# Onboarding

## Become a patron

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To stake your EWT on behalf of a Provider, you must first meet the requirements established by your Provider to become their Patron. 
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Currently anyone who verifies their email address in Switchboard and adds the “email” role to their [EW Chain wallet's DID](https://energy-web-foundation.gitbook.io/energy-web/foundational-concepts/self-sovereign-identity#decentralized-identifiers-dids) is eligible to stake EWT and become a Patron. Verifying your email with Switchboard is a simple process that does not publicly expose your email.

### step1: Set up a wallet 

The first step to becoming a Patron is to set up an EW Chain-compatible wallet, such as MetaMask (a popular browser-based blockchain wallet that allows you to store EWT and interact with EW Chain smart contracts).

Follow [this guide to initialize MetaMask](https://docs.energyweb.org/community-ressources/community-resources/using-the-energy-web-chain/staking/broken-reference) and connect it to EW Chain. 

Identify the wallet address you wish to use for staking in MetaMask. You will need to have this address selected in MetaMask whenever you visit stake-ewt.io, verify your email, stake, and unstake EWT.

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**Pro Tip:** Name your wallet in MetaMask for easy identification
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