Bitcoin Layer 2’s are the talk of the town. At least some towns. Depends where you are, such is the fragmented maximalism of blockchain. Anyway, Intrigued, I set out on an exploration to discover these new platforms for myself. My expedition led me to Merlin Chain, BOB and… well, then I ran out of money.
First, a disclaimer: This is not financial advice (and if you need proof, I aped into a YT pool on Pendle… those returns are so high… I wonder why…and THEN worked out what YT meant.)
Where was I? Oh yes, Merlin. Merlin is a “𝘉𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘰𝘪𝘯 𝘓𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘳 2 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘡𝘒-𝘙𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘶𝘱 𝘯𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬, 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘭𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬, 𝘋𝘢𝘵𝘢 𝘈𝘷𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘯-𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘉𝘛𝘊 𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘶𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘭𝘦𝘴. 𝘔𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘯 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘉𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘰𝘪𝘯'𝘴 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘴, 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘰𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘓𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘳1 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘓𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘳 2 𝘯𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬, 𝘵𝘰 𝘔𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘉𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘰𝘪𝘯 𝘍𝘶𝘯 𝘈𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯.”
…That didn't sound like a whole lot of fun to me, but what the hell...
... I hit a wall instantly. The small amount of Bitcoin I own is in a cold wallet with a broken USB cable. So my first challenge was to swap ETH on Optimism or ZkSync to BTC on Merlin.
Yikes!
It was about as much fun as having root canal surgery.
Speaking of wizards, hopefully blockchain Gandalf Keir Finlow-Bates will roll his eyes and say, “Mark, it’s simple, you just swap ETH for tBTC on Polkadot, or Avalanche and then do some DeFi contortion tricks and…hey presto...”
All the bridges I found required the transfer of Bitcoin. And I didn’t have any BTC in the right place.
And besides, I like a challenge.
As it happens, I could have used BOB (Build On Bitcoin - more on that tomorrow) during season 1 of their spice mining airdrop. I had the opportunity to stake ETH, then bridge it to the BOB mainnet upon launch, then used a thrid-party bridge like Orbiter to bridge to Merlin…but that ship had sailed… and besides... somebody said something about putting the fun back into Bitcoin...
In the end I stumbled upon a solution:
The only thing more frustrating than trying to bridge ETH from Arbitrum to Merlin is using Metamask to do it. My god... Thankfully, I recently switched to Rabby Wallet and saved myself all manner of ticks and mental anguish. If the Metamask experience is like taking the London Underground at rush hour, Rabby is like going on meditation retreat.
What saved me was the Gas Top Up feature. For a hefty fee, I could get BTC on Merlin and pay via any token I wished, on any chain. Yes, it was expensive, but what? Exploration has a price...
Doctor Livingstone, I presume…
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Tune in tomorrow for what the dApp and DeFi experience is like on Merlin.
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