MetaMask – Tips and tricks when using the MetaMask wallet.

1. Adjust transaction fees

For every transaction you perform in MetaMask, you will need to pay a gas fee. You can easily customize the amount of gas you pay for each transaction. For example, sometimes you may want to pay more to expedite your transaction, while at other times, you may be willing to wait longer for a cheaper fee.

Whether your transaction succeeds or not, you still have to pay the fee because even if the transaction fails, validators still have to verify and process it, which also incurs a cost similar to a successful transaction.

Typically, users have to endure high transaction fees on Ethereum, so here are some ways to help you control transaction fees on this chain.

1.1. Adjusting Gas Limit on MetaMask

You can customize the gas fee for your transactions in the following ways:

When you start sending a transaction, after entering the amount of tokens you want to send, you will be redirected to the confirmation step displaying the total amount, including the gas fee. At this point, you can click on the “Market” icon to change the gas.

After that, you will have three different fee levels depending on whether you want your transaction to be processed slowly or quickly:

• “Low” pays a lower amount for gas and may require a longer waiting time.

• “Market” selects the fee based on the current market price.

• “Aggressive” executes the transaction quickly and pays a higher fee.

If the fee levels in the three options above still don’t meet your requirements, you can also choose “Advanced” to change the Gas limit. The Gas limit is the maximum amount of gas you are willing to pay for executing a transaction or EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) operation. The most suitable Gas limit is typically 21,000 gwei. If you set it lower than this threshold, the transaction is likely to fail.

If you want to reuse the settings you have adjusted, select the “Save these values… Mainnet network” checkbox. Then simply click “Save”.

• One important thing to note in order to avoid high gas fees is to limit transactions during peak hours when they are not essential.

1.2. Using the Ethereum Gas Price extension

The amount of gas you consume when performing a transaction is fixed and depends on the type of transaction. For example, a simple token transfer transaction has a Gas Limit of 21,000 gwei. However, the price per gas unit (Base fee) is not fixed and depends on supply and demand. If many people want their transactions confirmed, the gas price per unit will increase. Therefore, a transaction that should cost $1 in fees may cost $4 during high demand.

To make it easier for users, MetaMask automatically selects the gas price per unit for users. However, this price may not be optimized.

You can use Etherscan and go to the Gas Tracker section to check the prices, but it requires an additional tab to be opened. Instead, you can install the Ethereum Gas Price extension for your browser.

The extension tracks the average gas price paid in previous blocks for successful transactions and displays the recommended Base fee for the current transaction.

For example, in the screenshot below, the extension shows that the current Base fee is 8.4, but MetaMask is proposing 11.39 for your transaction. Based on this Base fee, you can manually adjust it down to 8.5. As a result, the transaction fee to be paid is lower than what MetaMask suggests.

Ethereum often experiences congestion, leading to expensive transactions. You can choose to use Layer 2 blockchains like Arbitrum, Optimism, and others to have lower gas fees and faster transaction completion times.

2. Canceling Transactions and Speeding up Transactions

There are cases when an issue occurs, and a transaction gets stuck or remains pending for a long time, and you want to cancel it. There are several ways to handle this situation.

2.1. Canceling Transactions

To cancel a transaction, simply click on “Cancel”. You can only cancel a transaction if it is still pending. Once a transaction is confirmed, it cannot be canceled.

2.2. Speeding up Transactions

You can speed up a transaction after you have accepted the proposed fee, and the network is ready to process your transaction. In some cases, when you need the transaction to be processed faster, you can choose to “Speed up” the transaction.

When you choose to speed up a transaction, it requires you to resend the same transaction with a higher gas fee, which can help accelerate the processing. When you speed up a transaction, you will see MetaMask display the new gas fee for the transaction to be processed faster.

At this step, some people might think that they have to pay an additional fee. However, because the process of speeding up the transaction uses the same nonce as the original transaction, you won’t need to pay gas fees twice.

3. Creating Contacts for Regular Transactions

MetaMask has a feature called “Contacts” that allows you to save frequently used wallet addresses, saving you time when performing transactions. This is a convenient and user-friendly feature, especially if you frequently send tokens to specific wallets. This feature helps you avoid entering wallet information incorrectly and prevents issues related to wallet impersonation and hacking.

To access this feature, click on the three-dot icon on the top right of the MetaMask screen, and then select “Settings.”

In Settings, select “Contacts.” This is where you will see the list of contacts you have added. To add a new contact, choose “Add contact.”

You need to provide two pieces of information: One is the Username, and the other is the Ethereum public address. After that, click on Save.

When you want to transact with this wallet in the future, you just need to enter the saved contact name.

4. Integrating with Etherscan

In the previous section, “Important Notes when using MetaMask,” I mentioned the risks of phishing and the potential damages it can cause to users if they are not careful. In this section, you can mitigate the risk of financial loss through some features provided by Etherscan.

4.1. Filtering out zero-value tokens

Recently, there have been numerous cases of phishing attacks using impersonated addresses. These addresses frequently send tokens with zero value to the victim’s wallet address to avoid suspicion. When viewing your wallet transactions on Etherscan, you can utilize the Zero-Value Token Transfers feature to hide transactions involving tokens with a value of zero.

On the toolbar, select the ☀️/🌙 icon and then choose Site Settings. Typically, the Zero-Value Token Transfers mode is enabled by default for all users.

4.2. Pay attention to pop-ups from Etherscan

Another feature you can take advantage of is the warning pop-up when copying a suspicious wallet address or token on Etherscan.

Correct, a pop-up window will appear when you copy the “From” or “To” address in specific situations while you are on the Token Transfer (ERC-20) tab on Etherscan. This helps alert you to the act of copying a suspicious address.

• Tab Token Transfer (ERC-20).

• Token Transfer (ERC-20) tab of a token.

With this feature, users are prompted to double-check if they are copying the correct address. The pop-up window appears when you copy the sender or recipient address in the following cases:

• Transactions involving tokens with a poor reputation.

• The transaction originates from a different address than the token sender.

• Token has no updated information.

In addition, you should pay attention to the red labels that Etherscan and the community have provided.

4.3. Adjusting the address format

When conducting transactions, ensure that you are copying the address correctly, whether it is from Etherscan, your personal wallet, or other applications. In some cases, wallets may have registered domain names, while others may not. Etherscan provides two display formats for wallet addresses: one displays a shortened version with the beginning and ending digits grouped together, while the other format shows a long sequence of digits at the beginning.

To help avoid errors, you can switch the wallet format to the second method. This approach will make it easier and faster for you to scan and verify addresses.

To change the wallet format, select the ☀️/🌙 icon in the top-right corner and choose “Site Settings.” Then, find the “Address Display” section and select your desired wallet display format.