Just like we use a physical wallet to keep our useful possessions like cash and identity cards, we need digital wallets to interact with any blockchain of our choice. These kinds of wallets are called non-custodial wallets.
What this means is that you have complete access to the wallet and everything in it. In contrast with the wallets from centralized exchanges like Binance and FTX, they are not “completely yours”. Those are called custodial wallets. They are managed by the exchange providers.
Built for the Solana blockchain, one of the most used Layer 1 blockchain protocols because of its cheap gas fees and speed. After launching on mainnet in early 2020, Solana has seen an incredible increase in the number of active daily users.
Of course, with all of these new users, it’s important to have different choices when it comes to picking the right Solana Wallet for your needs.
With Glow Wallet, you get to keep your seed phrase yourself and can access it from another wallet provider. And if you already have a wallet and the wallet is not serving you properly in terms of its functionalities and your experience while using it, you can port to Glow and save yourself of unnecessary stress.
Using Glow
Click on the official website link from Glow: https://glow.app/download. Currently, there are two platforms supported by Glow – the Glow Wallet desktop browser extension and the Glow Wallet iOS application. On the page, you can select which of the platforms you want to install. We will be looking at these variants under two separate sections.
Desktop Extension
After downloading the extension, if you do not have a wallet beforehand, click on “Create New Wallet” and save your seed phrase. If you already have a wallet, you can just import it on the Glow app by just inputting your seed phrase.
Below is a display of your cryptocurrency holdings in the wallet I imported. To transfer tokens, click on the Send button and then select the token and the amount to transfer to another wallet address.
With Glow wallet, you can easily swap your Solana-SPL token into any other token of your choice.
By clicking on the middle button, you can see the historical records of what has been transacted on the wallet.
All the personalization settings you need, ranging from wallet security to changing of network configuration is done here. It’s pretty impressive to see how many features they have packed into this wallet. Did I mention Glow supports NFTs as well?
If you swipe from the Coins to the NFTs section, all your NFTs will be displayed.
You can transfer your NFT quickly by clicking the “Send NFT” button. One new feature in Glow is that you can list your NFTs on Magic Eden without having to go the Magic Eden website.
Glow makes it simple to list your NFTs without having to leave the app. In just a few taps, I was able to list this NFT for 1000 SOL on Magic Eden! It took a total of 15 seconds from start to finish, and I never had to open up any new tabs or log in anywhere else.
This is what Web3 is all about, and you can tell just by using the app that the Glow team understands the core principals behind Web3. Everything about the app is congruent with decentralization and self custody. The Magic Eden integration is just one example and we expect that they will continue to add more integrations as time goes by.
Glow Wallet for iOS
For iPhone users, Follow the normal process for creating a new wallet or importing your seed phrase for existing wallet as explained above. Start by heading over to the iOS Appstore and download the official Glow app.
After you have done the setup, you will get a success message like “Wallet Imported” or “Wallet Created”.
The first page as shown below is the homepage where your assets are displayed. (Don’t mind my balance from the wallet).
I went to the middle explore section and selected the Serum coin so you have a sneak peak of the great user-interface. From how you swipe or toggle back and forth between the sections of the app and how information gets displayed, the Glow Wallet might easily grab the top spot for the best design and as an application with the best user experience.
Seriously, just look how clean this looks:
Everything is easy on the eyes, with pleasant colors and just enough data to be useful but not overwhelming! Excellent design choices all around.
The last section is the Activity page. This is where you see the record of your past transactions.
The images used in explaining the iOS sections do not really do justice to how the application works, looks and feels when used, so, here is a short clip showing a little bit of details.