer_id=135&aff_id=3930
*All affiliate revenue will go directly to promote the network.
To protect the connection port of your Trezor from dust and distortion: use micro usb Magnet USB Adapter Plugs - https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32887645165.html
1.1 How can you later send MAID from that address?
- Go to https://trezor.github.io/omni-trezor/ and click connect to Trezor
- Click “Allow once for this session”
- Select the Bitcoin account in which is your MAID
- click “Select Address”
- To send MAID enter the number you want to send and a Receiving Address. Click Submit
- Sign and Send !!!Very important - check on the Trezor screen that what you have entered on your computer is what was sent to the Trezor. You may have a virus that changes addresses!!!
- If you see this error, then you do not have enough bitcoin to send the transaction. The solution is to send enough Bitcoin to the address (for a transaction, a minimum of 12000 satoshis as of 01/10/2020)
1.2 How to send MAID to a hardware wallet for second, third and n-th time
The hardware wallet is set to show you a new fresh address each time you click on “Receive Bitcoin (BTC)” tab, but if you click on “Show previous addresses” you will see that all your old addresses you used are there:
If you want to send money a second time to the Trezor wallet you can:
- use the same address as the previous time
- use a new address
The advantage of using the same address is that it will be easier to keep track of all your MAID. You can use for this https://omniexplorer.info/ and just bookmark your address page, to visit it every time you want to make sure your MAID is in a safe place 
For example see : Omni Explorer - The block explorer for Omni Token, Tether, USDT, MaidSafe and Omni Layer Tokens / Cryptocurrencies
if you have a problem with the latest Trezor firmware, here is the solution:
-
Open Electrum (v4.1.1.)
-
Create new wallet
-
Use your hardware device
-
Choose legacy (p2pkh)
-
Go to “Tools” menu
-
Open the “Preferences” dialog
-
Switch to the “Transactions” tab
-
Uncheck the option “Use change addresses”
-
Enabled the tab for addresses in the “View” menu
-
Select the address where the MAID tokens are located
-
Right-clicking on the address and choose “Spend from” in the menu
-
Go to the Send tab
-
In the “Pay to” put your OP_RETURN data generated at OMNI Trezor
-
Put a comma after the omni data and 0 -
example: OP_RETURN YourOmniDataFromTrezor.Github.io, 0 -
On a new line, enter the address to which you are sending MAID
-
Put a comma after the recipient address and 0.00000546 BTC
example: 1*****theRecipientAddress, 0.00000546
- Note that the recipient must be a 1… or a 3… address, bech32 addresses starting with “bc1” are not supported by the Omni protocol
2. How to send MAID to a software wallet
There are two options. Hot Wallet and Cold Wallet. A hot wallet is a less secure option, a cold wallet is a more secure option.
2.1 Hot Wallet
This option is the most insecure, I recommend that you make a cold wallet.
- Open https://www.omniwallet.org/
- Click Create Wallet
- Don’t Forget Your Password! Write it offline in a safe place!
WARNING: Forgotten passwords are UNRECOVERABLE and can result in LOSS of ALL of your coins!
Before we continue, let’s protect your account as much as possible.
- Go to My Account
- Click on Setup/Enable a MultiFactor Authentication (MFA) Device
- To set up your account to require MFA device scan the QR code from the site or manually enter the secret from the site into your MFA Device/Software (Google Authenticator, Authy, etc…)
- Don’t Forget Your Wallet ID! Write it offline in a safe place!
WARNING: Losing your Wallet ID is UNRECOVERABLE and can result in LOSS of ALL of your coins!
- MAKE SURE YOU BACK UP THE PRIVATE KEYS FROM OMNIWALLET
- Go to My Wallet / Overview / Wallet Options / Backup
- Enter your password / click on the checkbox / Validate
- Save the .json file to your computer. Keep it, it contains the private keys for all your addresses - if omniwallet service goes down you will also lose your money if you don’t have it.
- When you are ready, go to My Wallet
- Click My Addresses
- Copy the Address
- Log In to Đ° exchange to send the money to your Address
- For Bittrex Go to Balances / Deposits & Withdrawals / Select MAID / Click Withdraw / Paste the address you copy from Omniwallet in the address field ( Check it out! You may have a virus that changes address when copying/pasting!!! So check it carefully by going back to Omniwallet and make sure that the address is the same ).
2.2 Cold Wallet
Here is the real magic. After the hardware wallet, this is the second safest option.
DO NOT USE THE bitaddress.org SITE ONLINE AND ALWAYS BE OFFLINE WHEN YOU GENERATE A WALLET!
You’ll need 2 USB memory sticks. On the first one, you will save Linux Mint. On the second one, you will save the software for creating a bitcoin address.
- Go to https://linuxmint.com/download.php and download Cinnamon 32-bit or 64-bit.
- Make a bootable USB stick with Etcher (download it from here https://www.balena.io/etcher/ )
- Go to https://github.com/pointbiz/bitaddress.org
Click Clone or download / Download ZIP
- Save it on the second USB stick
- Shut down your computer. Unplug the internet cable from your LAN card or disable WiFi.
- Insert the first USB stick (the one with Linux on it) on your computer. Start your computer and boot it from the USB drive.
- You want to use only the live Linux version without installing it! So wait for it to start automatically or press Start Linux Mint.
- Insert the second USB stick. Extract the bitaddress.org-master.zip
- Select bitaddress.org.html, click right button → Open With → Other Application → FireFox
- Move your mouse until a bitcoin address is generated.
- If you have a printer now is the time to turn it on and print the generated address. If not you will need to write down on a piece of paper the Private Key ( Do not save it on the memory stick! Any device that can be placed on a computer with access to the Internet is vulnerable! )
- Be sure not to print on a printer that keeps a history of what was printed (eg most office printers do keep history so do not print on those printers)
- Make at least 3 copies of the Private Key to keep in different places. For added security, cut the copies in half and store each piece at a different location.
- Now is the time to record your public Bitcoin Address. It can be stored on a flash drive for ease. It’s public, so no problem.
- Create New Document → Empty Document → Display → Copy/Paste the public Bitcoin Address and safe the file on the second flash drive.
- Restart your computer and remove the first flash drive.
- Log in to your operating system and log In to Đ° exchange to send the money to the Address you save on the second flash drive.
- For Bittrex Go to Balances / Deposits & Withdrawals / Select MAID / Click Withdraw / Past the address you copy from the second flash drive in the address field ( Check it out! You may have a virus that changes address when copying/pasting!!! So check it carefully by going back to the second flash drive and make sure that the address is the same ).
Bonus tips:
- send a small amount of BTC to the new address for when you wish to move the coins back to an exchange / transform to SafeCoin address.
- check if your downloads from bitaddress and Mint are genuine:
- Open https://github.com/pointbiz/bitaddress.org/blob/master/CHANGELOG.txt and look at the SHA256 sum:
- Open PowerShell in the folder where you downloaded and extracted the file bitaddress.org-master.zip (HOLD shift button and right click with the mouse to see the powershell option)
- Enter the command
Get-FileHashand the path to the file bitaddress.org.html (you can select and drag it to the PowerShell console)
- Compare the SHA256 sum from 1. with what you see in the PowerShell console. They must be the same!
Final tip:
- If you want to be uber magical you can use the power of cryptography and encrypt the private key of your bitcoin address:
- Open https://openlibrary.org/ and select a random book
- Go to a random page.
- Look for the first character of your Bitcoin key on the page (for example, if your key is L45bAP85f*****, look for the letter L.)
- Record the page number, line number, and character number. (for example, page 157, line 11, character number 1 = [157_11_1_u] (u=uppercase)):
- For each character from the private key do the same
- The end result is [157_11_1_u]+[n]+[n]+…
- You can also store this result online, just remember which book and which edition of the book you used to encrypt it
If you have questions it is better to ask than to lose your money
If you have questions it is better to ask than to lose your money
- dimitar@safenetwork.bg
- Telegram Telegram: Contact @Dimitar_Autonomi_Bulgaria
before eddy became totally lazy he made this…
- I did the transaction from chainrift - according to omniexplorer.info I have 3 confirmations for my total amount of maidsafe. My question is this total stored as maidsafe in my cold wallet or is it in Bitcoin? I know it’s a dumb question but it will help me sleep!
