By Kade Garrett
4 min read
With crypto on your MetaMask, there are now a bunch of options on offer. You can simply hold (or HODL) your crypto in the hopes it will appreciate in value. You could also trade some for another crypto. You can even bridge a crypto from one blockchain to another. To earn yield, you can even stake certain cryptos using MetaMask Portfolio’s built-in option.
While there are numerous things that can be done with your crypto, the ultimate decision is up to you. In this explainer, we’re going to break down the process for making crypto swaps within MetaMask Portfolio. Also commonly referred to as a “trade” or “exchange,” the “swap” wording is largely synonymous. In essence, you’re swapping (or exchanging) one crypto holding for another based on current exchange rates. A shortening of atomic swap, we’ll be using swap as the chosen terminology moving forward.
Continuing from our example in the previous article, let’s say you now have $1,000 (USD) worth of ether (ETH) in your MetaMask account. While you still want to hold ETH, you want to diversify into a few other cryptos as well. While you could simply purchase more by making another buy, you want to diversify now — not wait for your next paycheck.
You decide that you want to acquire $200 worth of wrapped bitcoin (wBTC) and $100 worth of ApeCoin (APE). Let’s run through an example scenario.
Step 1: On the MetaMask Portfolio homescreen, select the “Swap” option found on the left side of the page.
Step 2: Select the currency you are swapping from. This means you are taking an existing crypto holding and exchanging some (or all) of it for another crypto. “Swap to” means the crypto you are receiving (or swapping for) through this process. In this case, let’s execute our wBTC swap first. Select “ETH” to swap from and select “WBTC” as the crypto it will be swapped (or converted) into.
Step 3: Select the amount that will be swapped. In this case, we’ll be swapping $200 worth of ETH for wBTC. You will also be given a custom option to adjust slippage (price movement between swap initiation and finalization). You will then receive swap quotes that can be chosen based on your preferences.
Step 4: Select the option you want to go with and complete the swap transaction. You now should have approximately $800 worth of ETH and $200 worth of wBTC. We’re not done yet.
Step 5: We also wanted to purchase some APE. Again, select ETH to “Swap from” and choose APE from the “Swap to” menu. Select $100 worth of ETH to be swapped and repeat the process found above.
Step 6: At this point, you should have $700 worth of ETH, $200 worth of BTC, and $100 worth of APE (minus any fees). You have now diversified your portfolio. To check your swaps, you can select the Dashboard to view your token balances, their price movement, and a variety of other metrics.
At this point, you would have a portfolio with three tokens. Should you wish to diversify more, you can simply repeat the steps above. On the other hand, you can also swap back to your original crypto allocations if you regret any swaps you have made (or simply want to rebalance your portfolio). For example, you could convert half your APE tokens back into ETH if you wanted.
While swapping lets you get new cryptos (or alter their percentages within your portfolio), you can also “bridge” your crypto. Bridging means that you transfer the crypto you have on one blockchain protocol to another (going from Avalanche to Ethereum, or vice versa, for example). In the next tutorial, we’ll explain the bridging process, its pros and cons, and how to execute a bridge transaction on MetaMask Portfolio.
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