š² how to buy Arbitrum NFTs
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I am using evergreen Friday to explore one of those *other* chains for a change.
the future is multi-chainā¦so that means my NFTs must be multichain too. I currently have ones on Ethereum, Solana, and Tezos, but that wasnāt enough. I needed *more*.
my airdrops often come from Polygonā¦but I donāt count those. it did get me thinking about L2 NFTs though, as I had never gone through the effort of setting up a Layer 2 on Metamask.
that was until a few weeks agoā¦
why Arbitrum? āļø
truthfully, I bought an Arbitrum NFT because I *thought* I had an interview for a marketing position with them.
(I ended up being interviewed for a completely *different* position in one of the most confusing business experiences of my life, but thatās a story for another day).
and conveniently a few days before my interview, OpenSea added Arbitrum NFTs to their marketplace too, which made my deep dive (and buying them) that much easier.
Arbitrum is a popular L2 that uses āroll-upsā to reduce gas costs and congestion on mainnet ETHā¦and for that reason, your eyes may have already glazed over.
but hear me out. the effectiveness of roll-ups *could* be the future of NFTs.
no one wants to spend ten dollarsā¦let alone hundreds or thousandsā¦on gas fees. thatās what has made Solana NFTs so popular despite the network intermittently just going down (as it did again this week).
gas isā¦whether youād like to believe it or notā¦one of the biggest inhibitors to onboarding new people to the space. creating a wallet is complicated enough, but when you need *extra* dough on top of the ETH you already have in there? thatās when it starts to get confusing.
āgas also changes by the second? what is going on here?ā
thatās where L2s come in.
how to buy Arbitrum NFTs āļø
in order to buy an Arbitrum NFT, youāll first have to do some swapping. using the Arbitrum Bridge was once the first of *many* steps in order to get one.
(you often had to then convert to a coin like $MAGIC on Uniswap or Sushiswap in order if you wanted to buy a SmolBrains, for example).
however, as mentioned, Arbitrum NFTs have been added to OpenSea now, so you can keep everything in ETH after itās converted on the bridge.
next, youāll just have to add Arbitrum to your Metamask wallet. to do that, simply āadd networkā and input the criteria below (or OpenSea can even do this for you).
Network Name: Arbitrum
New RPC URL: https://arb1.arbitrum.io/rpcĀ
Chain ID: 42161
Currency Symbol: ETH
Block Explorer URL: https://arbiscan.io/
from there, youāll go back to your Ethereum Mainnet wallet and open up the bridge. convert the total ETH you want in Arbitrum. the bridge transaction requires 2 signatures and took me about 10 minutes in total.
not exactly lightning fast, but once itās there, you just have to then switch back to the Arbitrum network in Metamaskā¦and youāre ready to hit OpenSea.
conclusion? āļø
I ended up buying two āGovernment Toucansā (see above) mostly because they were cheap and your boy loves toucans.
(this is a tangent but I once made it my goal to see one in Costa Rica. I dragged my family up to nature preserves and national parks searching for one with no luck. it wasnāt until I was at some random restaurant on my final night that I saw the big beaked bird. it was up in a nearby tree cracking a nut with its schnoz. what a time that was.)
if *smooth* is what we want then weāre still a far way from L2 NFTs. the transaction was quick, but getting the proper funds to buy them on OpenSea was a mild headache that required at least some base knowledge of blockchain bridges. thatās not exactly someone off the street will understand right away.
but if we want a transaction thatās fast and doesnāt cost much gas? now weāre talking. the Government Toucans cost me a few cents in gasā¦practically āfreeā.
for that reason, Arbitrum makes sense for gaming NFTsā¦with all their microtransactions and lots of other activity in order to keep costs down.
that being said, even for standard NFTs, Arbitrum is still better off than many other L2s right now. its quality of projectsā¦in particular, SmolBrains (the dynamic NFTs that have growing head sizes based on the tokens āIQā)ā¦keep it a cut above.
Optimism and Polygon NFTs canāt exactly say the same right nowā¦as nothing there (that I know) has a big diehard following as SmolBrains.
(if this series of me exploring other chainsā NFTs continues, perhaps I can dive into Optimism NFTs to see if there is one Iām missing).
but truthfully if there is a next edition of āBiv explores chains,ā itās going to be diving into one of the craziest fanbases of them allā¦Cardano NFTs š