Swap ARB to ETH on Arbitrum

The single most common misunderstanding about Arbitrum is that ARB is its gas token. It is not. Arbitrum is an Ethereum rollup and charges fees in ETH, exactly like mainnet does. ARB is an ERC-20 used for voting in the Arbitrum DAO.

That means holding ARB alone leaves you unable to transact. Swapping some into ETH is how people un-stick themselves, and it is why this route is usually about capability rather than speculation.

If you want ETH on Arbitrum, this is a same-chain swap and typically the cheaper option, since Arbitrum fees are lower than mainnet. If you want ETH on Ethereum mainnet instead, the route crosses chains and the comparison changes.

Multiswap prices both shapes together and ranks them by the net ETH you receive, so the trade-off between staying on the rollup and returning to mainnet is visible rather than assumed.

ARB is the voting token of the Arbitrum DAO, which oversees the ecosystem and a substantial treasury. Much of the initial supply went to early users, which is how many people first came to hold it.

Its value proposition is governance and ecosystem exposure rather than a claim on network fees. Framing it that way keeps expectations realistic when deciding how much to convert into ETH.