Ok, I'm not a total noob but I'm not the fastest when it comes to trying out innovations. One of them is smartBCH. Of course, I've noticed a lot of it at noise, but I've left it as a fringe phenomenon for now. During the last days I finally looked into it and once again I think it could have been sooner. That's why I'd like to tell those of you who are unsure how to get started with smartBCH relatively easily.

That's how it is described:

Smart Bitcoin Cash is a sidechain for Bitcoin Cash and has an aim to explore new ideas and unlock novel possibilities. By developing optimized, high-throughput and hardware-friendly libraries compatible with the de facto standards of smart contracts, DeFi applications can be easily migrated into Bitcoin Cash's ecosystem and run fluently at low cost.

It sounds a bit unwieldy to me, but let's try to deal with it. You can find more information on smartbch.org.

I assume that you have some BCH and know how to use it.
Please don't expect any financial advice.
The following describes how I understand it.

Steps to start with smartBCH

1) Install Metamask

Metamask is a browser wallet addon for using different blockchains and interacting with a variety of web applications. I'm sure you know it.
If you haven't already, install it and save your seed phrase! Really, do this, you'll need it when you reinstall your browser.

2) Add smartBCH network to Metamask

In the next step we add the smartBCH network.
In your Metamask go to: "Settings" → "Networks" → "Add Network" and enter the following.

• Network Name: SmartBCH

• RPC URL: https://smartbch.fountainhead.cash/mainnet

  or

  https://smartbch.greyh.at

• Chain ID: 10000

• Currency Symbol: BCH

• Block Explorer URL: https://www.smartscan.cash

Save it! smartBCH should now be available in the network list and you should see BCH when you select the smartBCH network.

3) Transfer some BCH to smartBCH

Now it's about getting your BCH from one network to the other. One way to do this, the only way I know of, is coinflex.com.

There you simply log in with Metamask or with your email address.

Deposit BCH on coinflex

Go to "Wallet & Order" → "Deposit"
Select BCH and also BCH as Deposit Network
You will see a QR code and a bitcoincash: address. Scan or copy them and deposit some BCH. (no other tokens!) After one confirmation your BCH will show up in your balance. It had to wait ~20 minutes. Be patient!

Only the usual low BCH network fees apply here. KYC was not required for me.

Withdraw smartBCH to Metamask

Next we want to withdraw smartBCH to Metamask. When we do so, our BCH is transformed into smartBCH automatically.

Go to "Wallet & Order" → "Withdraw"
Select BCH again but this time the SEP20 network.
Insert you smartBCH address that you'll find in Metamask (it starts with 0x...) and the amount you want to withdraw, hit "Submit" and confirm the transaction in Metamask.

As far as I can tell, this transaction has no fee and KYC is also not required.

A few moments later the BCH should show up in your Metamask wallet.

These are the steps I followed to get some BCH into the smartBCH network. There might be other ways, but I don't know of any so far. I am of course happy to receive suggestions on this topic in the comments.

So now, what to do with it?

Now that you have smartBCH you can use it to buy SEP20 token like EBEN, $CATS or some others. To do so, connect your Metamask to benswap.cash. There you can buy tokens in the Exchange and stake them in a pool to earn even more.

Add the tokens to Metamask to show them there. A nice overview and the possibility to add them with one click can be found here: zh.thedev.id/sep20tokens.

Oh, and you can also participate in airdrops, if you are fast enough to find them.

But that's another story that other people can explain better than I can.

Thank you for reading, thank you for your time.
I hope it has helped some of you to get a start on this topic.

Disclaimer

Everything I write is based on my own opinion. My words do not constitute financial, medical, religious, ideological or other advice. Do your own research!
All images used are my own unless otherwise stated - please respect that!