What Is Binance Smart Chain?
In September of 2020, Binance launched the Binance Smart Chain, an Ethereum-Virtual-Machine compatible smart contract blockchain, and since then it has far surpassed Ethereum in daily transactions. With transactions taking only 5–10 seconds, as opposed to 5–10 minutes, and costing only .05c-.10c each, as opposed to $15+, it’s no wonder why it’s seeing such massive growth.
Existing smart contracts, and Solidity developers can easily migrate to BSC, and pickup right where they left off. Investors can also “wrap” any of their favorite ERC-20 tokens, and use them on Binance Smart Chain. While there are a lot of people clamoring for “scaling” solutions for Ethereum, others like you, have now discovered the problem has already been solved.
Setting up your wallet for Binance Smart Chain
You will need to first create a wallet, most begin with MetaMask. MetaMask was built for Ethereum, however because BSC is a fork of Ethereum, MetaMask can be made fully compatible with BSC with just a few settings changed.
From the Google Chrome extension store, search for and install MetaMask Wallet.
Once you have installed MetaMask, it will walk you through process of creating a new wallet. IMPORTANT: Make sure you write down, and save, the 12-word seed phrase thats given to you upon setup. That seed phrase, will help you get back into your wallet if you ever get logged out or lose your device.
Once you are all setup, you will need to add the Binance Smart Chain settings to MetaMask.
Up at the top of your wallet, you will see a section with the network and a drop down arrow, click on that and choose “Custom RPC”. MetaMask by default has Ethereum’s main network and test networks, so we will need to add Binance Smart Chain’s settings manually.
Network Name: BSC Mainnet
New RPC URL: https://bsc-dataseed.binance.org/
Chain ID: 56
Currency Symbol: BNB
Block Explorer: https://bscscan.com/
Note: All of this information can be found on Binance’s website.
Backup RPC’s: (https://docs.binance.org/smart-chain/developer/rpc.html)
Binance Official reference: (https://academy.binance.com/en/articles/connecting-metamask-to-binance-smart-chain)
Once you have typed that all in, click on save. Now on the wallet homepage, you will be able to use the drop down menu and select “BSC Mainnet”. You are now on Binance Smart Chain. Keep in mind, all transactions require BEP-20 BNB (as opposed to ERC-20 BNB or BEP-2 BNB) in your wallet to pay for the gas costs, exactly like ETH on Ethereum.
Getting Money onto Binance Smart Chain
In areas of the world that still have access to Binance.com, getting your tokens swapped to BEP-20 Binance Smart Chain compatible tokens is very easy. Simply deposit your tokens into your Binance.com wallet, and when you choose withdrawal, make sure to select BEP-20 BSC as the transfer network option, and your newly created wallet address in your MetaMask wallet. After withdrawing using the BSC withdraw option, you will receive “wrapped” BEP-20 versions of your favorite tokens.
For Americans’ and others without access to Binance.com, at the moment it isn’t as easy. Binance.us has not updated their exchange yet to support BEP-20 withdrawals, so we will use a work-around that I have found to work well. There are a couple options, using SafePal Wallet and the Binance Bridge. The first option is much simpler and doesn’t bend any rules, so lets go over that one first.
SafePal Wallet
Click on this link to be directed to your appstore to download SafePal Wallet, https://www.safepal.io/download. Once you have installed the wallet, open it up and import your wallet address that we created earlier on MetaMask, into SafePal Wallet, using your 12-word seed phrase. Once you have done that, you will be presented with the SafePal Wallet homepage.
Now you can deposit your ERC-20 tokens, or anything else such as BTC/LTC etc. and “wrap” them, to make them compatible with Binance Smart Chain (this can always be un-done if you want to go back). Once you have tokens in your SafePal Wallet, you can then click on the Swap button at the bottom (4th one over), and begin the swap process.
In the “Pay” field, choose the tokens that you want to convert to BSC compatible tokens. In the “Receive” field, make sure you choose BEP-20 BNB. Then go ahead and proceed with the swap. Once completed you will have Binance Smart Chain compatible BEP-20 BNB tokens in your SafePal Wallet. They will also be accessible in your MetaMask that you created earlier.
Binance Bridge
Binance has a website or dApp called the Binance Bridge, that will allow you to convert your non-BSC compatible tokens, to BEP-20 compatible versions. It currently blocks users in countries that don’t allow Binance.com accounts, however it is currently able to be fooled by a VPN. I installed “SetupVPN” from the Chrome extension store, chose the free account, and set it to UK. Once you have done that, you will be able to access the Bridge, by going here; https://www.binance.org/en/bridge.
You will need to connect your wallet, choose the “asset” that you are trying to convert, and make sure the “from” and “to” networks are correct. Click on max, and then copy/paste your wallet address from MetaMask/SafePal, and then you should be able to click on “next”. Binance Bridge will then direct you to send the exact amount of tokens, to a unique wallet address, and once they receive your tokens, they send you back the same amount, but BSC compatible versions. Keep in mind the unique address they give you can only be used once, and you have a max time allotment to complete your end of the transaction.
Once you have completed your Binance Bridge transaction, you will receive Binance Smart Chain compatible BEP-20 tokens, and can now freely transact using BSC!