Error: insufficient funds for intrinsic transaction cost on Ropsten

Question

I've seen the question asked a bunch, I don't see any answers.

I am working through this Alchemy tutorial to deploy a smart contract. This error pops up, even though I have 4.9 ETH in my Ropsten wallet:

% npx hardhat run scripts/deploy.js --network ropsten --show-stack-traces

Error: insufficient funds for intrinsic transaction cost (error={"name":"ProviderError","code":-32000,"_isProviderError":true}, method="sendTransaction", transaction=undefined, code=INSUFFICIENT_FUNDS, version=providers/5.5.3)
    at Logger.makeError (/Users/macbookdbw/Dropbox/Personal/js_projects/astro-1/node_modules/@ethersproject/logger/src.ts/index.ts:225:28)
    at Logger.throwError (/Users/macbookdbw/Dropbox/Personal/js_projects/astro-1/node_modules/@ethersproject/logger/src.ts/index.ts:237:20)
    at checkError (/Users/macbookdbw/Dropbox/Personal/js_projects/astro-1/node_modules/@ethersproject/providers/src.ts/json-rpc-provider.ts:53:16)
    at /Users/macbookdbw/Dropbox/Personal/js_projects/astro-1/node_modules/@ethersproject/providers/src.ts/json-rpc-provider.ts:215:24
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:95:5) {
  reason: 'insufficient funds for intrinsic transaction cost',
  code: 'INSUFFICIENT_FUNDS',
  error: ProviderError: insufficient funds for gas * price + value
      at HttpProvider.request (/Users/macbookdbw/Dropbox/Personal/js_projects/astro-1/node_modules/hardhat/src/internal/core/providers/http.ts:74:19)
      at LocalAccountsProvider.request (/Users/macbookdbw/Dropbox/Personal/js_projects/astro-1/node_modules/hardhat/src/internal/core/providers/accounts.ts:182:36)
      at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:95:5)
      at EthersProviderWrapper.send (/Users/macbookdbw/Dropbox/Personal/js_projects/astro-1/node_modules/@nomiclabs/hardhat-ethers/src/internal/ethers-provider-wrapper.ts:13:20),
  method: 'sendTransaction',
  transaction: undefined

Here is my hardhat.config.js file:

/**
* @type import('hardhat/config').HardhatUserConfig
*/
require('dotenv').config();
require("@nomiclabs/hardhat-ethers");
const { API_URL, PRIVATE_KEY } = process.env;
module.exports = {
   solidity: "0.7.3",
   defaultNetwork: "ropsten",
   networks: {
      hardhat: {},
      ropsten: {
         url: API_URL,
         accounts: [`0x${PRIVATE_KEY}`]
      }
   },
}

I have an .env file with my private key and api url.

Here is the deploy script:

async function main() {
    // Grab the contract factory 
    const MyNFT = await ethers.getContractFactory("MyNFT");
 
    // Start deployment, returning a promise that resolves to a contract object
    const myNFT = await MyNFT.deploy(); // Instance of the contract 
    console.log("Contract deployed to address:", myNFT.address);
 }
 
 main()
   .then(() => process.exit(0))
   .catch(error => {
     console.error(error);
     process.exit(1);
   });

And, here is the smart contract:

//Contract based on https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/3.x/erc721
// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity ^0.7.3;

import "@openzeppelin/contracts/token/ERC721/ERC721.sol";
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/utils/Counters.sol";
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/access/Ownable.sol";


contract MyNFT is ERC721, Ownable {
    using Counters for Counters.Counter;
    Counters.Counter private _tokenIds;

    constructor() public ERC721("MyNFT", "NFT") {}

    function mintNFT(address recipient, string memory tokenURI)
        public onlyOwner
        returns (uint256)
    {
        _tokenIds.increment();

        uint256 newItemId = _tokenIds.current();
        _mint(recipient, newItemId);
        _setTokenURI(newItemId, tokenURI);

        return newItemId;
    }
}

Answer 1

I had a similar problem with the Hello World tutorial on Ethereum.org. Turns out, if you switch your test network from ropsten to goerli, this problem goes away.