About

Arbitrum is a Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum, designed to enhance its scalability and efficiency. It utilizes rollup technology to increase throughput and reduce transaction costs while maintaining Ethereum's security. Arbitrum is a suite of Layer-2 scaling solutions for Ethereum, with two live and operational Layer-2 blockchains, Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova.

Arbitrum One is a general-purpose optimistic rollup allowing individuals to deploy decentralized applications and smart contracts permissionlessly. Arbitrum Nova is also an optimistic rollup that allows any individual to permissionlessly deploy on, but with a focus on gaming and social applications.

History

Offchain Labs was founded in 2018 by Ed Felten, Steven Goldfeder, and Harry Kalodner to build scalability solutions for Ethereum. Offchain Labs introduced Arbitrum as its core scalability solution on April 15, 2019. In February 2020, Arbitrum went live on testnet before being opened to all participants in October 2020. In May 2021, Arbitrum went live on mainnet for developers.

Arbitrum One was publicly launched on Aug. 31, 2021, allowing any user or protocol to interact with the network. Within months of deploying, protocols such as Uniswap, Curve, Aave, and Sushi had deployed on Arbitrum One. Since then, Arbitrum has undergone various developments:

• In August 2022, Arbitrum underwent its first major change when it upgraded to the Arbitrum Nitro tech stack. This upgrade brought about increased throughput and cheaper gas fees.
• In August 2022, Arbitrum Nova was publicly launched. Arbitrum Nova utilizes the AnyTrust protocol and was designed to be optimized for gaming and social applications.
• In February 2023, Arbitrum announced the development of Stylus, an upgraded programming language for Arbitrum that would allow non-EVM-compatible programming languages, such as Rust, to run on Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova. As of Jan. 30, 2024, a commercially reasonable search found that Arbitrum Stylus has not yet been activated by the Arbitrum DAO and is in an alpha release on testnet.
• In March 2023, Arbitrum announced the creation of Arbitrum Foundation, the Arbitrum DAO, and the ARB token as its next phase of decentralizing Arbitrum by moving control of the project from Offchain Labs to the Arbitrum DAO. One week later, ARB was airdropped to previous Arbitrum ecosystem participants that met eligibility requirements.
• In October 2023, Arbitrum Orbit became mainnet-ready, making it possible for anyone to launch customizable blockchains (Orbit Chains). As of Jan. 30, 2024, various projects are developing Orbit Chains using Arbitrum Orbit.
• In August 2023, Offchain Labs announced BOLD (Bounded Liquidity Delay), a protocol that aims to introduce permissionless validation for Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova. As of Jan. 30, 2024, BOLD has not yet been activated on Arbitrum One or Arbitrum Nova by the Arbitrum DAO.

As of Jan. 30, 2024, Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova are live and operational, with usage metrics seen here. Users can bridge ETH and other tokens, send transactions, and interact with smart contracts. Lastly, the Arbitrum DAO’s onchain governance system is live.