Arbitrum Gets Much Faster

The largest layer-2 just became a whole lot stronger.

Arbitrum officially underwent its much-anticipated Nitro upgrade last Wednesday, which (1) made Arbitrum much faster and cheaper to use and (2) raised excitement levels to all-time highs.

Let’s discuss why…

A Quick Primer on Layer-2s

In the world of cryptocurrency, we sort blockchains by layers.

Layer-1 (L1) blockchains are the chains we all know and love. Think Ethereum, Solana, and Avalanche.

Historically, applications get built on top of L1s. This works well when crypto is small, but falters as crypto grows. The problem is best visualized through the infamous blockchain trilemma, which says that no L1 can simultaneously be decentralized, secure, and scalable.

Ethereum, the largest L1 by a mile, has prioritized security and decentralization over scalability. Unfortunately, this has resulted in extremely high fees during periods of high congestion.

Layer-2s (L2) alleviate this congestion and lower fees, thus boosting scalability.

Arbitrum is the most popular of these L2s.

Arbitrum Nitro

Nitro comes with a host of upgrades for Arbitrum:

• 7-10x faster speed

• Reduced transaction costs

• Ethereum L1 gas compatibility

• Additional L1 interoperability

Long story short, Nitro makes Arbitrum much more attractive to use and much better at scaling Ethereum.

The results have so far been promising, with Arbitrum reaching all-time highs on a number of key metrics.

Looking Ahead

Although Nitro is a substantial technological development, it is just the precursor to other big things soon to come for Arbitrum.

Now that Nitro is complete, Arbitrum Odyssey can resume. In Arbitrum Odyssey, people are invited to use Arbitrum-native projects in the hope that they qualify for the upcoming Arbitrum token airdrop.

Since Arbitrum is already the largest L2 and the 7th largest chain period and contains a fascinating ecosystem of projects, its native token should be pretty valuable.

It looks like Arbitrum is a place you want to be over the coming months. So, if you haven’t already done so, it might be a good time to start positioning yourself for the airdrop.