Arbitrum Bridge

Both of them have a significant relationship, and you can learn more about it in an introduction to the Arbitrum Bridge.

What are blockchain bridges?

Blockchain bridges are tools that connect one blockchain to another, enabling users to transfer digital assets. They solve the lack of interoperability between blockchains.

Typically, blockchains work excellently as single entities but do not work well together. In fact, they are usually not interoperable. This is because each blockchain is different and abides by separate rules. Bridges are the solution to this obstacle.

As part of their role, bridges create synthetic derivatives that represent digital currencies from other chains. For instance, sending a Solana token to Ethereum through a bridge will produce a “wrapped” version of the token. This simply means that the bridge will convert the digital asset to an ERC-20 token, a “format” compatible with the Ethereum blockchain. Hence, in the Ethereum wallet, you’ll receive a bridged version of the Solana token that has been converted to an ERC-20 token.

Bridges make life easy for active crypto users by giving them access to multiple blockchains. Also, they allow users to possibly avoid the high transaction costs of blockchains like Ethereum by bridging to cheaper layer-2 (L2) chains like Arbitrum. However, not all blockchain bridges are built equally. Some are uni-directional, meaning they can only transfer tokens one way. Others are bidirectional, which means they can transfer tokens from Solana to Ethereum and vice versa. Most bridges, including Arbitrum, are bidirectional.

Moreover, blockchain bridges can be custodial or non-custodial. Centralized entities control the tokens used to create bridged assets in custodial bridges. On the other hand, tokens that produce bridged assets are held by decentralized protocols in non-custodial bridges.

Besides tokens, blockchain bridges can also transfer data, feedback, instructions, and smart contracts between blockchains. Blockchain bridges are also called cross-chain bridges.

What is the Arbitrum bridge?

The Arbitrum bridge launched as an Ethereum L2 scaling solution, which means it seeks to be faster and cheaper than the Ethereum mainchain.

On Arbitrum, users can interact with decentralized applications (DApps) and smart contracts the same way they can on Ethereum. Arbitrum is built on top of the Ethereum blockchain and uses its security. Its goal as a scaling solution is to solve the high cost of transactions on Ethereum and boost transaction speeds. Arbitrum uses optimistic rollups to improve Ethereum’s throughput. Optimistic rollups are L2 scaling technology that uses off-chain computation to record transactions.

Bridging from Ethereum to Arbitrum simply means escrowing a given amount of the token in an L1 bridge contract and creating a similar amount at the paired L2 token contract. In other words, smart contracts are used in the bridging process. A smart contract is a piece of code living on the blockchain that executes when predetermined conditions are met.

Offchain Labs, the company behind Arbitrum, built a protocol with the ability to pass messages and assets between it and the Ethereum blockchain. Therefore, users can move all Ethereum-compatible tokens, such as ERC-20, ERC-721, and ether, from Ethereum to the Arbitrum chain and potentially enjoy faster and cheaper transactions. They can also move their tokens back to Ethereum through a withdraw function.

Offchain Labs has developed two Arbitrum chains running in parallel on the Ethereum blockchain. They are Arbitrum One, which is the roll-up chain, and Arbitrum Nova, which uses the AnyTrust protocol. AnyTrust is an Arbitrum protocol that’s cheaper than Arbitrum One but less trustless. Rather than posting data to the Ethereum mainnet (layer 1) like Arbitrum One, AnyTrust manages data off-chain, allowing it to offer lower fees. Users can select either one of these chains when bridging to and from Ethereum, depending on the transaction costs they wish to pay.

Both Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova give users access to a wide range of Ethereum DApps. Go to the Arbitrum One Portal and Arbitrum Nova Portal to view the list of decentralized applications you can access.

How to use Arbitrum bridge?

You’ll need a MetaMask wallet or a wallet that supports WalletConnect, with ether coins to use the Arbitrum bridge. Ether is important because it pays for the gas fees.

Here’s how you can use this cross-chain bridge!

How to connect Arbitrum to MetaMask

Assuming you already have a MetaMask wallet, you can easily connect Arbitrum to it. In this example, we will use the MetaMask browser extension. This extension is available for Google Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Edge, and Opera.