Create Your First Wallet

Overview

You now know what XRP and the XRP Ledger are. Time to get your hands on it. In this module you'll create your very own wallet — your personal doorway to the XRP Ledger — using a free, trusted app called Xaman.

Don't worry: there's no coding, nothing to build, and nothing to buy. By the end you'll have a real wallet on your phone, you'll understand the one secret you must protect, and you'll know how to find your "address" so people can send you funds. Think of this as the day you open your account and get your card — except you hold the keys, and nobody can lock you out.

What a wallet really is

The word "wallet" is a little misleading. Your XRP doesn't actually sit inside an app the way cash sits in a leather wallet. Remember from the last module: the XRP Ledger is a giant shared notebook that records who owns what. Your wallet is simply the key that proves a particular line in that notebook belongs to you — and the app that lets you use it.

So a wallet is really two things working together:

• A public address — like your email address or a bank account number. You can hand it to anyone who wants to send you XRP. Sharing it is completely safe.
• A secret key (also called your seed or recovery phrase) — like the password and PIN to your account, rolled into one. Anyone who has it can move your money. You never share this with anyone, ever.

That's the whole idea. The public address is for receiving; the secret key is for spending — and for proving the account is yours.

Why Xaman, and "your keys, your crypto"

There are many wallet apps, but we'll use Xaman (you may see it called by its old name, Xumm — same app). It's a free mobile app, made specifically for the XRP Ledger, available on both iPhone and Android. It's been running for years with a strong security track record and independent audits.

Xaman is what's called a self-custodial wallet. That phrase matters, so here's the plain-language version. With a normal bank — or with a crypto exchange — they hold your money and you trust them to give it back. With a self-custodial wallet, you hold the keys directly, right on your phone. Nobody can freeze your account, and no company sits between you and your funds.

The community sums it up as "your keys, your crypto." It's freeing — but it also means there's no "forgot my password" button and no help desk that can reset things for you. That's exactly why the next step is the most important one in this whole course.

Creating your wallet, step by step

Grab your phone and follow along. The whole thing takes a few minutes.

1. Install the app. Open the App Store (iPhone) or Google Play (Android) and search for Xaman. Download and open it. Always install from the official store to be sure you have the genuine app.
2. Start a new account. Choose the option to create a brand-new wallet (not "import an existing one"). Xaman generates a fresh account for you on the XRP Ledger.
3. Set a passcode and biometrics. You'll create a passcode and can turn on fingerprint or Face ID. This protects the app on your device — like the PIN that unlocks your phone.
4. Save your secret recovery key. Xaman will show you your secret — the words or numbers that can restore your wallet. This is the single most important moment. We'll cover exactly how to handle it next.
5. Confirm and finish. Xaman asks you to confirm your secret to prove you wrote it down. Once that's done, your wallet is live.

That's it — you now have a real account on the XRP Ledger.

Protecting your secret key (read this twice)

Here's the one rule that matters more than anything else: whoever holds your secret key controls your money. There's no bank to call, no fraud department, no undo. So treat that key like the deed to your house.

A few simple habits keep you safe:

• Write it down on paper. The safest place for your secret is offline. Copy it carefully onto paper and store that paper somewhere safe — ideally make a second copy kept in a different location.
• Don't store it where the internet can reach it. Avoid photographing it, emailing it, putting it in your notes app, or saving it to the cloud. Anything connected can, in theory, be stolen.
• Never share it — with anyone. No legitimate person, support agent, or "giveaway" will ever need your secret. Anyone who asks for it is trying to rob you. A real support team only ever needs your public address.
• If you lose it, it's gone. Without the secret, even you can't recover the wallet. With it, anyone can. That's the trade-off that comes with being your own bank.

If this feels a little scary, that's healthy — it means you understand what's at stake. Handle the secret well once, and you're set.

Finding and sharing your r-address

Now the friendly part. Your public address on the XRP Ledger always starts with the letter r — so people call it your r-address. It looks like a long jumble of letters and numbers, something like rPT1Sjq2YGrBMTttX4GZHjKu9dyfzbpAYe.

This is the part you want to share. It's how anyone sends you XRP — the same way you'd give someone your account number to receive a transfer. Inside Xaman, open your account and you'll find your address displayed, usually with a handy QR code and a "copy" or "share" button. The QR code is just your address as a scannable square, so someone can point their camera at it instead of typing it out.

To be crystal clear about the difference:

• Your r-address (starts with r) — share freely. It can only be used to send you funds, never to take them.
• Your secret key — never share. It controls everything.

Copy your r-address now. You'll use it in the assignment below, and it's the safe thing to give anyone who asks "where do I send it?"

Check

You're done when you have the Xaman app installed, a brand-new wallet created, your secret recovery key written down somewhere safe and offline, and you can comfortably find your public r-address inside the app.

For your artifact, share your r-address (the one starting with r) as proof you created a wallet. Double-check you're sharing the public address — never your secret recovery key. If you can also explain, in a sentence, why the r-address is safe to share but the secret never is, you've truly got it.