Get Test-Net Ether
If you have never worked with blockchains before, then the first confusing this you will encounter is: There is not one blockchain, but many different blockchains. I am talking about Ethereum Blockchains.
Itās like having different databases. But only one is considered the āMainā Database, or āMainnetā.
There are also other blockchains, for testing different aspects. Each of those have usually a name and a specific network and chain id. There is no central list of them, because everyone can open their own blockchain, but hereās a good overviewā.
In this tutorial, we will use either Ropsten or Gƶrli to get Test-Ether and start a transaction.
Get Gƶrli Test-Ether
Switch the network to Goerli.
Attention here: some of the pictures have āRopstenā selected, but the Ropsten test-network had a couple of hiccups, so I recommend Goerli instead!
Sometimes Faucets donāt work as expected. Unfortunately there is nothing much that I can do about it. It is time intensive to run a faucet and usually it doesnāt pay off economically. Here is a list of Faucets in case the one here doesnāt work, you can probably switch to another one:
My current go-to Faucet I really like for all networks: https://faucet.paradigm.xyzā
Ropsten: https://faucet.metamask.ioā
Rinkeby: https://faucet.rinkeby.ioā https://www.rinkebyfaucet.comā https://app.mycrypto.com/faucetā https://faucets.chain.link/rinkebyā
Kovan: https://gitter.im/kovan-testnet/faucetā basically post your eth address in the gitter chat
Gƶrli: https://goerli-faucet.slock.it/index.htmlā https://faucet.goerli.mudit.blogā
Another āspecial editionā Faucet is maintained by Keir āBlockchain-Gandalfā Finlow-Bates, who also wrote a great book about Blockchains. He tries to maintain it as good as possible and it outputs Ropsten Ether: https://moonborrow.comā
Kintsugi (Eth2.0): https://kintsugi.themerge.devā
Hit āBUYā
Click on āGet Etherā
A new website should open up. Thatās the faucet to get Ether. A Faucet is like a āget free Etherā ā site. The Ethers are having no value, they are running under a ātestā Blockchain, but they are great for getting your feet wet with transactions and how Wallets work.
Copy your Address from MetaMask by clicking directly on the address:
Paste it into the Goerli Faucet Value Field and hit āIām not a robotā and āRequest 0.05 GĆETHā
Wait until the popup appearsā¦
Donāt click the link of the transaction, most likely it will not really work anyways. Letās track our Incoming Transaction in the next step!