How to Port BEP20 Assets Using the Finitum Bridge from BSC to Cardano

This guide shows how to use the Finitum Bridge to send BEP20 tokens to the Cardano blockchain.

Overview

The bridge works by locking the BEP20 tokens into a smart contract on the source chain (Binance Smart Chain), and then issuing a corresponding Cardano Native Token on the destination chain (Cardano).

The locked BEP20 tokens effectively become the underlying asset backing the value of the corresponding native token on Cardano. This can be unlocked anytime and sent back to users by simply burning their Cardano native tokens using the same bridge.

For additional info about the Finitum Bridge, including the future plans for it, check out our previous post.

1. Connect Wallet (Metamask)

Make sure “BSC” is selected in the From field.

If it’s your first time using the service, click the “Connect Wallet” button before proceeding. Only Metamask is supported currently.

Then choose the account in your Metamask notification to connect to the dApp, and click “Next” and then “Connect”. This will allow the dApp to read the balances in your account.

2. Send Tokens

Select the token to be sent through the bridge.

Shortly afterwards, you should then be able to see your balance for the selected token:

Clicking on your total balance will copy the amount into the “Amount” field.

Enter the amount to be sent, and the Cardano address that you’d like to receive the tokens on the Cardano side.

Click the “Approve” button and confirm the approval transaction in your Metamask notification.

Also don’t forget to tick the terms-of-use checkbox.

This “Approve” transaction allows the Finitum Bridge smart contract to handle the locking of your selected token in your specified amount.

Wait for a few seconds for the transaction to be included in a block on BSC. When it’s confirmed, you should then see the main button change to now say “Send to Cardano”.

Now it’s time to actually send your tokens to the Finitum Bridge to be ported into Cardano. Just click on the button “Send to Cardano”.

Then confirm the transaction in your Metamask notification (scroll to the bottom if you don’t see the confirm button right away).

Then wait for a few seconds for your transaction to be confirmed on BSC. Afterwards, you should then see the transaction history for your account, appear at the bottom of the page:

Wait for anywhere between 45 to 60 seconds more for your transaction to accumulate at least 15 confirmations on BSC.

You can close the page if you have to, and just come back later. Your tx history, especially the pending transactions for your account, will be remembered.

After such confirmation level, you should see the button “Claim on Cardano” appear next to your pending transaction.

3. Claim Tokens on Cardano

Now finally, you can get your tokens on Cardano by clicking on the “Claim on Cardano” button next to your pending transaction as shown above.

This “claiming” step is necessary on the Cardano side to prevent abuse, since on Cardano, every transaction involving native tokens, must come with a certain minimum amount of $ADA. Having to claim your tokens allows the bridge app to use your own $ADA balance to supply this required minimum $ADA in the transaction.

Select your choice from the list of supported wallet apps:

In this example, we’ll be using Eternl Wallet. After clicking the “Eternl” option, we will be prompted with the bridge app’s connection request to our wallet app. Click “Connect To Site” to proceed.

Note: If you’re getting a prompt from your wallet app to “Activate a dApp account” or something similar, make sure you have at least 1 account in your wallet app that’s selected for dApp interactions. In Eternl, it should look like the following:

Make sure you have 1 account in your Eternl wallet that’s activated for dApp connections

Moving on, the wallet app will then ask us to sign the “Claim” transaction. Check the details of the transaction and make sure the same corresponding token amount is minted and sent to your account. Then enter your spending password and click “Sign”.

Then lastly, click “Submit”.

If there are no problems, you should get the tx success confirmation shortly.

It will take a few minutes for your transaction to be marked “Complete” in the bridge transactions history. But as soon as the tx gets included in a block (within at least 20secs), you should see the tokens already appear in your Cardano wallet.

You can also see the tx details on CardanoScan.io by clicking on the tx hash in the tx history list.

Congratulations, you’re done! You now have your BEP20 tokens successfully ported into Cardano as a native token!