Tutorial 2: Populating Metamask with utility tokens needed for transactions

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AGA Token

5 min readJul 12, 2021

Overview

If you already completed tutorial 1 (setting up your MetaMask wallet), you now have MetaMask configured for all AGA coins on every chain (Ethereum, Matic, Binance Smart chain and Avalanche) in which AGA trades.

The next thing you need to do is to make sure you have some of that chain’s native utility token used to pay for your transactions. Each chain has it’s own utility token. These utility tokens are used to ‘pay the toll’ for all different kinds of transactions (deposits, transactions, withdrawals, swaps, bridges, staking, pools, setting up a smart contract, etc). Of course, these utility tokens can be traded for their own value in addition to helping pay for transactions.

Understanding fees

Be aware of transaction fees. Here are a few tips to keeping fees low:

Minimize Ethereum cross-chain transactions. Example, moving 1 ETH from Ethereum chain to Polygon could exceed $50.
Ethereum network simply has more fees. The average cost for a typical Ethereum in-chain transaction (moving a token to a different wallet, buying a token) is ~$2.50. Polygon and Avalanche are usually sub-penny, while Binance Smart chain is sub-dollar.
Lots of little transactions are more expensive than fewer larger transactions.
Review & understand the fees charged before you CONFIRM a transaction.

No reason to be scared of transaction fees, just pay attention.

Concepts

There are several ways to move tokens around and you will eventually use all of them. Here is a quick intro to these concepts:

Faucet: An app or website that distributes small amounts of tokens. They’re given the name “faucets’’ because the amounts are small, just like small drops of water dripping from a leaky faucet. While they are not meant to give you “free” money, they may be enough to complete a few transactions.
Exchange: A digital marketplace to enable buyers and sellers to trade cryptocurrencies. The exchange is the intermediary between the buyer and the seller and often levies a fee for this process. There are two types of exchanges: decentralized (trading between peers) and centralized (where the exchange is the middleman).
Swap: A direct wallet-to-wallet trade between two peers, using a smart contract in place of an exchange.
Bridge: Allows for the transfer of tokens between two different chains while managing a constant supply (minting a token in the destination chain and burning a token in the course)

Getting funds to an exchange (bank transfer)

Now that you have the basics, pick an exchange to fund your transactions. Some popular exchanges are Kucoin, BarterTrade, Gate.io, Binance and Coinbase.

For this exercise, we will use the Kucoin exchange because it has access to all applicable utility tokens, however, use whichever exchange you are most familiar.

To connect your bank, financial institutions have implemented a KYC process (know your customer) where you provide an ID. This helps to prevent fraud and money laundering.

The following Kucoin screenshots document to connect your exchange to your bank.

In this example, we just purchased $300 USD worth of USDT from our bank into our Kucoin exchange. The fee was 5%, so we ended up with $285 USDT.

Buying the utility tokens

Once you have some USDT in your trading account, you can easily purchase the desired token.

Chain: Ethereum. Utility token ETH

Chain: Binance Smart chain. Utility token BNB

Chain: Polygon. Utility token: MATIC

Chain: Avalanche. Utility token: AVAX

Since we are trading USDT for a token, Search the pair you wish to trade (ETH/USDT, BNB/USDT, MATIC/USDT, AVAX/USDT)
Select SPOT
Select MARKET for best current price (market price). Note: make sure you understand what the market price is before committing (or use LIMIT to set a maximum price. This helps to ensure to get maximum value in any unexpected volatility)
Enter the amount of USDT you wish to exchange
Click BUY ETH (or Buy BNB or BUY MATIC or BUY AVAX)