People tend to bridge their stable coins or ETH over to Polygon and forget that they need POL tokens to pay for gas fees on the other side.
Just like ETH is required to pay for transactions on Ethereum, POL tokens are required to pay for transactions on Polygon.
If you don’t have any POL tokens in your Polygon wallet, then you can’t move funds once the bridge deposits your stable coins.
To avoid the stress, bridge your ERC20 POL tokens over to Polygon first. Once your POL tokens have been bridged over, you’ll have native POL tokens to pay for transactions. THEN bridge your stable coins, or other tokens over to Polygon.
Or, simply buy from fiat using Coinbase, Binance, Binance.us, Kraken, or another centralized exchange. After you’ve bought a few POL tokens be sure to withdraw to the Polygon network.
Please resist the urge to stake your tokens with a centralized exchange. It’s expensive, exposes you to extra risk, and is terrible for the blockchain networks.
Want to know more? Check out the article: Why You Should Not Stake ATOM On Coinbase.
If centralized exchanges aren’t your thing, the Polygon bridge can be used as Plasma, or Proof-Of-Stake. There is a difference.
The PoS bridge is much faster and less expensive, so use PoS if you can. For a complete description of both bridges and tutorials on how to use them, see the official documentation here.
The official bridge is between Polygon and Ethereum. It only supports ERC20 POL because the network is layer 2 and is built on top of Ethereum.
If your POL tokens are on Binance Chain you can move them to Binance.com and withdraw directly to the Polygon network from there.
Binance has randomly suspended withdrawals to Polygon network, so check before you move your tokens there.
If your POL tokens are on Binance Chain and you don’t have access to Binance.com, then you’re out of luck. Remember that Binance and Polygon are competing chains, so they don’t always play nice.
Stable coins on Binance Chain can usually be bridged over to Polygon network using services, like AnySwap, Evodefi or Connext.
REMEMBER, you must have POL tokens on Polygon mainnet to pay for transactions. Your stable coins will be stuck if you bridge them over without having native POL tokens in your Polygon wallet.
What is a cryptocurrency faucet?
A cryptocurrency faucet: is a website that gives away small amounts of crypto for free. They only distribute fractions of a single token, so that you can start using the network without buying the token needed for gas.
“Gas” is the transaction fee to move funds on a blockchain.
Projects use faucets to help onboard new users. These faucets are usually officially sponsored by either the network itself or a partner application, like a decentralized exchange.
Faucets can run out of tokens, so we’ll provide links to several in this article.
POL Mainnet Faucets
If you’re still stuck after bridging funds and need POL for gas, you’re in luck! There are a few options.
Network fees on Polygon are cheap. 1 POL token can pay for around 100 transactions. There are several faucets that distribute POL tokens for free.
You can use a Polygon POL faucet, or do a gasless swap. We’ll discuss both below.
Remember to check out our other posts when you’re done reading this one:
1) What Is Polygon?
2) POL Price Prediction
3) POL Staking Tutorial
4) Polygon partners with Axelar
And our 2-part article series, How To Build Wealth and Grow Your Wealth Through Crypto Staking.
Want to stake POL now? Connect directly to our Polygon validator node using Metamask, Coinbase wallet or Trust wallet.
Get 0.001 free POL by connecting your wallet to Polygon Network
This one is as easy as it gets. Please know that you receive 0.001 free POL for simply connecting your wallet to the Polygon network.
We’re not sure how people miss this. They freak out and ask strangers to please send them 1 POL token. You’ll find people begging for POL to pay for gas on Telegram and Reddit.
If you’ve already connected your Metamask wallet to the Polygon blockchain, then you received a small deposit of 0.001 POL to help you pay for gas. Link your wallet to the Polygon dashboard.
If that didn’t work for you, let’s move on to the next option.
Get 0.01 free POL by joining the Polygon Discord and requesting it from the faucet bot
The official Polygon faucet will give you testnet tokens and also direct you to Discord, so…..
Join the Polygon Discord and after verifying navigate to the “support.” Underneath the “support” tab there are 10 or so different channels. One of those channels is called, “POL-faucet.”
Paste the message “faucet-send YourReceivingAddress” without the quotation marks. Within a couple minutes you will receive 0.01 POL.
This will not work if you have any POL in your wallet.
BEWARE of anyone who sends you a direct message, offering to help. Polygon support will NEVER DM you first, ever!
If you received a DM from someone claiming to be Polygon support or offering to help you, report them immediately to Discord.
Get 0.015 free POL at the Avatar Reddit faucet
To use the Avatar Faucet you must have at least 500 reddit karma to use the faucet. POL/POL is sent to your Reddit vault address.
Get free POL using the Coinbase Earn program
The Coinbase Earn program program allows users to earn free tokens by watching a few short videos and answering a quiz question or two. It’s not a faucet, but has been a way to get free POL tokens nonetheless.
The Earn program changes from time to time, so this option may or may not be available.
Bear in mind, the POL tokens you get from the Coinbase Earn program will be ERC20, not mainnet tokens so you’ll have to bridge them over using the Polygon bridge mentioned at the top of this article.
Remember that you must have ETH in your wallet to use the bridge.
Now you know how to use a faucet to get some free POL.
Do a gasless swap
If none of the faucets work, our best suggestion would be to do a gasless swap. The Polygon developers added this feature recently and it allows you to swap stable coins for POL for free.
You can avoid all this by simply bridging your POL tokens over to Polygon first. Then bridge your stable coins and other tokens over.
If you plan to HODL your POL tokens for the long term, use them to generate passive portfolio income.
Stake your POL tokens with Blocks United and earn around 4.5%. Check out our POL staking tutorial.
But before you do, are you setup on a Ledger? If not, check out our guide on Staking from Ledger.
Thanks for reading. If you have any questions or comments feel free to fill out the contact form on our homepage.
We are not attorneys or financial advisors, so please check with your local jurisdiction. If you live in a country that has outlawed crypto, your best bet is to avoid using a faucet.
However, governments aren’t likely to go after crypto faucets because they only release fractions of a token. They are simply handing out a little spare change.
Faucets are not designed to generate profit. They are designed to onboard new users and lower the barrier to entry into an ecosystem by handing out spare change to pay for transaction fees.
Crypto faucets are not designed to make money. They hand out fractions of a token so that people can try out an ecosystem without paying for it. Marketing pros might refer to a faucet as a loss leader. You lose a little up front to bring people in and generate profit later.
If you get stuck and can’t move funds because you don’t have the native token for gas, using a faucet can get your funds unstuck.
Faucets provide a way to get a small amount of crypto without using your own funds.
Yes, faucets hand out free spare change to encourage people to use an ecosystem, or supply just enough for gas when someone is stuck.
Remember, you need a blockchain’s native token to pay for transactions.
Yes, the Polygon faucets are on the Polygon website, Discord, Firebird Finance.
Yes, you can acquire testnet POL at the official Polygon faucet, ChainDrop, and at the Mumbai faucet.
Nothing we say is financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell anything. Cryptocurrency is a highly speculative asset class. Staking crypto tokens carries additional risks, including but not limited to smart-contract exploitation, poor validator performance or slashing, token price volatility, loss or theft, lockup periods, and illiquidity. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Never invest more than you can afford to lose. Additionally, the information contained in our articles, social media posts, emails, and on our website is not intended as, and shall not be understood or construed as financial advice. We are not attorneys, accountants, or financial advisors, nor are we holding ourselves out to be. The information contained in our articles, social media posts, emails, and on our website is not a substitute for financial advice from a professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation. We have done our best to ensure that the information provided in our articles, social media posts, emails, and the resources on our website are accurate and provide valuable information. Regardless of anything to the contrary, nothing available in our articles, social media posts, website, or emails should be understood as a recommendation to buy or sell anything and make any investment or financial decisions without consulting with a financial professional to address your particular situation. Blocks United expressly recommends that you seek advice from a professional. Neither Blocks United nor any of its employees or owners shall be held liable or responsible for any errors or omissions in our articles, in our social media posts, in our emails, or on our website, or for any damage or financial losses you may suffer. The decisions you make belong to you and you only, so always Do Your Own Research.
