Basics

How to Connect Wallet:

Connecting wallets is really simple and straightforward.

Launch the dApp and in the top right corner of the website there will be a tab with Connect wallet. Click here and it most likely will ask which wallet you want to connect, e.g. MetaMask, Trust Wallet, Coinbase Wallet, Ledger, etc.

Choose your wallet and it will issue a pop-up from MetaMask asking you which wallet you want to connect.

Then you choose your wallet and a new screen appears asking you if you want to connect to the dApp. Click Connect and voila, you are now connected!

How to Bridge Assets to Arbitrum

There are three main ways to bridge Ethereum over to Arbitrum.

Through a CEX

One of the easier methods is using a CEX. There are quite a lot of central exchanges that support Arbitrum and allow users to send Ethereum or USDT over to the chain. Two examples are Binance and Kucoin.

• Simply head over to your account balance on their platforms and select ETH.

• Navigate to ‘Withdraw’ and for network select ‘Arbitrum’.

• Paste/Fill in your MetaMask/wallet address and confirm the withdrawal.

Simple as that! The biggest plus to this method is that you do not have to bridge from Ethereum and incur large gas fees.

Through Arbitrum’s native bridge

Arbitrum has its own native bridge athttps://bridge.arbitrum.io/. Make sure you have a balance in Ethereum on Mainnet in order to use this bridge.

• Connect with MetaMask.

• Input how much ETH you want to bridge over and click ‘Deposit’.

• Wait for the MetaMask pop-up to show up with the transaction details. Note here that the gas fees for this transaction are incurred on Mainnet and thus can be expensive during times of high network demand.

• If you are content with the price paid for the transaction and its size, click ‘Confirm’ in MetaMask.

• On your screen you will be able to monitor the process of the transaction. It will take a couple of minutes before you can utilise the bridged Ethereum on Arbitrum.

The Arbitrum bridge supports solely Ethereum and selected ERC-20 tokens. Due to its design it takes a couple minutes to bridge to Arbitrum, but to bridge back to Ethereum from Arbitrum takes a week (if using this bridge!).

Through alternative bridges (Synapse, Hop etc.)

Besides the Arbitrum bridge there are a ton of other bridges on the market. Each with its own design and pro’s and con’s. One of the benefits of these being that you can also bridge from other EVM-networks other than Ethereum. Another benefit is that these bridges offer instant withdrawals from Arbitrum and allow users to circumvent the 1 week delay of the native Arbitrum bridge.

Apeboard has a tool that allows users to select networks and see the list of bridges that support those for comparison. The process if very similar.

• Connect with MetaMask and make sure you are on the right network.

• Input how much of a certain crypto asset you want to bridge.

• Wait for the MetaMask pop-up to show up and hit ‘Confirm’.

• Wait for the transaction to be processed before you can utilise the bridged assets on Arbitrum.