đ˛ how to buy Arbitrum NFTs
gm.
I am using evergreen Friday to explore one of those *other* chains for a change.
the future is multi-chainâŚso that means my NFTs must be multichain too. I currently have ones on Ethereum, Solana, and Tezos, but that wasnât enough. I needed *more*.
my airdrops often come from PolygonâŚbut I donât 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 agoâŚ
why Arbitrum? âď¸
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 thatâs 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 âroll-upsâ to reduce gas costs and congestion on mainnet ETHâŚand 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 dollarsâŚlet alone hundreds or thousandsâŚon gas fees. thatâs what has made Solana NFTs so popular despite the network intermittently just going down (as it did again this week).
gas isâŚwhether youâd like to believe it or notâŚone 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? thatâs when it starts to get confusing.
âgas also changes by the second? what is going on here?â
thatâs where L2s come in.
how to buy Arbitrum NFTs âď¸
in order to buy an Arbitrum NFT, youâll 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 itâs converted on the bridge.
next, youâll just have to add Arbitrum to your Metamask wallet. to do that, simply âadd networkâ and input the criteria below (or OpenSea can even do this for you).
Network Name: Arbitrum
New RPC URL: https://arb1.arbitrum.io/rpcÂ
Chain ID: 42161
Currency Symbol: ETH
Block Explorer URL: https://arbiscan.io/
from there, youâll 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 itâs there, you just have to then switch back to the Arbitrum network in MetamaskâŚand youâre ready to hit OpenSea.
conclusion? âď¸
I ended up buying two âGovernment Toucansâ (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 wasnât 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 weâre 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. thatâs not exactly someone off the street will understand right away.
but if we want a transaction thatâs fast and doesnât cost much gas? now weâre talking. the Government Toucans cost me a few cents in gasâŚpractically âfreeâ.
for that reason, Arbitrum makes sense for gaming NFTsâŚwith 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 projectsâŚin particular, SmolBrains (the dynamic NFTs that have growing head sizes based on the tokens âIQâ)âŚkeep it a cut above.
Optimism and Polygon NFTs canât exactly say the same right nowâŚas nothing there (that I know) has a big diehard following as SmolBrains.
(if this series of me exploring other chainsâ NFTs continues, perhaps I can dive into Optimism NFTs to see if there is one Iâm missing).
but truthfully if there is a next edition of âBiv explores chains,â itâs going to be diving into one of the craziest fanbases of them allâŚCardano NFTs đ