Ethereum Mainnet is extremely secure, but lately the transaction fees have been too high due to high usage of the network. Slightly less secure, but exponentially faster and cheaper, the xDAI network offers a strong alternative until Eth 2.0 arrives.
Network Comparison
There are tradeoffs with any network switch. In the case of xDAI, you get far better usability for your community, but at the cost of a slightly less secure network (less decentralized) and slight change in user experience as you need to bridge tokens from Main onto the xDAI network, and back again if you need access to a token not yet on xDAI. For more on why we’ve chosen xDAI over other Layer 2 solutions, read our article on Medium.
We’ve prepared the following tips and tricks to using DAOhaus on xDAI, but please feel free to hop into our Discord and ask us anything.
How to xDAI
Important! This guide is for summoning new DAOs on xDAI or interacting with DAOs fully running on xDAI. If your DAO is on Mainnet and you’re looking to migrate all activity to xDAI, follow the suggested Migrate DAO to xDAI process here.
1. Bridge some DAI to xDAI
Where Eth is the native token on Ethereum Mainnet, xDAI is native token on xDAI network. To bridge some Dai to xDAI, visit the bridge on Mainnet. Transactions are very cheap on xDAI so you shouldn’t need much.
Note: You can always bridge xDAI back to Dai by visiting the same bridge while on the xDAI network instead of Mainnet.
2. Switch to xDAI network
Add xDAI as a network by clicking ‘Custom RPC’ in the network dropdown in Metamask, and filling in the following details: accompanying screenshot
- Network Name: xdai
- New RPC URL: https://dai.poa.network/
- ChainID: 100
- Symbol: xDAI
- Block Explorer URL: https://blockscout.com/poa/xdai
You are now on the xDAI network with some xDAI to run transactions like summoning a DAO or voting in an existing one.
3. Get Wrapped xDAI (wxDAI)
A lot of DAOs use a wrapped version of the native token (wETH) to submit proposals. The equivalent on xDAI is wrapped xDAI (wxDAI). Visit Wrapeth.com while on xDAI network to wrap and unwrap xDAI as needed.
4. Bridge back to Main (when necessary)
Whenever you need to take tokens back to Mainnet for whatever reason, you simply visit the bridge while on xDAI network and bridge your xDAI back to DAI.