Layer 2 network Arbitrum ships guarded launch, attracts major DeFi protocols

In a landscape of so-called scaling solutions primarily composed of sidechains and EMV-enabled competitors, one widely anticipated “rollup” layer 2 sidechain for Ethereum has finally arrived. 

Offchain Labs announced the launch of Abritrum One with a blog post late last night. Arbitrum One is currently live on Ethereum in a beta state, though teams that wish to participate and build implementations with the rollup tech need to apply for access:

Introducing Arbitrum One, our mainnet beta: live on Ethereum and open to developers now!https://t.co/3Jca2dZw0D

— Arbitrum (@arbitrum) May 29, 2021

The market has long been eager for a true layer 2 scaling solution, and according to the team the demand for Arbitrum out of the gate has been robust. 

“The developer interest and enthusiasm for Arbitrum has exceeded our wildest expectations,” reads the announcement. “Over 250 teams have requested access for our developer launch, and we can’t wait to see what they build on Arbitrum and how much gas savings this will enable.”

Development teams have been eager for rollup scaling solutions dating back years. Arbitrum works by batching, or rolling up transactions on a gasless sidechain with a separate, more efficient set of security and consensus guarantees, then reporting the batched transactions to the Ethereum chain.

While popular, some critics have said that the rollout of the rollup platform was sloppy and that the team failed to include some of the most important DeFi protocols. Curve Finance’s official account took to Twitter to gripe about not being included in the cohort of projects with access at launch, despite reportedly having significant communication with the Offchain Labs team and being among the most important money legos across the ecosystem:

We’ve been long in talks with Arb and even tested on their testnet.

No one told about the form, so it was filled a little late indeed (however before the launch). But they definitely knew we are very interested

— Curve Finance (@CurveFinance) May 29, 2021

The launch has also prompted some complex governance decisions. Despite previously committing to use Optimism as a layer 2, a proposal on Uniswap’s governance forums to explore an Arbitrum implementation has proven to be enormously popular. 

The Arbritrum team promised that a bevvy of major names will be revealed during a coming marketing push, however:

“We’ve begun doing a series of announcements with Arbitrum ecosystem partners, and stay tuned for many more in the coming days. It’s an exciting period ahead, and we’re working hard to make sure that all of your favorite apps and infrastructure will be live and ready when we open Arbitrum One to all users.”