Highlights:

  • The launching of latest organizations will largely decentralize blockchains, said Steven Goldfeder, Chief Executive and Co-founder of Offchain Labs.
  • Owners of the tokens will have the ability to vote on ideas presented to the DAO and determine how future development and governance choices will be made.

Offchain Labs Inc., the company behind the Ethereum blockchain scaling solution Arbitrum, recently announced that it will airdrop, or give away for free to chosen individuals, its new token, $ARB, a new cryptocurrency that can be used to vote on two of its blockchain products.

In addition, the business announced the formation of the Arbitrum Foundation and a DAO, or decentralized autonomous organization, to oversee the development of Arbitrum One, its primary blockchain, and Arbitrum Nova, a blockchain geared for social media and gaming.

According to Steven Goldfeder, CEO and co-founder of Offchain Labs, introducing new organizations will significantly decentralize blockchains. Steven Goldfede also stated, “Through the community airdrop, the delegation process, and the introduction of the Security Council, community participation and control is at the forefront of today’s announcement, and the requirements for receiving a share of Arbitrum governance have been crafted meticulously, optimizing for the longevity of the ecosystem and community.”

Blockchain technology and Web3 rely on several copies of distributed ledgers to cryptographically secure peer-to-peer network transactions from potential manipulation. Decentralized applications, or dapps, which operate using self-executing code across networks without the need for central servers, are also made possible by its use. Developers have used cryptocurrencies and tokens to create decentralized applications, including social networks, games, and complete decentralized economies.

The tokens’ owners can vote on ideas presented to the DAO and determine how future development and governance choices will be made. Goldfeder claims that this will further decentralize blockchain development and decision-making in the future. On March 23, the tokens will be withdrawn.

Goldfeder stated, “Looking ahead, we’re moving closer and closer toward a decentralized financial system, with the Arbitrum technology at the forefront of that.”

To speed up transactions and reduce fees, Ethereum utilizes “rollups” technology, which Offchain Labs Arbitrum creates. Layer 2 solutions perform transitions independently of Ethereum on their blockchain, group them into “rollups,” and then send them back to Ethereum, where they can all be run simultaneously.

According to DefiLlama, Arbitrum One is the top Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum, with about USD 1.67 billion in total assets locked in the network. In August 2021, Offchain Labs received USD 120 million in financing to launch the Arbitrium One mainnet, and Reddit, the largest internet social media platform, selected Offchain Labs’ scaling solution for its blockchain-based “Community Points” program.

Offchain Labs also introduced Arbitrum Orbit, a Layer 3 scaling solution that will enable programmers to create their own scaling networks that will roll onto Arbitrum simultaneously with the new foundation and the DAO.

Orbit gives programmers access to extensible rollup blockchains that operate similarly to the other blockchains in Arbitrum. For instance, they could strive for Layer 3 AnyTrust chains using the minimal trust to allow high volume and low transaction costs similar to Arbitrum Nova, or they could construct Layer 3 Rollup chains with Ethereum-level security to optimize scalability. Since the main engine of Arbitrum Nitro serves as the foundation for all these solutions, developers can create their own Layer 3 solutions to meet the requirements of any particular application.

The new scaling solution entirely supports the Ethereum virtual machine, allowing programmers to create and run smart contracts. The business added that it will support the forthcoming release of Arbitrum Stylus, which will enable developers to write code for dapps in programming languages other than Solidity, such as C, C++, and Rust, for their chains.

Steven Goldfeder said, “The launch of Arbitrum Orbit marks another step in the goal of growth through ecosystem expansion by way of onboarding new developers. With today’s announcement, developers now have another tool allowing them to not only build their own smart contracts, but to also launch their own L3 chains leveraging the best technology available.”