Create a WAX Account

A wallet holds your keys. A WAX account is the on-chain name those keys control. You need both before you can hold tokens, NFTs, or use apps.

If you have not chosen a wallet yet, start with Choosing a Wallet.

Account Names

WAX uses human-readable account names, not long hexadecimal addresses.

• Standard self-serve names are 12 characters
• Allowed characters are a-z and 1-5
• Names are lowercase
• Check availability on WAXBlock before you pay to create one

My Cloud Wallet walks you through naming during signup. The other methods below use a name you choose in advance.

Creation Methods

Method	Fee	Custody	Best for
My Cloud Wallet	5 WAX	Passkey wallet	New users and the simplest path
Anchor Account Creator	$0.99 USD	Your keys	Users who want Anchor from day one
signupwaxwax transfer	Paid in WAX	Your keys	Users who already hold WAX on an exchange or another account

My Cloud Wallet

My Cloud Wallet is the easiest way to create an account. Signup creates the on-chain account for you and keeps access in the Cloud Wallet passkey flow.

Fee: 5 WAX, paid during signup.

1. Open My Cloud Wallet
2. Choose to create a new account
3. Save your 12-word mnemonic phrase securely and offline
4. Verify the requested recovery words
5. Choose your 12-character WAX account name
6. Create a passkey on your device or phone
7. Pay the 5 WAX account creation fee when prompted

After that, you can use the account in My Cloud Wallet. For the full wallet guide, see My Cloud Wallet.

Anchor Account Creator

Greymass provides a paid account creator at create.anchor.link. It can create a WAX account for you or for someone else, using a public key you control.

Fee: $0.99 USD.

Download Anchor only from official sources

The only official Anchor download locations are anchorwallet.io, greymass.com/anchor, and the Greymass GitHub repository. anchorwallet.org is fake. Do not download Anchor from that site or from any other unofficial page, ad, or search result.

1. Download and install Anchor from one of the official links above
2. Generate a key pair in Anchor and store the keys in the wallet. See Generate Keys in Anchor
3. Copy the public key. Never paste a private key into a website or memo
4. Open create.anchor.link and select WAX
5. Enter the account name you want and the public key that should control it
6. Pay the $0.99 USD fee to create the account
7. Import the new account into Anchor. See Importing Accounts into Anchor Wallet

Create by Transfer

If you already hold WAX on an exchange or another WAX account, you can create a self-custodied account by sending WAX to signupwaxwax.

Memo format: [accountname]-[pubkey]

Example:

mywaxaccount-EOS8xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Use the legacy public key format

The memo must use the legacy EOS... public key, not PUB_K1_.... Use the public key for the key pair you will import.

1. Generate a key pair first, then copy the public key. You can do this in Anchor. See Generate Keys in Anchor
2. Choose an unused 12-character account name using only a-z and 1-5
3. Send WAX to the signupwaxwax account
4. Set the memo to [accountname]-[pubkey] with no spaces around the dash
5. After the account exists on-chain, import it into Anchor or another self-custody wallet

The transfer pays for creating the account and funding its initial resources. Extra WAX is typically used to buy RAM for the new account.

Check the memo before you send

Use the public key only. Never put a private key in a memo. If the exchange cannot attach a memo, do not use this method from that withdrawal. A wrong name, wrong key, or missing memo can create the wrong account or send funds you cannot recover.

After You Create an Account

• Review Security and Recovery
• If you used My Cloud Wallet, continue to My Cloud Wallet
• If you used Anchor or signupwaxwax, continue to Importing Accounts into Anchor Wallet
• Then get WAXP and fund the account if you still need tokens for apps and resources