How To Bridge to Arbitrum

What Are Bridges?

There are numerous independent blockchains, each with its own ecosystem of products, applications and assets.

Bridges vary considerably in their form and function, but most popular bridges support a large number of assets and multiple different blockchains. Most charge a small fee for the service. This generally ranges from 0.01% to 0.05% of the bridged amount, whereas some (typically official) bridges have zero fees (besides gas costs).

In most cases, bridges use a lock and mint <-> burn and unlock system to move assets between chains. The bridge locks their assets on the source chain, before minting an equivalent number of wrapped assets on the destination chain. The wrapped assets can then be burned to unlock the original assets on the source chain.

Popular Bridges to Arbitrum

As the most popular Ethereum layer-2, there are now a large number of bridges that support Arbitrum — many of which support a wide array of Arbitrum-based assets.

The most popular (ranked by 7-day volume) currently include:

• Portal Bridge: Portal is a popular bridge that leverages the wormhole interoperability protocol to bridge assets across popular chains. The platform currently supports 23 blockchains and the most popular Arbitrum native assets.
• Arbitrum Bridge: The official Arbitrum bridge, this platform supports the most popular Web3 wallets but only supports transfers between Ethereum, Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova.
• Stargate Finance: Supports 11 different networks and features a low 0.06% fee for most users. Can be used to transfer dozens of assets between Arbitrum and other supported L1s/L2s.
• Across Protocol: Built specifically for Ethereum and Ethereum-based L2s, Across allows users to transfer assets between the Ethereum mainnet, Arbitrum, Optimism and Polygon. Across is one of the few bridges to support slippage-free transfers.

As always, we recommend doing your due diligence before choosing an Arbitrum bridge. These can vary considerably in their degree of decentralization, fees, speed, security and more.

In most cases, bridging to and from Arbitrum is a simple process that should take just minutes. Depending on the asset you wish to transfer and the platform you use, you may need to pay a cross-chain fee — this is usually under 0.1% of the transacted amount.

How To Bridge to Arbitrum Using Arbitrum Bridge

Arbitrum Bridge is one of the most popular method to bridge tokens to Arbitrum.

Since it is both feeless and one of the simpler bridges to get to grips with, we will use Arbitrum Bridge to bridge to Arbitrum One — since Arbitrum One is currently more popular than Nova.

Here’s how to bridge your assets to Arbitrum One:

Step 1: Connect your wallet to the bridge

First, you’ll need to connect your wallet to the bridge. This must be the wallet containing the asset(s) you’re looking to bridge to Arbitrum.

Head over to the bridge, click the 'Connect Wallet' button, and select your wallet from the list of available options.

On the subsequent prompt, select the address (or subwallet) you wish to use with the service and connect to the site.

Step 2: Select the asset

Once connected, the bridge interface will load. Here, you can select the chain you want to bridge from and the asset you want to bridge.

For our example, we’ll opt to bridge ETH from the Ethereum mainnet to Arbitrum One.

Be sure to set Arbitrum One as your destination chain. The bridge will then show you a breakdown of the expected fees.

Step 3: Submit your transaction

Once you’re happy with the transaction, click the ‘Move funds to Arbitrum One’ button.

This will load a transaction in your connected Ethereum wallet.

Click ‘Confirm’ or the equivalent button in your connected wallet to submit the transaction on chain. The bridge will then begin the process of migrating your assets from Ethereum to Arbitrum One.

Step 4: Confirm receipt

The Arbitrum Bridge will present an interface shower progress of the cross-chain transfer. But you’ll need to manually confirm if your assets have been received in the destination wallet.

You can do this by switching your network on your connected Web3 wallet to Arbitrum and then checking your balance.

See: How to add Arbitrum to MetaMask

Alternatively, you can search for your address on an Arbitrum chain explorer like Arbiscan — where you’ll be able to see a breakdown of balances.

You can also use other options to bridge tokens to Arbitrum.

How To Bridge to Arbitrum Using Portal Bridge

To bridge tokens from Ethereum to Arbitrum using the Portal Bridge website, you can follow these steps:

1. Visit the Portal Bridge website.

2. Click the “Connect” option in the middle of the screen.

Select and connect your source wallet to the platform. This allows the platform to easily access the tokens in your wallet for transactions.

3. Select both the “Source” and the “Target” chains.

4. Select the token you want to bridge, enter the amount, and click Next.

5. Now, under the “Target” section, connect your target chain wallet, and click Next.

6. Now select the asset to pay your fees, and click confirm.

7. Follow the instructions prompted in your connected wallet to complete the transaction.

8. Now that your tokens have been sent, under the “Redeem Tokens” tab, click Redeem to receive your tokens on the target chain wallet.

How To Bridge to Arbitrum Using Stargate Token Bridge

Stargate Finance is another option to bridge Arbitrum to leading EVM-compatible blockchains.

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to use the Stargate Finance token bridge:

1. Go to stargate.finance and click the “transfer” button at the top bar.

2. Connect your Web3 wallet (e.g. MetaMask) to Stargate Finance.

This allows you to initiate transfers.

3. Enter the amount you want to send to (or receive from) Arbitrum.

Choose the token and the network (sender) and make sure that your balance is sufficient.

4. Review the details and confirm the transfer.

The tokens will arrive on the destination blockchain shortly. It's important to note there are network fees associated with bridging tokens.

How To Bridge to Arbitrum Using Across Protocol

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to bridge assets to the Arbitrum network using Across Protocol:

1. Visit the Across Bridge page.

Select the source chain, the asset, the amount you want to transfer, and the destination chain (in this case, Arbitrum One). Please note that Across Bridge only supports Arbitrum One.

Make sure you select the correct chain names from the From dropdown and the To dropdown. Also, verify that your wallet is connected to the same network as the source chain.

2. If you are bridging a particular token from one chain for the first time, approve the contract to transfer the token on your behalf.

If you use ETH, this step is not necessary.

3. Confirm the transaction in your wallet by clicking the "Approve" button at the bottom of the page.

5. Once you have verified this information, click the "Send" button, and then confirm the transaction in your wallet.

Once the transaction has been verified in your wallet, review the specifics on the confirmation page and keep track of its status on the transaction page.