Polkadot Wiki

Polkadot Wiki

  • Get Started
  • Learn
  • Build
  • Maintain
  • Kusama
  • Contribute
  • Languages iconEnglish
    • Русский
    • 中文
    • Help Translate

›Basics

General

  • Getting Started
  • Claims
  • Redenomination of DOT
  • Grants
  • Thousand Validators Programme
  • Polkadot Ambassador Programme
  • Research Pages
  • Community
  • Contributing
  • Contributors
  • Glossary
  • Using ENS with DOT/KSM accounts
  • Ledger Application
  • How to Protect Yourself from Scams
  • Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Learn

  • Polkadot Launch Phases
  • Basics

    • Architecture
    • Polkadot Accounts
    • Account Generation
    • Backing up and Restoring Accounts
    • DOT
    • Security of the network
    • Polkadot Consensus
    • Nominator
    • Validator
    • Collator
    • Governance
    • Identity
    • How to transfer Balances
    • Transaction Fees
    • Polkadot Host (PH)
    • Treasury
    • How to use W3F Registrar

    Parachains

    • Parachains
    • Parathreads
    • Bridges
    • Parachain Slots Auction
    • Parachain Crowdloans

    Advanced

    • Staking
    • Proxy Accounts
    • Availability and Validity
    • Randomness
    • Cross-chain Message Passing (XCMP)
    • SPREE
    • WebAssembly (Wasm)
    • Sequential Phragmén Method
    • Simple Payouts

    Cryptography

    • Cryptography Explainer
    • Polkadot Keys

    Polkadot Comparisons

    • Comparing Polkadot and Kusama
    • Ethereum 2.0
    • Cosmos
    • Dfinity
    • Other comparisons

Build

  • Builder's Portal
  • Development Guide

    • Polkadot Builders Starter's Guide
    • Parachain Development Kits (PDKs)
    • Parachain Implementer's Guide
    • Cumulus
    • Building Parachains on Rococo
    • Smart Contracts
    • Oracles
    • Polkadot Wallets

    Integration Guide

    • Integration Initiation
    • Polkadot Protocol
    • Node Management
    • Node Interaction
    • Transaction Construction

    Tools

    • Tool Index

    Resources

    • Hackathon

Maintain

  • Network Maintainers
  • Parameters
  • Nodes and Dapps

    • Set up a Full Node
    • Networks
    • Set up Secure WebSocket for Remote Connections
    • Resolving Errors

    Nominator Guides

    • How to Nominate on Polkadot
    • Unbonding and Rebonding

    Validator Guides

    • How to run a Validator on Polkadot
    • Validator Payout Overview
    • Using systemd for the Validator Node
    • Secure Validator
    • How to use Polkadot Secure Validator Setup
    • Set Up a Sentry Node
    • How to Upgrade Your Validator
    • Monitor your node
    • How to Chill

    Governance Guides

    • Participate in Democracy
    • Join the Council
    • Voting for Councillors
Edit

Balance Transfers

Balance transfers are used to send balance from one account to another account. To start transferring balances, we will begin by using Polkadot-JS Apps. This guide assumes that you've already created an account and have some funds that will be transferred.

Polkadot-JS Apps

NOTE: In this walkthrough we will be using the Polkadot network. If you would like to switch to Kusama or a different network, you can change it by clicking the top left navigation dropdown and selecting a different network.

Let's begin by opening Polkadot-JS Apps. There are two ways to make a balance transfer:

  1. By using the "Transfer" tab in the "Accounts" dropdown (located on the top navigational menu).
  2. Clicking the "send" button while in the "Accounts" page.

Using the Transfer Tab

Click on the "Transfer" tab in the "Accounts" dropdown.

transfer

Now a modal window will appear on the page. The modal asks you to enter 3 inputs:

  • "send from account": Your account with funds that you will send from.
  • "send to address": The address of the account that will receive the funds.
  • "amount": The amount of tokens you will transfer.

The "existential deposit" box shows you the minimum amount of funds you must keep in the account for it to remain active. See the existential deposit section for more information.

transfer

After setting your inputs correctly, click the "Make Transfer" button and confirm. Once the transfer is included in a block you will see a green notification in the top-right corner of your screen.

Keep-Alive Checks

At an extrinsic level, there are two main ways to transfer funds from one account to another. These are transfer and transfer_keep_alive. transfer will allow you to send DOTs regardless of the consequence; transfer_keep_alive will not allow you to send an amount that would allow the sending account to be removed due to it going below the existential deposit.

By default, Polkadot-JS Apps will use transfer_keep_alive, ensuring that the account you send from cannot drop below the existential deposit (1 DOT or 0.001666 KSM). However, it may be that you do not want to keep this account alive (for example, because you are moving all of your funds to a different address). In this case, click on the "keep-alive" toggle at the bottom of the modal window. The label should switch from "Transfer with account keep-alive checks"(transfer_keep_alive will be used) to "Normal transfer without keep-alive checks" (transfer extrinsic will be used). As a common use case for using normal transfers is to entirely clear out the account, a second toggle will appear if you have the keep-alive check turned off that will send all the tokens in the account, minus a transaction fee, to the destination address.

Note that attempting to send less than the existential deposit to an account with 0 DOT will always fail, no matter if the keep-alive check is on or not. For instance, attempting to transfer 0.1 DOT to an account you just generated (and thus has no DOT) will fail, since 0.1 is less than the existential deposit of 1 DOT and the account cannot be initialized with such a low balance.

Note that even if the transfer fails due to a keep-alive check, the transaction fee will be deducted from the sending account if you attempt to transfer.

From the Accounts Page

Navigate to the "Accounts" page by selecting the "Accounts" tab from the "Accounts" dropdown located on the top navigational menu of Polkadot-JS Apps.

You will see a list of accounts you have loaded. Click the "Send" button in the row for the account you will like to send funds from.

transfer

Now you will see the same modal window as if using the "Transfer" tab. Fill in the inputs correctly and hit "Make Transfer" then confirm the balance transfer. You will see a green notification in the top-right corner of the screen when the transfer is included in a block.

Last updated on 1/11/2021 by Bruno Škvorc
← IdentityTransaction Fees →
  • Polkadot-JS Apps
    • Using the Transfer Tab
    • Keep-Alive Checks
    • From the Accounts Page
General
  • About
  • FAQ
  • Contact
  • Build
  • Grants and Bounties
  • Carrers
Technology
  • Technology
  • Token
  • Telemetry
  • Substrate
  • Whitepaper
  • Lightpaper
Community
  • Community
  • Documentation
  • Brand Assets
  • Blog
  • Element Chat
  • Medium

Subscribe to the newsletter to hear about Polkadot updates and events.

Polkadot Network
  • © 2021 Web3 Foundation
  • Impressum
  • Disclaimer
  • Privacy
  • Cookie Settings
  • Testnet disclaimer