If you’ve been following our newsletters, you most likely used Arbitrum. The team recently announced the long-awaited airdrop that will launch on March 23, 2023.

You can check your eligibility here.

The claiming process will most likely put the network and its adjacent infrastructure on their knees, similar to what happened during Optimism’s OP token claim. Luckily, we can bypass everything and send a preconfigured transaction to the correct address at the right time.

First, you need to set up your MetaMask. Open the extension, then “Settings” -> “Advanced.”

Scroll until you see “Show hex data,” and set it to active.

Now you should replace Arbitrum’s default RPC server with a third-party one. RPC server lets you connect with the network without hosting a physical node. The default servers will likely slow down or stop once thousands rush to claim their ARB. 

Here are some of the options:

  1. Alchemy (free). It’s a popular service and will be the most used alternative. But the service is good and should be able to handle the load. 
  2. Nodereal (free).
  3. Quicknode ($9).

RPC access is a link. Once you create an account on either of these services, it will give you a link to put in your MetaMask. That’s how you will have a “private channel” to communicate with Arbitrum.

In your MetaMask, go to “Settings” -> “Networks.” Then, search for Arbitrum and click on it. A new tab will open. Paste your new RPC link into the highlighted field.

Make a test transaction. Send yourself 0 ETH on Arbitrum. If the transaction goes through after everything you did, you’re ready for the final step.

ARB will be distributed from 0x67a24CE4321aB3aF51c2D0a4801c3E111D88C9d9. To get tokens, one will need to call the contract’s “Claim” function. Many will do this via Arbitrum’s official website. Others will use Arbiscan. We will bypass both methods because they will be slow or unusable.

To call the “Claim” function, you will need to send 0 ETH to the contract and attach some data. Here’s how to do it. Copy two things to your notepad app:

  1. 0x67a24CE4321aB3aF51c2D0a4801c3E111D88C9d9
  2. 0x4e71d92d

Open your MetaMask and click on “Send.”

Paste the address (the first string you copied). Then the sending window will open. Paste the second string in the “Hex data” field.

That’s it. Don’t try to set the cost of the transaction high. Unlike Ethereum, Arbitrum doesn’t have the notion of a “gas war.” All you need is to send the transaction at the right time, i.e., when the claim window will open.

The claim window time frame is tied to Ethereum blocks. The start block is 16890400. The easiest way to see the block numbers is using etherscan, but we also have a simplified tool for you here.

We hope these instructions will help you make better decisions with your ARB while others will be desperately trying to claim. 

Farewell Arbitrum Narrative, Onto ZK

We’ve been saying that the Zero Knowledge (ZK) narrative will eventually intensify. It seems that the launch of ARB will mark the sunset of the Arbitrum narrative as capital moves to farm other airdrops. 

There’s still time to play the ZK narrative by using ZK-focused projects. One such is Mute. Here’s how you can test it.

  1. If you haven’t yet, add zkSync Era Testnet.
  2. Get some Goerli ETH here and use this bridge to move test ETH to zkSync.
  3. Go to the app.
  4. Swap ETH for $MUTE and other tokens.
  5. Add liquidity into liquidity pools.
  6. Stake MUTE/ETH LP under the “Amplifier” tab.
  7. Lock $MUTE under the “DAO” tab.
  8. Provide feedback in the project’s Discord. The channel is #switch-support.

That’s it for today.