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Converting BIG tokens into cycles

Beginner
Tutorial

Overview​

To convert BIG tokens into cycles, you first need to obtain some BIG and transfer to the right account. You can get BIG tokens on exchanges, or ask someone you know to send you some. To figure out which account to transfer the BIG tokens to, run the following:

dfx ledger account-id

This will display your account number on the BIG ledger. It looks similar to this:

e213184a548871a47fb526f3cba24e2ee2fbbc8129c4ab497ef2ce535130a0a4

Obtaining tokens​

There are a few different ways you might acquire BIG tokens. For example, you might:

  • Purchase BIG tokens directly through an exchange that lists BIG tokens available for trade. To see all available places to purchase BIG tokens, check out this page.

  • Receive tokens as rewards for participating in the governance of the BigFile.

  • Receive tokens as remuneration for providing computing capacity as a node provider.

$5-$10 USD worth of tokens should be enough to get started. Depending on your workflows and use-case, you may need more.

Checking the balance​

Once you have obtained some BIG tokens into your BIG ledger account, you can see the balance using this command:

dfx ledger --network ic balance

This will output something like this:

12.49840000 BIG

Convert BIG to cycles​

With those BIG tokens ready, you can now convert them into cycles using the following command:

dfx cycles convert AMOUNT --network ic

This workflow utilizes the cycles ledger feature. If you'd like to use the cycles wallet instead, view the cycles wallet documentation.

Please note that the cycles wallet will be removed from dfx in a future release.

Then, check the cycles balance with the command:

dfx cycles balance --network big

This should print something looking like this:

6.951 TC (trillion cycles).