gm lions!
In my search for deepening my very limited understanding of blockchain, I decided to do a little investigating on rollups.
I'd like to share with you one of the layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum that uses optimistic rollups.
It's called Arbitrum.
What are rollups?
In order to offload some of the computation from the Ethereum chain, the rollup transactions are executed on a separate chain which is basically a different environment capable of running a rollup-specific version of the Ethereum Virtual Machine called OVM or “optimistic virtual machine”. The data is then compressed and rolled up to the main Ethereum chain in a single batch, which will contain the minimum information needed to verify whether the transactions are valid or not.
If you'd like a slightly more detailed explanation with some visual aids, read this article here: Rollups - Ethereum's scaling strategy
Although there are several competitors as far as later 2 scaling solutions, Arbitrum is one of the leaders in this race. They were actually the first one to hit mainnet, and they have very high compatibility with Ethereum which reduces friction for developers. Arbitrum could also have a huge impact on transaction fees; it could potentially make transactions 1/100th cheaper. So let’s say you wanted to do a trade on Uniswap using Ethereum and the gas fee for that transaction says $100. Well with Arbitrum, that same transaction could potentially cost less than $1.
Last year, social media giant Reddit announced that they would be moving their two Ethereum-based community tokens Moons ($MOONS) and Bricks ($BRICKS) to the Arbitrum network. These tokens were created in 2020 as part of an initiative to incentivize quality content on the forum.
Rollups vs side-chains
Aside from rollups, there are other types of scaling solutions such as side-chains like Polygon, which have their own blockchain and token.
The biggest and most important difference between these, according to Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, is their security model. Rollups inherit their security from Ethereum, whereas Polygon, instead of being secured by Ethereum, is secured by its own proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus, making it potentially more susceptible to a 51% attack (which is not impossible):
Potential Airdrop
Similar to the Uniswap airdrop of their UNI token in 2020, some rollups projects like Optimism and zkSync have already confirmed airdrops of their token to their early users so naturally, there has been some chitter-chatter around the water cooler that early users of the Arbitrum Network will also be airdropped an Arbitrum token. This, of course, is pure speculation, but it doesn’t hurt to take this information into consideration in case it does happen.
I would recommend: using the Arbitrum Network once or a few times, in case the airdrop is a thing.
Here's a walkthrough on how to do that.
How to bridge ETH from Ethereum to Arbitrum
The first thing you want to do is get yourself a EVM compatible wallet. I’m going to use Meta Mask, which is compatible with some of the most popular browsers like Chrome, Brave Browser, Firefox and Edge.
Step two is to go to https://chainlist.org/, which will allow us to connect to EVM compatible networks, including Arbitrum.
Find the Arbitrum option and connect wallet.
click Next and then Connect on Meta Mask.
Your wallet should now be connected to Chainlist. You can verify this on the top right corner where your address can be seen next to the Meta Mask fox logo.
Click on Add to Meta Mask
And then Approve on Meta Mask
That’s it!
All the network information should be automatically populated in your Meta Mask Wallet and you should now see Arbitrum in your list of networks.
like this:
Now to bridge over some ETH from L1 to L2
To bridge your ETH over to Arbitrum, head over to https://bridge.arbitrum.io/
Connect your Meta Mask Wallet
Agree to the terms of service
I’m going to type in 0.1 ETH and click Move funds to Arbitrum
Approve the transaction on Meta Mask. As you can see, my 0.1 ETH will cost me $18.86 in gas fees. click Approve.
A few moments later, the status of your transaction should change from waiting on L2 to Confirmed.
my Meta Mask Wallet shows 0.1 ETH on the Arbitrum Network:
I cannot confirm that using the Arbitrum network once will qualify you for an airdrop. In fact, I cannot confirm that there will be an airdrop at all! But for a few dollars, I'm willing to take my chances.
I'm actually going to try doing a few more transactions to see how much cheaper and faster they actually are.
I'll keep you posted.
If you'd like to check out what D'apps are live on the Arbitrum ecosystem, you can check them out here: https://portal.arbitrum.one/
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to DM me using https://hive.pm
You can also find me in the Leo Finance Discord Server
And you can sometimes find me at the pizza joint on the corner Ponce de Leon boulevard and Coral Way.
have an awesome weekend lions!