6. Transfer funds from CEX to DeFi wallet

Jan 30, 2023

If you’ve followed the previous steps in our tutorial, you should have everything prepared to send funds from the CEX (centralized exchange) to your MetaMask wallet.

We will send $USDT to BSC along with $BNB, which we'll use to pay the transaction fees on the BSC chain, called the gas fee.

We will also send $AVAX to the Avalanche chain for the later payment of fees on that chain.

Below, we will explain what gas fees are and what you need them for.

In most cases, when you make a crypto transaction, there is a fee for using the mainnet. This fee is mostly paid in the native coin / token of the chain (on BSC, you pay the fee in $BNB, and on the Avalanche chain, you pay in $AVAX, etc.).

If you were to send $USDT to your MetaMask wallet and spend all your funds on it, then you would have $USDT in your wallet, but you would not be able to manage it any further.

Instead, you would need to go back to the CEX, purchase the native coin / token of the given mainnet, and send it to the same wallet (and the same chain where you have $USDT) to pay the transaction fees.

You don't need a lot of $BNB for transaction fees. In fact, 0.05 $BNB is about enough for ten transactions - but this can vary depending on chain traffic, etc.

In the case of $AVAX, you send a minimum of 0.5 $AVAX.

Let's explain this procedure step-by-step:

Sending $BNB, $AVAX and $USDT to your MetaMask wallet is very simple. You first deposit money on the crypto exchange you use (by card or SEPA order). In our example, we will send funds to Binance. On the CEX, we’re going to buy $BNB, $AVAX and $USDT.

Example of sending $USDT from Binance

We also send $BNB from the exchange to our wallet in the same way.

We will send $AVAX to the same wallet address, but select "AVAX C-Chain" as the "Chain" (Network).

When the $USDT, $AVAX and $BNB arrive, you will then see the new amounts in your MetaMask wallet. The image below shows the $BNB that has been credited to BSC (BSC Mainnet). Also check the amount of $AVAX on the Avalanche chain.

‍We recommend you send a small number of coins / tokens first to check the transaction works. If it does, then send the rest.
If you run out of native coins / tokens for paying fees, you can exchange $USDT in your wallet for a native coin / token using the swap function. Therefore, you don’t always need to buy the native assets on the CEX.

Analyst opinion

We have now transferred coins / tokens from a CEX to our MetaMask wallet. Now, we have funds ready to invest in projects.

In the next two steps, we'll learn about the fees we pay for transactions on different chains, and we will find out how to use the bridge function (bridging, or transferring crypto assets from one chain to another) between BSC (BNB Smart Chain) and the Avalanche chain.