What's ETH and wETH and why would you be interested in swapping your ETH for wETH?
ETH (Ethereum) is the native cryptocurrency used on Ethereum's blockchain. With ETH, you can only interact with other Ethereum contracts. ETH is limited because it doesn't follow ERC-20 properties. You can't use ETH across different decentralized apps (DApp) and decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystems.
In comparison to ETH, wETH (wrapped Ethereum) enables you to trade across different decentralized apps (DApp) and decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystems as it follows the ERC-20 standards.
The simple answer as to why people would want to swap their ETH for wETH is because it provides you with flexibility to trade across different chains.
Is there a difference in value between ETH and wETH?
No. ETH and wETH are valued at 1:1 so you won't lose or gain value by swapping ETH to wETH and vice versa.
Steps to Swap your ETH to wETH:
1. Go on to Rarible.com.
2. On your profile, click on: "Convert wETH."
3. A pop-up will appear that requires you to input the amount of ETH that you'd like to convert to wETH. Fill in the top field "You convert" with your desired price.
Note: You can also unwrap your wETH and turn it in to ETH by clicking on the swap icon:
4. Click on "Deposit."
5. In your wallet, you'll be required to confirm the transaction.
Note: You'll have to pay a gas fee.
6. Your wETH will appear in your balance and you can begin trading across different chains.