Wallets, and how to get USDC
Paying from your own wallet is the fast way to top up. It settles in seconds and nobody checks your ID, because you are only sending money you already hold. The card route exists for people who do not want a wallet, but MoonPay verifies your identity on every purchase there, not only the first. If you top up regularly, buy USDC once and pay from a wallet after that.
What a wallet actually is
Not an account with a provider. It is a key pair on your own device, usually a browser extension or a phone app, and the address is the public half of it.
One key pair, two faces of the same fact
The public half
The address. It is what an exchange withdraws to.
The private half
The rest of the pair, sitting on your device in the extension or the app.
Nobody can freeze it.
Nobody can recover it for you.
The same sentence, read from two sides
Write the recovery phrase down on paper and keep it away from the computer.
USDC on Solana, not the other USDC
The network matters as much as the coin. A wallet that speaks Solana is what you want: Phantom and Solflare are the common ones.
- USDCSolanaThis is the one you need
- USDCEthereum
- USDCBase
- USDCPolygon
USDC exists on Ethereum, Base, Polygon and others too, and those are different tokens as far as the payment is concerned.
Where to buy it
Any exchange or onramp will do, as long as both of these are true.
- It sells USDC.
- It lets you withdraw to a Solana address.
Paybis is one that quotes in Swiss francs; a normal exchange account works just as well if you already have one. Whichever you use, choose Solana as the withdrawal network.
Identity checks: once, or every time
Every provider verifies identity once. That is the law, not a policy any of them chose, and it applies whether you buy through MoonPay here or somewhere else first. What differs is how often you sit through it.
From a wallet
Asks once, where you buy the USDC.
MoonPay card route
Asks on every purchase, not only the first.
A transfer cannot be undone
Sending to a wrong address loses the money, and no support desk can reverse it.
Send a small amount first, the first time you use a new address.
Solana's own network fee is a fraction of a cent, so it does not meaningfully change what you pay.
Topping up, once the USDC is there
- 01
Pick the amount.
- 02
Open the payment page.
- 03
Approve the transfer in your wallet.
The credit appears when the payment confirms.