How to Generate a New Key Pair in Anchor

To get started, users can download the latest version from the friendly Anchor homepage or directly from the Anchor Github repository. 

This guide was specifically designed with Anchor version 1.0.4 but the same steps still apply to the  current version of Anchor.

• 1st step: Click on “Tools”

• Click on “Manage Keys”

Click “Generate Key Pairs”

If you are using a fresh install of Anchor, it will ask you to chose a password. 

• Choose your password and confirm it

If your Anchor is already password protected, proceed to the next step.

• Click “Generate Key Pairs”

 

VERY IMPORTANT STEP 6: SAVE YOUR PRIVATE KEYS. 

There are many ways you can save your keys, such as:

• “Save Keys to Wallet” will save the keys inside Anchor. This is recommended for everyone. Remember to backup your Anchor
  wallet if this is the only place you choose to save your keys.
• “Copy to clipboard” allows you to copy and paste the private keys elsewhere on your computer, for example in a text file.
• Click on the “eye” which displays your private keys on your screen (careful!) and allows you to write down your private key on a piece of paper. Make sure to double and triple check that your correctly transcribed your key and then store it in a safe location. Anyone who finds this private key controls the account and all the assets in it.

  Always make sure to have 2 copies of your private keys. For example:

• Private keys saved inside Anchor wallet + private keys written down on a piece of paper
• Private keys saved inside Anchor wallet + private keys saved in a text file on a encrypted USB drive
• Private keys saved inside Anchor wallet + Anchor wallet backup file (with strong password) stored on an external storage drive or cloud server. 

Make sure to review your security practices at least once a year and remember to test your backups from time to time as well.

NEVER GIVE YOUR PRIVATE KEYS TO ANYONE!

If someone is creating an EOS account for you, you can safely share with them your PUBLIC KEYS. The powerful accounts and permission structure on EOS allows users to assign 2 different key pairs for their ‘owner’ and ‘active’ permissions, which users should do if they want to follow EOS account best practices.  Anchor conveniently generates 2x key pairs at once allowing you to share the 2x public keys with the EOS account creator. 

The new account will be controlled by the private keys of these 2x key pairs which is only known and controlled by the user and not the account creator.

If you chose to copy your keys to the clipboard and paste them into a text file, it should look like this: 

Choosing to save the password in Anchor will require you to re-enter your password to confirm that action.

This next window confirms that your new keys are saved within your Anchor wallet.

• Click the ‘x’ in the upper right corner to close the window

• Click “Home” (1).
• Click “Setup New Wallet” (2).

Users can now select which EOSIO chains they want to interact with.  In this example, we selected the EOS network. 

Optional: You can leave the default API Server or change it to one of your preference, such as “https://api.eosn.io” to use the EOS Nation API nodes.

• Select the checkbox to choose the EOS network (1)
• Click ‘Enable 1 blockchains’ (2)

• Click the ‘pin’ under the EOS icon (1)
• Click on the EOS icon (2) 

• Click “Automatically Detect”

Anchor wallet will now automatically detect all of the EOS accounts that are using the public keys currently saved in your Anchor wallet.

If your EOS account has not yet been created with the PUBLIC KEYS that you shared, you will see the following message (as seen in the above picture) “Failed to locate any additional accounts”. This is normal. Once the EOS account has been created, return to this window and click once more on “Automatically Detect”.

Note to dotGems artists  Return to this section of the guide once dotGems has created your account with the provided public key.

If created with your public keys, the EOS account will be found. 

• Check the box beside your account name (1).
• Click ‘Import Account(s)’ (2)

Congratulations! You have successfully generated a new key pair and can now control your EOS account through your Anchor wallet!

Note for new dotGems artists When dotGems creates new “.gem” premium EOS accounts for artists, we assign the artist’s public key to the “active” permission and a dotGems-controlled public key to the “owner” permission as a temporary backup.

Once the artist demonstrates control of the account by doing an on-chain transaction, we will replace the “owner” permission with the artist’s public key, giving them full control over their account. 

An example of an on-chain transaction could be a simple transfer of 0.0001 EOS to the “gem” account which can be accessed in the “Wallet” section of the Anchor wallet.