What is Balancer?
Balancer is an automated market maker (AMM) protocol that allows users to swap assets using liquidity pools, similar to Uniswap. Balancer differs from Uniswap in that liquidity pools can have up to 8 assets deposited in them, and the desired ratio between those assets can be set by the person that creates it. This allows users to create custom investment vehicles that can act like index funds, which comes with the added benefit of being able to maintain the ratios of the assets in their portfolio by having arbitragers effectively manage the fund for them.
Using Balancer on Polygon
In this tutorial, we will cover how to swap on Balancer on the Polygon network. Polygon is an EVM smart contract-enabled side chain that is very similar to Ethereum. This means that you can use familiar tools like MetaMask to approve transactions. An added benefit is that the transaction fees on Polygon are much lower than on Ethereum.
In order to use Balancer on Polygon, you'll need to have assets on Polygon. You can do this by using a bridge, which you can find here: Ethereum <> Polygon bridge.
If this is your first time using Polygon, check out this guide.
How to swap on Balancer
Step 1: Go to Balancer
To access Balancer on the Polygon network, go to https://polygon.balancer.fi.
Step 2: Connect your wallet
Make sure your wallet is on the Polygon Network. If you’re using MetaMask, it should look like this. You can use the dropdown to toggle between networks.
On the Balancer page, click “Connect wallet”.
Select the wallet you’d like to use.
Step 3: Go to “Trade”
Now that your wallet is connected, you can swap on Balancer. To do this, select “Trade” at the top of the page.
Step 4: Swap
In the Balancer interface, enter the token and amount you’d like to send and receive. Then select “Preview Trade”.
Next you’ll need to approve the swap, which gives Balancer access to the funds you are sending (in my case, USDT). You might need to wait a minute or two for this transaction to complete.
Once the “Approve” transaction completes, you will be prompted to confirm the trade. Click “Confirm trade”.
Congrats! You made your first swap on Balancer 🎉 Once your trade has settled, you should see this message.
This guide was written in collaboration with @JorrinB.