How to buy MIN, the Minswap token, on Cardano

The token

What is MIN?

MIN is the native token of Minswap, a multi-pool decentralised exchange on Cardano. Minswap's own documentation lists three things the token does: you can stake it to receive ADA that comes out of the exchange's trading fees, holding it earns a trading-fee discount, and it carries a vote in Minswap's governance, including decisions such as where the ADA sitting in Minswap liquidity pools is staked and how that stake votes in Catalyst (docs.minswap.org, checked September 11, 2026). The staking rewards come from what Minswap calls the Fee Switch: of the 0.3% fee on a swap, 0.05% is set aside, accumulated over a month and paid out to stakers the month after (Minswap docs). Minswap publishes the mechanism, not a rate, and we are not quoting one either.

Two practical notes. You do not need MIN to use Minswap; the exchange works the same without it. And MIN is a Cardano native token like any other, which means it lives in your own wallet rather than in a smart contract, and it moves with the same transaction rules as ADA. If that distinction is new, the native token explainer covers it.

Identity

What is the official MIN policy ID?

The policy ID is 29d222ce763455e3d7a09a665ce554f00ac89d2e99a1a83d267170c6copy and the asset name is MIN, written 4d494e in hex. Put together, the asset is identified on chain as 29d222ce763455e3d7a09a665ce554f00ac89d2e99a1a83d267170c64d494e. Minswap prints that same string in its own documentation, which is the source you should trust over any screenshot or message (docs.minswap.org, checked September 11, 2026).

One warning specific to this token. The same policy also minted MINt, a separate asset from Minswap's early airdrops. The first 56 characters are identical, so compare the asset name as well as the policy ID before you sign anything.

Venues

Where does MIN trade?

Mostly on Minswap itself, which is the natural home for an exchange's own token. The pools listed against MIN on September 11, 2026 were MIN and ADA (two separate pools), MIN and USDM, MIN and iUSD, SNEK and MIN, and NIGHT and MIN (CoinGecko market list). Aggregators that route Cardano orders across several exchanges will also quote MIN; the Minswap and DexHunter guide explains when routing is worth it and when it is not.

Two centralised exchanges run a MIN market that we could confirm on the exchange's own pages: KuCoin, which opened MIN/USDT at 10:00 UTC on 18 December 2025 and names Cardano as the deposit network (KuCoin announcement), and MEXC, which runs a MIN/USDT spot market (mexc.com). Other exchanges appear on third-party market lists; we have not named them because we could not confirm them on the exchange's own site. Buying on a centralised exchange leaves the token in that exchange's custody until you withdraw it to a Cardano address.

Buying

How do I buy MIN, step by step?

1. Get a Cardano wallet. Lace, Eternl and Vespr all hold native tokens and connect to Minswap. The wallet comparison walks through setup and seed phrase storage.
2. Fund it with ADA. Buy ADA on an exchange you already use and withdraw it to your wallet's receive address, sending a small test amount first. The ADA withdrawal guide covers the network choice and the memo trap.
3. Open minswap.org and connect. Type the address or use a bookmark. Approve the connection in the wallet pop-up; connecting lets the site read addresses, not move funds.
4. Paste the policy ID into the token search. Not the ticker. Tickers are not unique on Cardano and the same policy also holds MINt, so match the full asset.
5. Enter the amount and read the quote. Check price impact and the minimum you will receive, which is the number that actually lands after fees. Then click Swap and sign in your wallet.
6. Wait for the batcher. A Cardano swap settles in a second transaction submitted by a batcher, so the order sits as pending for a short while before the tokens appear. The swap walkthrough has the detail, including how to cancel a pending order.

Costs

What does the transaction cost?

Three numbers, none of them large. The pool's trading fee is around 0.3% of the trade and goes to liquidity providers, with V2 pools able to set their own rate shown in the quote. Minswap's batcher fee is 0 ADA; it was about 2 ADA per order until May 2025, when Minswap removed it for users (docs.minswap.org, checked September 11, 2026). The Cardano network fee follows the formula a times transaction size plus b (docs.cardano.org); at the parameters in force when we checked, that is 0.155381 ADA plus 0.000044 ADA per byte (epoch parameters), so a simple transfer is a fraction of an ADA and a swap somewhat more.

The part people trip over is min-ADA. Every output that holds native tokens must also hold a small amount of ADA, sized by a protocol parameter, and that ADA stays locked while the tokens sit there. In practice a wallet drained to zero ADA cannot move its MIN at all, so keep a few spare ADA beyond the amount you are swapping. The fees guide works through both numbers.

Checking

How do I verify what landed in my wallet?

Open the token in your wallet, view its details, and compare the policy ID character by character with the one above, then confirm the asset name reads MIN and not MINt. A matching name or logo proves nothing, because anyone can mint a token called MIN; the policy ID and asset name together are the proof. If your wallet shows the fingerprint instead, it should read asset1d9v7aptfvpx7we2la8f25kwprkj2ma5rp6uwzv.

You can also look the asset up on Cardanoscan to see the mint history and holder count, and read the swap transaction itself if something looks off. We have step-by-step versions of both: verifying a policy ID and reading a transaction on Cardanoscan. The same check applies to every Cardano token, ours included; $CATSKY is 9b426921a21f54600711da0be1a12b026703a9bd8eb9848d08c9d921copy.

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