How to Set Up Wallet and Bridge Funds to Arbitrum for Dragon’s Crossing
The Dragon’s Crossing Genesis hero mint begins on Saturday, May 27, 2023. This article is intended to be a guide to help people wanting to know how to bridge funds to Arbitrum from various popular chains.
Table of Contents — What you need to be ready to mint a Dragon’s Crossing Genesis Hero:
- MetaMask Wallet — Connected to Arbitrum RPC
1A — If you do not already have a Metamask wallet
1B — Add the Arbitrum Network to your Wallet - USDC for Mint and ETH for Gas (both on Arbitrum network)
- How to Bridge Funds to Arbitrum
3A — Bridging Funds From another Decentralized Wallet
3B — Sending Funds from a Centralized Exchange
3C — Fiat On-Ramp Directly to Arbitrum
1. MetaMask Wallet — Connected to Arbitrum RPC
Like with any web3 application or NFT game. You’ll need a crypto wallet that can interact with the application. The easiest way most people do this is by installing a browser extension. The most common is Metamask.
1A. If you do not already have a Metamask wallet.
If you already have a web3 wallet skip to Step 1B below.
You can download the extension directly from their website: https://metamask.io/
This will take you to the Chrome store to add the extension
Once you add the extension it will ask to create a new wallet.
Once you do this it will give you 12 words, do not screen shot them, do not share them with anyone. Write them down on a piece of paper and lock it away somewhere you won’t lose it! It will then test you to see if you have the 12 phrases in the correct order! Enter the missing phrases from the order of the 12 and it will be confirmed.
Once installed, you can pin the extension to your web browser tool bar by clicking on this puzzle piece.
Your wallet is now created! There is nothing on it yet, and it will automatically be connected to the Ethereum Network.
Congrats, you now have a web 3 wallet. Keep in mind that your wallet address, starting with 0x… will be the SAME ADDRESS regardless of which network you are connecting to (e.g. whether you are connecting to Avalanche, DFK Chain, Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, or Arbitrum), its the same address across all of them!
Next Step, lets enable your wallet to connect to the Arbitrum Network.
1B. Add the Arbitrum Network to your Wallet
Since your wallet is only connected to the Ethereum network. Keep in mind that your wallet address remains the same, regardless of which network you connect to. So lets look at how to add the Arbitrum network.
This will open up a new screen with other popular networks. Simply select “Add” next to the Arbitrum network.
It will then ask you to approve adding it. Select “Approve”.
You’ll then receive a notification saying that the Network was added successfully and asking if you want to switch to that network.
If you switch, then go to your Metamask Extension it says that you are now connected to Arbitrum One instead of Ethereum!
Now you need to get some funds onto your Arbitrum Wallet. You may have funds on a centralized exchange like Coinbase, Binance, Crypto.com, Kucoin, or any other major exchange, or you may have funds on a Metamask or other decentralized wallet already and simply need to bridge them to this wallet. Let’s address how to do that.
2. USDC for Mint and ETH for Gas (both on Arbitrum network)
Any transaction on a blockchain requires “gas” which is an amount of a token paid to process the transaction. On Arbitrum, the gas token is Ethereum. On Etherum, it is also Ethereum. On Binance Smart Chain the gas token is BNB. On Avalanche the gas token is AVAX. Polygon the gas token is MATIC, you get the point.
So we will need some Ethereum on your Arbitrum wallet you just created, you’ll also need some USDC on the Arbitrum network since the mint will require USDC.
Dragon’s Crossing chose a stable coin for mint to avoid fluctuating prices before and after the mint.
Okay so lets show you how to get some USDC and Ethereum on Arbitrum. You have a couple options on how to do that:
- Bridge USDC and Ethereum
- Bridge a different token AND perform a swap via the bridge at the same time!
- Send some Ethereum and USDC from a centralized exchange.
3. How to Bridge Funds to Arbitrum
3.A Bridging Funds From another Decentralized Wallet
Perhaps you have funds on another decentralized wallet? There are MANY options you can use to bridge to Arbitrum.
The cool thing about most bridges now, is that they will serve as both a bridge and a swap feature. For example you could bridge BUSD from Binance Smart Chain straight into USDC on Arbitrum using some bridges!
I’ll look at three popular bridges to Arbitrum, but if you have funds on another network that isn’t supported by one of these three I mention below, you might need to do a couple of bridge transactions or google for another bridge that connects to Arbitrum.
Synapse Protocol (My Favorite) — https://synapseprotocol.com/
Synpase is my favorite because I’ve used it the most, it also has bridges between a lot of chains. They also give you a bit of the gas token that you need on the network so that you can usually do at least one transaction once you bridge to that network!
When you go to the website, it will ask to connect your metamask, you can approve that. Once you approve, it will show you a “origin” and “Destination” this is essentially to “from” and “to” network.
You can select from a wide range of “origin” networks. This will be the network where you currently have funds on the connected wallet.
You can change the original wallet network by selecting the drop down.
So for example — lets say you have some Ethereum on Avalanche and want to bridge it to Arbtirum. You can select Avalanche as the origin network and Arbitrum as the Destination network.
Here’s another example, this time where Synapse will both BRIDGE AND SWAP a token. Say you have 410 BUSD on Binance Smart Chain, and you want to bridge it over to do a boosted mint, you can bridge it and convert it into USDC in one transaction.
After approving a transaction — this is what you’ll see on Synapse Protocol. You’ll see it says “Waiting to be credited on Arbitrum.”
Once it is done — the “Bridge Watcher” at the bottom of the app will show this:
So now when I change my wallet to Arbitrum network, I’ll see what I bridged.
Congrats — now you have funds over on Arbitrum.
Keep in mind that this bridges from one network to another network ON THE SAME WALLET.
If you want to bridge from one wallet on one network to ANOTHER wallet (0x address) on a different network, then you can turn that option on in synapse:
Now if you try to bridge, you can choose a different address to withdraw to.
Sushiswap — Sushi.com
The process is VERY similar to Synapse. You’ll just need to toggle the Cross Chain switch and then choose your to and from networks.
A member of the Dragon’s Crossing community arm, Doug Hype, made a video on using this feature to get funds to Arbitrum. Check it out below.
Arbitrum.io Bridge: https://bridge.arbitrum.io/
This functions in a similar way, but only works to bridge from Ethereum to Arbitrum One (or Arbitrum Nova — but Dragon’s Crossing will not be on Arbitrum Nova). So its pretty limited, but is the official bridge of the Arbitrum foundation. It only has the one option to bridge the Layer 1 Eth though.
3.B Sending Funds from a Centralized Exchange
For a centralized exchange, if you are trying to move funds from a centralized exchange (i.e. Binance, Kucoin, Coinbase, Crypto.com) from your exchange account to a decentralize web wallet like Metamask, you’ll “withdraw”. Each exchange is a bit different, but below is a screenshot of withdrawing ETH from Kucoin to your Metamask wallet on the Arbitrum network.
Kucoin:
Kucoin allows you to withdraw Ethereum directly to Arbitrum network. But not USDC. So your only option with Kucoin is to withdraw Ethereum to Arbitrum. You could swap other coins you have on Kucoin into Ethereum first and then withdraw.
Others: (Binance, KuCoin, Huobi, OKX, Bybit, Crypto.com, MEXC), should all allow you to withdraw at least ETH to Arbitrum network (you would specify your metamask wallet as the address), and some might even allow USDC to be transferred via arbitrum. But do not withdraw it UNLESS it says it is using Arbitrum network.
3.C Fiat On-Ramp Directly to Arbitrum
This helpful article from prePO hits on a lot of these topics as well on how to get ETH and USDC to Arbitrum, but also explains how you can fiat on ramp directly to Arbitrum. This means buying Eth directly with a credit card to Arbitrum.
