The gas price on ETH network can be an obstacle when you are interacting with Web3.0 through the Ethereum blockchain. What about using L2 solutions like Optimism to reduce fees? This article will show how you can bridge your funds to the Optimism network, including transfers from CEX such as Binance, Coinbase, FTX and many others.

What is Optimism?

Optimism is a Layer-2 network working in parallel with the Ethereum mainnet — all to bootstrap the blockchain and lower the gas fees.

Learn more about Layer-2 networks in crypto

Think of a highway traffic jam on Ethereum. The blockchain operates many transactions and gets extremely overloaded sometimes. As a result, users pay extra gas fees and spend their money on network fees. In response to this, Optimism was created to solve this issue with a set of smart contracts verified by Ethereum.

Optimism uses an alternative Optimistic Rollup technology to optimize your transaction and lower the gas without meaningfully touching the state like balance, storage, etc. What that means is the technology behind Optimism keeps your transaction almost as safe as any Ethereum transaction while being significantly cheaper.

Bridging Funds Into the Optimism Network

Imagine you want to transfer your funds into Optimism with a decentralized cross-chain bridge. You will face two challenges:

• Doing your own research about the bridges. Namely, what chains and tokens they support.
• Comparing all the available bridges manually to find the lowest price, slippage, turnaround time, and transaction fees.

Some bridges have the lowest price but offer longer transfers. Others allow quick swaps but entail higher gas costs. Finding the best combination might be a tricky business.

Regardless of how much time you spend on analysis, your choice might still not be the best one, as you might overlook some bridges or chains.

Quick research will demonstrate several cross-chain bridging solutions available, and the number grows steadily, as the current combined TVL of bridges is $25 billion. It has experienced 100% growth compared to last year, and the trend is ascending.

Bridge Ethereum Into Optimism

Say you have 200 USDC on your Ethereum Metamask (MM) account. How do you transfer funds from the L1 Ethereum Mainnet to L2 Optimism?

You can transfer assets through the Optimism Gateway. Your deposit will land in your Web3 wallet within several minutes, while withdrawals might take up to one week.

Bridge From Binance Into Optimism

If you have assets on a Binance account, you might want to cash out or use it outside the exchange. How exactly do you bridge into Optimism?

Binance doesn’t support Optimism by default, but it supports the Arbitrum L2 solution, which many Optimism bridges also support. So, you can use the native Binance withdrawal for an Arbitrum transaction and pick a bridge that supports Arbitrum-Optimism transfers.

A good way to pick a bridge would be DeCommas Bridges Aggregator, where the bridges are represented in a user-friendly manner.

Bridge Binance USDC Into Optimism 

Addressing the previous USDC example, even an Arbitrum withdrawal won’t help, as it only works for ETH transactions. You might use any available chain with low gas instead. Let’s take BSC as an example.

Withdraw your Binance USDC to the BNB Metamask wallet, then use a bridge like Wormhole or Connext to transfer BNB into Optimism.

The 200 USDC withdrawal to BNB will cost you 0.8 USDC, resulting in 199.2 USDC left. The next BNB to Optimism bridging causes a 4.2 USDC gas fee. The overall fees are around 5 USDC.

You can also use other low-gas chains like Polygon. The withdrawal procedure is the same, but you should add the Polygon network to your Metamask. Once you withdraw your funds from Binance to a Metamask wallet, you can use a bridge like Hop Exchange.

Binance to Polygon MM withdrawal will cost you around 1 USDC, leaving 199 USDC available. You’ll pay 0.2 USDC gas on top using the Hop Exchange. The overall fees are 1.2 USDC, which is four times less than bridging through the BNB Chain.

The point is, you can combine many chains and bridges, each having its own turnaround transaction time, slippage (if you swap tokens), gas fees, and more. Comparing all the options might be tricky. That’s why you can use a bridge aggregator like DeCommas Bridges.

An alternative way to bridge Binance into Optimism directly is LayerSwap. You can withdraw directly from several major exchanges, including Binance, FTX, Coinbase and more.

The procedure is pretty straightforward once you connect your MM wallet, exchange account, and set the receiving address.

Transfer funds from Ethereum to Optimism directly from the DeCommas App

DeCommas has implemented internal Transfer from ETH Mainnet to Optimism.

It’s as simple as one-two-three to bridge USDC from the Ethereum network to the Optimism network

1. Connect your wallet and click Transfer in Hop bridge
2. Select the amount, click Next step

3. Approve tokens and click Transfer!

That’s all. It’s an easy and user-friendly way to transfer USDC funds from Ethereum Mainnet to Optimism!

Please note, that currently we offer only USDC transfers via Hop. If you don’t have any ETH on Optimism for commissions, this option might not be suitable for you.

Another way to transfer is on Hop Exchange directly. This might be optimal for sending your tokens across Ethereum scaling solutions, including, but not limited to, Optimism.

Other bridges you might use are Connext, Evodefi, Chainswap, cBridge, Zapper, Synapse Bridge, and more.

Read more about the bridging concept and specific cross-chain routes.

Bridge with DeCommas for Benefits

DeCommas users might enjoy other protocols’ native benefits like those developed through long-term collaborations and established partnerships within Web3. The HOP Token Airdrop would be a vivid example.

Recently Hop Exchange revealed details regarding Hop DAO launch & Airdrop for early supporters. 8% of the total supply will be airdropped for those who used the protocol either directly or through integrations.

Click here to check whether you’re eligible for HOP Token Airdrop.

DeCommas also integrated the Portal Bridge by Wormhole network, which hasn’t announced anything yet, but we can’t rule such possibilities out. The entry criteria might be the same — use the integrated Portal DeCommas bridging feature just in case there might be something in future.

And one of the most expected airdrops by Optimism is finally live! For those, who used Optimism before this article was released, check your eligibility here if you haven’t yet: https://app.optimism.io/airdrop

Happy cross-chain hopping to everyone!