Welcome back to Crypto Noobs!

I know it has been like a month since I have done a new Crypto Noobs post, and I apologize for that. So much happens in cryptocurrency every single day that it's hard to balance writing about everything. In the last episode of Crypto Noobs, I wrote about getting crypto loans on xDai and Binance Smart Chain so check that out here. If you have never read this series, Crypto Noobs is a series where I, a regular dude, show people how to do shit with different cryptocurrencies and blockchains. I'm not an expert, not do I claim to be a financial guru or any of that other dumb shit. I'm just a nerd that smokes a lot of weed and has an obsession with cryptocurrency. Alright - so let's learn some shit.

Huobi ECO Chain

HECO chain is Huobi's answer to Binance Smart chain. It's a decentralized blockchain that uses HPoS consensus mechanism and supports EVM smart contracts, very similar to BSC. Gas fees are paid in the native token, HT, and are usually around $0.001. Holy fuck! That's a little bit cheaper than using Ethereum, I'd say. Perfect for DeFi, gaming, and much more. There are only 21 validators, which could easily become very centralized. But hey, if you're interested in using HECO you probably don't care about that very much.

As you can see in the screenshot below, they are boasting 500+ transactions per second with 3 second block time. Smart contracts are seamlessly compatible making HECO very developer friendly. There's a pretty big ecosystem of Dapps, but nothing compared to that of Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain, yet. It seems to lean heavily toward Chinese users, which is a little weird to me. Either way, it seems to be a good alternative to Binance Smart Chain if you're looking to save a little bit on gas fees. HECO is in phase 1 of 4 as far as development goes so I'm sure everything will improve with time. There's a ton of stuff coming since HECO is just under a year old.

So how do I use it? There's a few ways. We're all very familiar with Metamask though, so we'll go that route.

How to add HECO Chain to Metamask

Step 1: I'll assume you already have Metamask if you're reading this. If not, you'll need to install the Metamask chrome extension and then come back. Click on the Network drop down, and click Custom RPC.

Step 2: Enter network information for HECO Chain below.

Step 3: Click save and you're ready to go. Very easy setup. You'll need some HT to transact for gas fees, so head over to ButterSwap.me and use the bridge to migrate from BSC to HECO.

Now you're ready to interact with all those cool new HECO Chain apps such as ButterSwap.

Have you ever heard of HECO Chain?

What are some cool Dapps I can play with?

Thanks for reading.