How to Use Trust Wallet for Beginners (2026 Tutorial)

[00:01] that's used by over 200 million people worldwide. And if you're looking to take control of your digital assets without buying a hardware wallet, this is one of video, I'm going to show you how to create a wallet from scratch, how to

[00:16] generate and store your secret phrase, how to send and receive cryptocurrencies, the in-app features on Trust Wallet, and more. Now, I've been covering crypto wallets and exchanges here on YouTube and on my blog,

[00:30] investing simple.com, for close to a decade now, and I've even become an angel investor in a crypto startup called Mesh Pay, building the first global crypto payments network. So, I'll be sharing all of that experience here

[00:43] with you in this video. And all that I ask in return is that you drop a like and subscribe. [music] With that said, guys, let's jump into my phone now and go through everything together step-by-step, and feel free to use the

[00:55] table of contents down below to skip ahead. All right, guys, so the very downloading Trust Wallet in the App Store or on an Android device. So, we're click here on the search button, and we're going to type in Trust, and then

[01:10] we should see Trust Wallet populate here at the top. So, we'll go ahead and select that. And then if we scroll down here, we can see the Trust Wallet app. So, we're going to go ahead and click into that. And then since I've already

[01:22] click on this cloud button, but yours will likely just be a download button we're going to click here on the blue open button, and that's going to navigate us over to the Trust Wallet app. And we have two options here. We

[01:37] can either create a new wallet or choose I already have a wallet. Now, we're going to be creating a brand new wallet from scratch, but let's say for example, you follow these steps, create a wallet, generate your secret phrase, and then

[01:50] you switch phones down the line. At that point, you would actually choose I already have a wallet and just input that secret phrase and then you would be able to import your existing wallet. So, that's how you would recover your wallet

[02:03] in the future if you lost your phone, changed phones, got logged out, or anything like that. But for now, we're going to click here on create a new wallet and the first thing it's going to have us do is create a passcode. So, go

[02:16] ahead and set this now. Now, once you confirm the passcode, it's going to have you secure your wallet with Face ID and you can either enable this or skip this step for now. I'm going to enable Face ID and click here on allow. And then you

[02:29] can either enable notifications or click on skip I'll do this later. And just wallet is ready. But you might be wondering, wait a second, where is my secret recovery phrase and why didn't I have to use any login information? Well,

[02:45] for starters, there's not going to be any personal information that ties this wallet to you because crypto wallets do not use your personal identity. Instead, they're going to use a secret recovery phrase. But by default, the wallet isn't

[02:59] end and we actually have to access that keep this in the back of your mind for now. The next thing it's going to say here is to fund your wallet, but I'm just going to click on skip for now. And

[03:12] that's going to bring us here to the homepage of the Trust Wallet app. Now, is just the different options for purchasing cryptocurrency within Trust Wallet. So, we're going to click here on this green buy button and we can see

[03:26] here that by default it's saying, "Hey, $250 in US dollar of purchasing Bitcoin and paying here with Apple Pay." But if we click on this box here, it's going to show us different options for how we pay. So, you can use Apple Pay, you can

[03:40] use a card, you can use PayPal, and you can also use other options listed here. But not only do you have multiple payment options, you also have multiple providers available. So, in the top right here next to Paywith, we see a

[03:53] purple with two white circles. If we click on that, we can see that right now we've chosen MoonPay to purchase Bitcoin, but there's also Mercury Ramp Network, Alchemy Pay, and these different providers available. So, you

[04:07] cryptocurrencies directly through the wallet because it's not an exchange, but you can partner with these providers and it will basically prompt you to create an account, and then when you make a

[04:19] purchase, it's going to automatically deposit that over to your Trust Wallet. cryptocurrencies, for example, if we change this from Bitcoin to Solana, it's going to be a different list of providers most likely. In this case, it

[04:34] was the same, but sometimes depending on the cryptocurrency, you'll see different providers there listed. So, if you are purchasing crypto within the Trust Wallet app, I would recommend going into this and looking at your provider and

[04:47] just making sure that you see that best quote listed below, whichever one you're using, because that would indicate that you're getting the best available price. But that's the basics on purchasing cryptocurrencies within the Trust Wallet

[04:59] instead is actually sending cryptocurrencies over from my Coinbase exchange account and using this as a self-custody wallet and not necessarily purchasing crypto through the app. But before we do that, I want to show you

[05:14] how to locate your secret phrase and then how to secure this in a safe location. So, from the main home page, you're going to click here where it says main wallet, and then underneath that, we see two green options. We can either

[05:27] back up manually or back up to the iCloud. Now, I'm going to show you the manual backup method because that's what most people are looking for when it comes to self-custody, but depending on how safe you are with online information

[05:40] or offline information, and if you're the type of person who loses things and forgets your password, you may decide to just use the iCloud backup, which wouldn't necessarily be as safe as the manual, but depending on your habits, it

[05:54] might actually be safer if you don't trust yourself to maintain a physical secret phrase that you then put in a fireproof box or something like that. So, we'll talk about this a little bit as we go here, but when you do take on

[06:07] crypto self-custody, you yourself become the custodian of your digital assets and the custodian of your secret phrase, which means you are the last stop there basically. So, if you lose that phrase, if you put it somewhere and then

[06:21] somebody finds it, they can hack your wallet. So, some people want that responsibility, others say, "No, thank you. I would rather, you know, trust iCloud or different options available." So, I just wanted to make that point

[06:33] clear. But, what we're going to do is click here on back up manually, and now we have to verify the passcode, or if you have Face ID, it's just going to check your Face ID. At this point, there are some important notices. It says,

[06:46] "For your eyes only, this secret phrase unlocks your wallet." And you have to check these boxes. Number one, Trust Wallet does not have access to this key. So, if you lose it, the only way to regain access is through the app, but if

[07:00] phones or something like that, you're never going to access this phrase again. And the second thing it says, "Do not save this in any digital form, write it on paper and store it securely." So, no, the notes on your phone are not going to

[07:14] be good enough because if anybody accessed your phone, they could open up those notes, copy that phrase, download the app, and at the beginning recover would have access to your wallet, and they can zip off the funds and do

[07:28] we're going to check that lower box and click here on continue, and now it's showing us our manual backup phrase. But, what you would want to do at this point is write this down on an index card or possibly even something more

[07:42] secure like a titanium wallet for example depending on how much cryptocurrency you are storing here. But go ahead and record this securely and it's going to ask you for words in a minute here. So you do need to prove

[07:55] that you have written this down. So take some time to complete that step now. All this down on a piece of paper or going to click on the continue button and now you have to confirm specific

[08:08] words that you wrote down proving that you have in fact retained this information somewhere. And it also makes this rather dummy proof because it doesn't even give you the option to copy the words and if you try to screenshot

[08:20] it, it's actually going to block you from that. So they kind of dummy proof storing this in a digital form because of just how dangerous that can be. But word choice now and then we'll click on the confirm button together. And then

[08:35] once you click here on confirm, it has now activated the wallet so we can see Manuel is now active. So just like that we generated our secret phrase and now if you wanted to put this on a different device, you would simply take that 12

[08:50] word phrase, start from scratch and then click on I already have a wallet, type in those 12 words and just like that you would be synced up with the exact same crypto wallet. So the next thing you probably want to know about is how to

[09:03] add cryptocurrencies to the home page because if we scroll down right now, we're not going to see any crypto listed and we either have the option to fund the account or receive crypto and you might want to just add a crypto to this

[09:16] list before bringing it over from a separate exchange for example. So to do that, you're going to click on the circle line icon to the right of this clock and then you're going to select manage crypto and this is where you can

[09:29] enable or disable different cryptocurrencies to display on your home page. So we're going to bring over some Solana because it's often very quick and very cheap. So, we can either scroll through this list or search for it, and

[09:42] you can also go network by network and select a network and then see available network tokens. So, there's Solana there. We're going to choose Solana and toggle that on. And now, if I click on the back button, it's going to be listed

[09:56] there under crypto. We can also click on it and keep track of this digital asset you can go ahead and add whatever cryptocurrencies you want. And if you're using a smaller token that's not listed here, you would click on the line and

[10:11] circle again, and then you would click on manage crypto one more time, and then click on the plus button, and this is where you could actually paste in the contract address, the name, etc. Just be careful with very small cap altcoins and

[10:24] the risks and scams that are associated with them. So, that's not a recommendation. It's just showing you where you would locate that in the app. it as Solana, and that's what we're going to be bringing over from my

[10:36] Coinbase exchange account. Now, in order to send cryptocurrency over to your Trust Wallet, you are going to need to use a crypto exchange, which is basically a place to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. Now, yes, you can just

[10:50] leave your cryptocurrencies where you buy them, but that puts the exchange in control of your digital assets instead of you being in control of them. So, the like Trust Wallet is that you then become the person holding on to that

[11:04] secret phrase, and you are the true custodian of that cryptocurrency. If you just use the exchange, they actually hold on to that secret phrase. So, if you want to learn more about different crypto exchanges, I'll put my video for

[11:18] that in the corner ranking the best ones for 2026. But we're just going to be using Coinbase here since that's the exchange that I'm personally using the most often. But what we're going to do to start is click here on Solana, and we

[11:30] have to locate our receiving address to basically send the cryptocurrency over. So, on this page here, we're going to click on the receive button, and now we have our SOL wallet address, and we're going to click on the copy button, and

[11:45] it shows that the address has now been copied. At this point, we're going to open up my Coinbase app. So, if I click here on crypto, we're now going to see I have 2474 in available Solana. If I

[11:57] click here on that, we can see my balance is going to be listed, and we have the option to transfer. So, if we click on transfer, we're going to click on send crypto, and then I can click on allow paste, and it's going to say it's

[12:10] pasting from the Trust Wallet app. That's really helpful, that way I know exactly what's being pasted over. I can sort of validate that it's correct. And have to turn off my screen recording and just take screenshots, as they don't

[12:23] allow you to record this section of the app. On this page here, you're going to select paste from clipboard at the very top, and then on the next screen below the search bar, you will select the address one more time. And then, on this

[12:35] the dollar amount you're looking to send over. So, in this case, we're going to send $20 worth of SOL over. We're going to click here on the preview button, and then it says it's going to send in about 22 seconds, and it includes a 1-cent

[12:49] network fee. If everything looks good, we'll click on the send now button. Now, down, you'll see we have a history section, and if we click on that, it mentions that we have received $20 of SOL, and the transaction has completed.

[13:04] So, even though it hasn't reflected yet in our wallet balance, it has come over, and it should update in a very short period of time. But for now, I'm going to show you some different sections of the Trust Wallet app. So, if we scroll

[13:16] down, there's going to be the earn section. If we click on this arrow, these are going to be opportunities to stake cryptocurrencies and earn rewards in the process. Currently, I don't have anything staked, but you can see there

[13:28] are stablecoin earning options here to earn different APYs on various stablecoins. There are token options here for Ethereum, BNB, and SOL. We'll click on the view all here to see all of these native staking options. So, if

[13:42] you're comfortable with staking and understand the different risks involved there, you can find a lot of different cryptocurrencies that you can stake here through the Trust Wallet app. We're just going to back out of this for now, and

[13:54] then navigate back to the home page. To the right of crypto, you'll see watchlist. So, if you wanted to build a custom watchlist for cryptocurrencies you're keeping track of, you can do that here. There's also an NFT section if you

[14:07] want to bring your NFTs over to the Trust Wallet app. To the right of the home button is going to be the trending tab, where you can look at hot tokens. You can see top gainers. Uh you have a separate section here for DeFi, meme

[14:20] coins, and different things like that. Of course, be careful with these smaller cap tokens. Um you also have the reward opportunities to earn rewards by completing various steps like following

[14:33] social media accounts, and you might see campaigns from time to time that show up in this section at the bottom. And then over here on the discover tab, this is where you're going to find dApps or decentralized applications, which you

[14:46] can basically connect your Trust Wallet app directly to. So, for example, PancakeSwap or Uniswap. This is often used to swap cryptocurrencies into smaller tokens that might not be available through the traditional

[15:00] conversion feature in the app. Um but again, just be careful with those smaller tokens. And now the balance has officially come over to the account, so we can see the 1998 listed there at the top. So, I can show you how you would

[15:13] convert tokens now using the app. So, you'd click here on this swap button, your SOL into all sorts of different tokens in the app. So, if I click on BNB, we're going to see a list of all of

[15:26] these different tokens that you could swap into, and it's going to be different depending on the network and what token you are looking at. But, if you wanted to swap over for different cryptocurrencies, you can do that right

[15:38] here within the app. All of these are going to be SOL network tokens, and you could swap over right here in Trust Wallet if you wanted to. Um but, we're just going to leave it as is for now, and we're not going to complete a swap,

[15:51] that feature. And then, if you're not seeing one listed there, you might need to leverage a decentralized app like I showed you to do the swap on PancakeSwap, Uniswap, or something like that. But, let's now talk about how to

[16:05] send cryptocurrency back over to an exchange. So, let's say for example, you have this SOL, and now you want to sell it and cash out to your bank account. Well, you're not going to be able to ever link a bank account to your Trust

[16:18] Wallet app because it's not tied to any of your personal information. So, in order to actually cash out, you would need to send that back over to an exchange account, sell it through the exchange, and then you would be able to

[16:30] transfer those dollars, or whatever the fiat currency is, back to your bank through all of the steps, but I will show you the basics. What you would do is start by navigating over to your exchange account and copying your wallet

[16:44] address for whatever you're looking to send over. In this case, it would be SOL, and then you would click on the send button on the home page, and then select whatever cryptocurrency you're looking to send, and then you would

[16:57] paste in the address here. I'm going to click on paste, and it's going to paste um it's whatever was pasted from the Trust Wallet address, and I think it was the same address that I copied from before, but you would paste it in here.

[17:12] looking to send over, and then you would go ahead and click here on the next button and it would allow you to send that cryptocurrency back from your Trust Wallet over to your cryptocurrency exchange. Since I wasn't able to show

[17:27] being blocked, I didn't want to go through all of that once again, but that's how you would then send it back to an exchange and then you could cash out. Now, one thing I do want to mention here is if you're having trouble sending

[17:40] here is if you're having trouble sending a cryptocurrency over to an exchange, it's probably because you don't have enough of the network token to cover the gas or transaction fees. If I click on this button here showing the dots and

[17:53] crypto, I just want to show you for example looking at BNB, all of these tokens listed below it are on the BNB smart chain. So, let's say you own one of these any random coin here for example, and then you have it in your

[18:08] Trust Wallet and you're looking to send that back over to your exchange. If transaction, it's probably because you don't have enough BNB in the Trust Wallet to cover the network fee. So, anytime you're using these different

[18:23] networks here like SOL, Bitcoin, Ethereum, you need to keep in mind that there is a network token and you'd need to have enough of that token in the transaction. So, if you're having trouble, that's probably what it is is

[18:37] that you don't have enough of the native network token to cover the gas or transaction fees required. So, for example with Solana, I could send that itself because it is the network token itself and I paid a 1-cent fee to send

[18:52] over from Coinbase to Trust Wallet. If I send it from Trust Wallet to a different exchange, there would be a similar amount fee that would have to be paid out of my balance. There you have it guys, that's a quick start guide here to

[19:04] the Trust Wallet app and how to take control of your digital assets through self-custody. If you made it to the end of the video guys, make sure you drop a already. You can click here to watch this next video I think you'll enjoy,

[19:17] this next video I think you'll enjoy, and I'll see you next time.