How to: Bridge from ETH to Aurora using Rainbow Bridge

With all the hype around the NEAR protocol there are some key dapps that will help you join the ecosystem. One being Rainbow Bridge. As the name implies it allows you to bridge Ethereum tokens to either NEAR or Aurora. Aurora is NEARs EVM compatible layer 2 and in most cases this is where you will be bridging to.

Prerequisites:

Metamask account
Ethereum for fees

Why?

At this time there is not much happening on the NEAR mainnet. Aurora was developed in order to allow projects to easily fork over from Ethereum. As the majority of projects are being built on top of Aurora. You will need wrapped tokens in order to utilize the platform. This is where Rainbow Bridge comes in.

First you need to connect your Metamask account to the Aurora network. Head over to Aurora and click the “Add network” icon in the bottom right corner and confirm the process in Metamask. You now have access to the Aurora blockchain!

Next open the Rainbow Bridge dapp at https://rainbowbridge.app/transfer From here make sure you are on the “Bridge” tab and click connect. Metamask will open and verify that you want to interact with this dapp. Confirm and click continue.

You will be bridging between Ethereum and Aurora although you do have the option to bridge SUSHI and USDC as well. Enter an amount and continue.

NOTE* It is advised to do a test transaction with a small amount if this is your first try.

You now come to the confirmation screen. Here double check your address and amount. Click “Confirm Transfer”. Metamask will open to confirm the transaction. Review and confirm. You will then pay the applicable gas fee.

The next screen will show you the progress of your transaction and an estimate of how long it may take. Bridging is a time consuming process so be patient as it can take up to 15 minutes for the transaction to complete.

Once complete, check your Metamask and make sure you are on the Aurora Network to confirm your bridged tokens are there.

Great, you have successfully bridged from Ethereum to the Aurora Network!. You can now participate in the NEAR ecosystem and take advantage of the low gas fees.