Lost $300 trying to avoid $20 gas fee

Title pretty much explains it. Long story short, I’m in the middle of a road trip where cell service has been pretty spotty and the only times I can check on my crypto stuff has been when I’ve been connected to WiFi at the hotels I’ve been staying in.

I’ve had the Argent wallet for a few months now with a pretty small amount of Eth just sitting in it (less than $50). Yesterday I learned of an interesting project that was minting their NFT today. Not going to name the project because that’s not what this post is about. The cost of the public mint is $300 USDC, and I wasn’t even sure if I was going to actually mint one since I didn’t know if I’d be able to before they sold out and/or even have service or WiFi to even try.

While at the hotel before hitting the road this morning, I decided to move the $309 I had in my Kucoin account over to my Argent wallet just to be ready in case I decided to mint and had the chance. When the time came to send the funds, Kucoin listed all the compatible chains and the fees related, with ETH coming in at $20 and other networks coming in at $1 or less. Of course not wanting to burn 19 extra bucks I chose the polygon network and hit send.

As soon as I did I was like, “awww shit, I should have spent more time confirming that this will actually work”. And yup turns out since I chose the polygon network instead of the ETH network my money is lost.

This isn’t a post asking for sympathy, because this was definitely MY FAULT. It’s more of a rant about how even for someone who’s been in crypto for over a year now this shit is still too fucking confusing for it to be mainstream. Granted, I don’t know jack shit about the technical side of the blockchain, but for mass adoption to happen sending funds needs to be 100% IDIOT PROOF. I’m annoyed with myself for being impulsive while rushed to hit the road and not being more diligent about the correct way to safeguard my funds.

Just needed to rant, but also if anyone has any insight on if I’m able to somehow reverse the transaction and get my funds back from Kucoin, feel free to let me know!