As you already know, I withdrew 5$ to my newly created MetaMask wallet last week. (Keep in mind, Metamask is still a new tool for me.) But I can't do anything with them. Every time I try to withdraw them to a "Token swap" website, the wallet screams "not enough gas." I used to pay fees in the same token I am trying to send to other wallets and exchange websites. So, with a quick Google search, I found out that Gas is the native token required to pay for transaction fees. for example:-

• Ethereum network requires ETH
• Binance Smart Chain requires BNB
• Polygon requires POL

So I thought "Optimism network's native token must be OP", which is kinda right but needs more explanation. figuring that out, I was so happy as I remembered I had some OP tokens in an exchange. So, I quickly transferred them to my Metamask wallet and went through the whole address-filling process to see the scary "not enough gas" message again. I got furious at that point and started to blame the wallet, as it lacks basic information for new users.

After closing the wallet, I asked Google the question, "Why does Metamask not allow me to pay with OP?" The answer I got is portrayed in the image below.

The answer says I have to pay with Optimism Network's native token, ETH. But I thought OP was the native token of the Optimism network. So I consulted Google again and asked about this confusion. It turned out that since the Optimism network is a layer two network of Ethereum, you have to pay transaction fees with ETH. And the Optimism(OP) token is only used for governance and stuff. But ETH is the currency that pays for the gas. Check the image below.

While I am thankful for the AI developers for saving me time, I must admit the information was too much, and I didn't read all of it. Also, now I regret withdrawing those OP from the exchange. It would have been better if I had just done some more research before that. But what can you do? right? You learn from your mistakes. That's the only thing I can do at this point.

Anyhow, guys, I want you to learn from my mistake too. If you're gonna use Metamask to receive withdrawals from Publish0x, just know that you're gonna need some ETH in your wallet to do anything with those USDC(OP) once they get deposited to your wallet. I still don't know what the point of the OP network as it uses the same amount of gas as the Ethereum network. Ah man, it's just confusing. Feel free to join the conversation in the comments below. Please be respectful to each other.

My solution to battle these gas fees is to withdraw them directly to an exchange website, where you can exchange them for another cryptocurrency without paying network fees. preferably a widely used one. My go-to is Litecoin. By the way, I only use these earnings to fund Bitrefill to recharge my mobile phone. The problem is that my go-to exchange website does not allow USDC(OP) deposits. So it's just a waiting game for me now until I collect a sum of USDC that justifies the purchase of ETH to use the OP mainnet in the Metamask wallet. Until then keep on writing and keep on reading while stashing Cents.

That's it for this article, guys. Thanks for reading my story. Hope you learned something.