Send USDC on Ethereum without ETH
You hold USDC on Ethereum but no ETH, so you cannot pay the gas for a transfer. You can send it without buying ETH first.
Why your wallet refuses
Every Ethereum transaction pays gas in ETH. USDC cannot pay it in a normal transfer, so a wallet with USDC and 0 ETH is stuck, however much USDC it holds.
Your options
- Withdraw a little ETH from an exchange to that wallet. If you can do this, it is usually the cheapest route.
- Ask someone to send you a little ETH.
- Use gasrescue when you have only the USDC and want it moved now.
How to send it with gasrescue
- Open gasrescue and connect a wallet such as MetaMask, Rabby or Phantom. Ethereum is already selected, and the token list shows what you hold.
- Enter the amount, or press Max to send everything, and the recipient. The quote lists the network fee, the service fee and what the recipient gets.
- Sign once in your wallet. We send the transaction and pay the gas.
- You get a link to the transaction in the block explorer.
What it costs
The service fee is 0.5% of the amount, at least $0.25 and at most $2.00. Both fees are deducted from the amount you send, and the quote shows the exact figures before you sign. While gas is so high that the network fee would pass $2, new quotes are refused until it falls. Nothing is charged in that case.
What you sign
You sign one typed message, not a transaction, so you need no gas for it. Your wallet shows the amount and our contract. Recipient and fee are bound into a hash, so check those two in the quote on gasrescue.io. Transfer and fee run in one transaction: if it fails, nothing moves.
Need ETH instead?
You can also swap a few dollars of your stablecoins into ETH without holding any. It lands in your own wallet, so you can pay your own gas from then on. How a swap without gas works.
Common questions
Does this work for USDT on Ethereum?
No. The USDT contract on Ethereum has no signed transfers, so gasrescue sends only USDC there.
Which wallets work?
Wallets that support typed-data signatures, such as MetaMask, Rabby or Phantom. Smart contract wallets, such as a Coinbase Smart Wallet, do not work yet.
Before you start
Transfers are final, so check the recipient address carefully. Only sign on gasrescue.io. gasrescue is in early access and independent of every chain and wallet named here, so please start with a small amount.