By
Benjamin Njiri
April 23rd, 2024
Offchain Labs also revealed that it had updated its Arbitrum Operating System (ArbOS), rewriting it in the Go programming language.
Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution Arbitrum is expected to undergo a major upgrade on August 31. The upgrade – called the “Nitro upgrade”, is an attempt to increase transaction throughput, reduce transaction fees and improve cross-chain communication between Arbitrum and Ethereum.
In an August 29 tweet, Arbitrum confirmed the upgrade, which is scheduled for 10:30 am ET on August 31. Two to four hours of network downtime is expected.
Reminder – Arbitrum One is upgrading to Nitro on Wednesday 8/31. 🚀
There will be 2-4 hours of planned network downtime, starting 10:30 AM ET / GMT-4. 📅
2️⃣ days until Nitro! 🥳
– Arbitrum (@arbitrum) August 29, 2022
Arbitrum, a suite of Ethereum scaling solutions by Offchain Labs, was created with the goal of decongesting and reducing transaction fees on the Ethereum network. It uses Optimistic Rollup technology to aggregate batches of transactions from Ethereum smart contracts and dApps off-chain before submitting them to the Ethereum network.
Offchain Labs’ Github account explains the technology behind the Nitro upgrade and what improvements it brings to Arbitrum One.
“Nitro is the latest iteration of the Arbitrum technology. It is a fully integrated, complete layer 2 optimistic roll-up system, including fraud proofs, the sequencer, the token bridges, advanced call data compression, and more.”
Offchain Labs also revealed that it had updated its Arbitrum Operating System (ArbOS), rewriting it in the Go programming language.
“The last piece of the stack is a slimmed-down version of our ArbOS component, rewritten in Go, which provides the rest of what’s needed to run an L2 chain: things like cross-chain communication, and a new and improved batching and compression system to minimize L1 costs.
Essentially, Nitro runs Geth at layer 2 on top of Ethereum, and can prove fraud over the core engine of Geth compiled to WASM.”
The Nitro devnet was launched in early April with an invitation for developers to check it out, build on it and provide feedback which would incorporate in preparation for the mainnet launch.
“Nitro will massively increase network capacity and reduce transaction costs. Today, we throttle Arbitrum’s capacity, but with Nitro we’ll be able to release those controls and significantly up our throughput. And while Arbitrum today is already 90–95% cheaper than Ethereum on average, Nitro cuts our costs even further […] When we eventually migrate Arbitrum One over to Nitro, it’ll be a seamless migration from the current stack to the Nitro stack, so users will have an uninterrupted experience – well the only thing they’ll notice are reduced fees, increased capacity, and an overall faster experience.”
Meanwhile, crypto exchange FTX has announced that it will support the Arbitrum Nitro upgrade. Arbitrum ETH deposits and withdrawals on FTX will be paused on 31 August 31 at 1.30 pm UTC. The exchange informed users that it will monitor the state of the network after the upgrade and resume Arbitrum ETH deposits and withdrawals ‘once the upgrade is complete’.