I transferred some funds out of Binance Smart Chain and onto Polygon yesterday.
I did this for two reasons really - firstly I was unhappy with the proportion of my crypto assets staked on this centralised chain, and secondly the yields on many of the platforms have either stagnated or decreased.
And that means time to diversity out, in my case to Polygon (Matic), for increased security in diversity and (at the moment at least) much better yields.
Here's how I transferred my funds from BSC to Polygon.
This post isn't intended as financial advice, it's just how I personally made my first moves into the Polygon/ Matic network....
1. Install Matic on MetaMask
I'm not going to talk you through how to do this, just read this tutorial here, it's the same process as setting up Binance Smart Chain on MetaMask.
2. Transfer any funds you want to send to Polygon/ Matic to your ETH wallet on Metamask
NB - double check on your Matic Wallet first (see below) that Matic accepts the coins you want to transfer!.
Because I wanted to transfer funds OUT of BSC, I did a bit of digging around for BSC - MATIC cross chain swaps, but they seemed very thin on the ground and the one I found was down for maintenance, so I ended up just sending some USDC to Binance and then from Binance to ETH on Metamask.
It seems ETH - Polygon bridges are much more established than BSC-Polygon bridges, hence why I went via ETH (thankfully the fees weren't TOO bad!
3.Connect yer MetaMask Wallet (on the MATIC/ POLYGON chain) to a Polygon wallet online....
I simply used this online wallet - https://wallet.matic.network/
The interface is VERY intuitive and it allows you to swap in several tokens straight from MetaMask on ETH (for the appropriate fee, around $8 ATW).
4. Click on Move Funds from Ethereum
You can see this in the screen capture above, it's very prominent. When you click on it, it will take you to the Bridge where you can swap any token that's supported - for me this was USDC which worked fine!
NB you have to switch Metmask to ETH to make the swap.
The process is great - there's a couple of confirmations you have to do, but you're walked through the entire process, and you get an estimate of the ETH fees and time for the swap.
For me the fees were lower than expected and the swap faster than expected, around $8 and 5-6 minutes and my funds were on the Polygon/ Matic chain, and the 'transaction in process' box has a link that'll take you to the 'etherscan' equivalent so you can track its progress.....
NB that's it, swap done!
5. Use Polycat Finance to Stake some assets
I opted for Polycat Finance to stake on Matic:
I've no idea if Polycat finance offers the best deals on Polygon, but the rates are pretty good compared to BSC ATM....
I followed my usual risk strategy, having a small punt on the FISH-USDC pool, a medium punt on the USD-MATIC (Actually WMATIC, you have to wrap it first) but keeping most of my funds as USDC in the single vault!
NB on Polycat you earn in what you stake, it's compounding, which I kind of like. No harvesting!
Next Steps?
I'm VERY GLAD I've taken something out of BSC, not very much at this stage, and am just testing the water with Polygon.
I may go in harder in a few days or weeks, I'll wait and see it goes for now.
And of course it might be worth waiting until Cub Finance gets involved with Polygon before I do any more swaps.