Looking to buy Polygon (MATIC) in the UK?
In this quick guide, I go through some of the places where you can it in the UK.
Intro: Best Ways to Buy Polygon in the UK
Here’s a quick overview of the best places where you can buy Polygon (MATIC) in the UK. Scroll down to learn more about my favourite choices.
| Provider | Payment Method | Fees |
|---|---|---|
| Coinbase (Advanced) | UK Bank Transfer | Up to 0.60% |
| Kraken | UK Bank Trannsfer | Up to 0.26% |
| CoinJar | UK Bank Transfer | 1% |
| CoinJar | Credit & Debit Card | 2% |
| BC Bitcoin | UK Bank Transfer | 5% |
| Crypto.com App | UK Bank Transfer | Variable Rate |
| Crypto.com App | Credit & Debit Card | 2.99%+ |
How to Buy Polygon UK
1. Coinbase
Coinbase is a cryptocurrency broker and exchange that’s been around for over 9 years.
It was the first major cryptocurrency exchange in the UK to be given an e-money license by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Since then, you’ve been able to deposit GBP with a simple UK bank transfer (and have it credited within minutes to your account). Even from a Revolut account (which some places block).
In April 2021, Coinbase was also the first cryptocurrency exchange to be listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange (ticker: COIN). They currently have more than 68 million users across more than 100 countries.
While it’s easier to buy Polygon (MATIC) on Coinbase, it’s significantly cheaper to use Coinbase’s Advanced Trading terminal instead.
Through this seperate dashboard, you’ll be charged a maximum of 0.6% in fees whenever you make a trade. The downside is that there’s more to get your head around if you’ve never used something like this before.
When I last checked, Coinbase’s Advanced terminal also has higher trading volume on the MATIC/GBP market than alternative exchanges.
To find out more, head over to the Coinbase website.
Coinbase WebsiteCoinbase Review
2. Kraken
Founded in 2011, Kraken is one of the oldest cryptocurrency exchanges around.
Unlike Coinbase, Kraken isn’t a publicly listed company (yet). However, it did become the “first cryptocurrency firm in the U.S. to become a bank” in September 2020.
But anyway:
On Kraken, you can buy Polygon (MATIC) and dozens of other cryptocurrencies without paying more than 0.26% in fees per trade.
While this is cheaper than Coinbase’s Advanced Trade terminal, Kraken does tend to have lower trading volume on all the GBP trading pairs that I’ve recently checked. This isn’t a huge problem if you’re buying or selling a small amount – but is something to look at if you’re planning on making larger moves down the line.
Like Coinbase, you can also deposit GBP with a simple UK bank transfer into your Kraken wallet for free.
The thing you need to watch out for here is Kraken’s Instant Buy service. While it’s a little more convenient to use this function, it charges higher fees.
Check out the Kraken website to learn more about them.
3. CoinJar
Established in 2013, CoinJar is another cryptocurrency broker and exchange where you can buy Polygon (MATIC) in the UK.
It supports more than 50 other cryptocurrencies too, which includes Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Ripple (XRP) – as well as popular ERC-20 tokens like OMG Network (OMG).
You’re able to deposit GBP into CoinJar with a simple UK bank transfer. When I’ve used CoinJar, I’ve found that deposits have been quickly credited (within minutes). Alternatively, you can instantly buy with a credit or debit card.
You’ll be charged a fixed fee of 1% to buy Polygon (MATIC) with cash in your CoinJar wallet. If you decide to use a credit or debit card, you’ll be charged a slightly higher fee of 2%.
While CoinJar is a little more expensive than cryptocurrency exchanges, it’s going to be much easier to get your head around if you’re a beginner who hasn’t used an exchange interface before.
Check out its website, or my CoinJar review, to get more information.
What is Polygon (MATIC)?
Polygon (MATIC) is the native token for the Polygon Network, a layer-2 Ethereum scaling solution.
The main goal of the Polygon Network is to help developers build interoperable, scalable, high-performance blockchains and decentralised apps (DApps) on Ethereum. The MATIC token is the primary method of payment for transaction fees on the Polygon Network. It’s also used to secure the network through staking.
The Polygon Network (formerly the Matic Network) was created in 2017 by a decentralised team of engineers that included Jaynti Kanani, Sandeep Nailwal, Anurag Arjun, and Mihailo Bjelic. It is now one of the most popular Ethereum scaling solutions in the cryptosphere.
Here’s a quick video that gives you an overview of how the Polygon Network works and the role that the MATIC token plays in processing transactions:
Polygon was originally designed to be a layer-2 scaling solution for developers that want to build decentralised apps (DApps) on the Ethereum network. In other words, the purpose of Polygon is to help developers build DApps on Ethereum that allow them to avoid some of Ethereum’s drawbacks, like its slow transaction speeds and high gas fees.
Therefore, there are two main aspects of Polygon: its network infrastructure and its developer tools.
The goal of Polygon’s network infrastructure is to alleviate traffic on the Ethereum network and to make crypto transactions faster and more cost-efficient.
Polygon’s infrastructure works by taking a bundle of transactions off the Ethereum mainnet and packaging them together for processing on Polygon’s Matic Proof-of-Stake (PoS) chain. Once the Matic PoS chain processes all this information, the transactions are finalised on the Ethereum mainnet.
Removing bundles of transactions off the Ethereum mainnet for processing on the Matic PoS chain greatly reduces the amount of gas that users have to pay to send, stake, or swap crypto. The Matic PoS also processes transactions way faster than the Ethereum mainnet, so it speeds up a transaction’s confirmation time.
That said, the Polygon Network is nothing if there aren’t any people to use it. Therefore, the team at Polygon created a suite of developer tools to help blockchain engineers design, build, and deploy DApps on the Polygon Network.
So far, Polygon’s goal of encouraging more DApp development on its network seems to be paying off. Many popular DApps, such as Aave, Curve Finance, 1inch, SushiSwap, and Injective Protocol are all compatible with the Polygon Network.
The Polygon (MATIC) token is designed to power and secure the Polygon Network.
Since the Matic chain runs on a PoS consensus mechanism, all network validators need to stake MATIC tokens to process and confirm transactions. Anyone that holds MATIC tokens can also stake and delegate their tokens to validators to help run the network.
MATIC tokens are also used to pay fees for any DApps that operate on the Polygon Network. These fees are paid to the network’s validators and delegators that secure Polygon and help it confirm transactions.
There are many benefits to holding MATIC tokens, including:
- Staking Rewards: Anyone that stakes MATIC tokens and delegates them to a validator can earn rewards from fees paid to the Polygon Network.
- Paying Network Fees: If you want to send, swap, or stake tokens on the Polygon Network, you need to pay your fees in MATIC.
- Ability to Trade on DEXes: Decentralised exchanges (DEXes) like Uniswap or SushiSwap that operate on the Polygon Network require that you pay any transaction fees for your swaps in MATIC tokens.
- Access to DeFi Platforms: MATIC tokens exist on both the Ethereum Network as ERC-20 tokens and on the Polygon Network. You can use MATIC tokens to earn interest or get crypto-backed loans on many decentralised finance (DeFi) applications on both the Ethereum and Polygon networks.
Best Polygon (MATIC) Wallets
Polygon (MATIC) is an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum (ETH) network, which means that it should be possible to use it with most ERC-20 capable wallets.
You can access the official Polygon (MATIC) web wallet by connecting to your Ethereum (ETH) wallet via Metamask or Coinbase Wallet (browser extensions).
If you want to store your cryptocurrency funds on a hardware wallet, then you can still use this web wallet to manage your Polygon (MATIC) funds via Metamask. You can currently access Ledger (e.g., Ledger Nano S) and Trezor (e.g., Trezor One) wallets using the Metamask browser extension. For more information on how to get this working, check out this and this.
You can also store, send, and receive Polygon (MATIC) using Exodus Wallet – which is one of the most popular multi-coin wallets around.
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