As the popularity of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) continues to grow, more and more people are looking for ways to mint their own. The costs associated with minting NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain are notoriously high, due to the exorbitant gas fees. Polygon is a blockchain that allows you to mint NFTs quickly and easily, without having to worry about the high costs. However, transferring MATIC (the native token of Polygon) to your MetaMask wallet can be confusing and tricky.
In this blog post, we will show you how to use Polygon with your MetaMask wallet to mint NFTs.
What is Polygon and MATIC?
Polygon is a decentralized platform that allows you to run Ethereum dapps with ease. The native token of Polygon is MATIC, which can be used to pay gas fees. Polygon also has its own version of MetaMask, called PolyMeta. Unlike MetaMask, PolyMeta does not require you to have a Web browser extension installed.
On Polygon, the gas fees are lower because Polygon uses a different mining algorithm than Ethereum. This allows Polygon to validate transactions more quickly and efficiently. This makes it the perfect alternative for minting NFTs to avoid the high gas fees of Ethereum.
What is MetaMask and how to add Polygon/MATIC?
MetaMask is a Web browser extension that allows you to run Ethereum dapps in your browser. MetaMask also allows you to store ETH and other ERC20 tokens. In order to use Polygon with MetaMask, you first need to add Polygon to MetaMask as a custom RPC network.
How to create a MetaMask wallet
The following link provides a comprehensive guide to adding Polygon/Matic to your MetaMask wallet: Setting up Metamask for Polygon (Matic Network)
Sending Polygon/MATIC to your MetaMask wallet
Now you have set up your Polygon wallet in MetaMask, you should now be able to choose from the Ethereum Mainnet and Polygon wallet. There are a number of ways to transfer MATIC to your Polygon wallet, however from first-hand experience, this could result in further ETH gas fees.
The following steps will explain the best way to transfer MATIC and avoid the gas fees associated with doing so.
What not to do when transferring Matic to your MetaMask wallet
MATIC is available to purchase on all major exchanges, with easy access to Coinbase, we purchased some MATIC to send to our MetaMask wallet.
When Minting an NFT using Polygon, the gas fee is extremely low, for example 0.007 MATIC. For this reason, you may choose to only purchase a small amount of MATIC. There are two things to keep in mind:
- There is a minimum amount of MATIC you can send via Coinbase, this was set at a minimum of 12 when we attempted to send.
- You need to ensure you purchase enough MATIC to cover the gas fees of transferring from Coinbase to your MetaMask wallet. This was a gas fee of £12.
Now the biggest problem of transferring MATIC to your MetaMask wallet is that the MATIC token will not appear in your Polygon wallet but will appear in your Ethereum Mainnet wallet. This is because Coinbase is using the Ethereum blockchain to send.
If you find yourself in this scenario, you then need to head to the official Polygon website and utilise their bridge function to transfer the MATIC token to your Polygon wallet.
The cons of doing this are that you will need Ether in your MetaMask wallet to cover the gas fees of the bridge. As you can see, the Gas fees are soon accumulating, having had to pay MATIC gas fees for the transfer from Coinbase and now Ether for the transfer of MATIC to your Polygon wallet within MetaMask.
How do I avoid the Gas fees when transferring Polygon/MATIC to my MetaMask wallet?
Having recently encountered the issue above, we soon realised there must be a better way to send MATIC to our Polygon wallet without encountering expensive gas fees.
The solution is to purchase MATIC using a Binance account. By purchasing MATIC with Binance and sending it to your MetaMask wallet, you are given an option of what network to use when sending MATIC. You should choose the Polygon/MATIC network and add your MetaMask wallet to the address to receive the token.
By doing so and not using the Ethereum network, your MATIC tokens will now appear directly into your Polygon wallet on MetaMask with no need to use the bridge functionality or waste further gas fees.
