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Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution Arbitrum has seen a massive surge in activity since its Nitro update in August, having just clocked around 62% as many transactions as the Ethereum base layer.<\/p>\n
In a Nov. 1 report, crypto research firm Delphi Digital noted that as of the week ended Oct. 24, Arbitrum\u2019s number of total transactions has increased<\/a> by 550% since August, citing data from Dune Analytics.<\/p>\n This week, @arbitrum<\/a> had ~62% as many transactions as Ethereum L1. pic.twitter.com\/DyuDNAjRGz<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Delphi Digital (@Delphi_Digital) November 3, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In an earlier Tweet, Delphi Digital initially phrased Arbitrum as accounting for 62% of all transactions on Ethereum, which they later clarified was \u201cincorrect phrasing.\u201d<\/p>\n Arbitrum<\/a> is an\u00a0optimistic roll-up built by blockchain development firm Offchain Labs, aimed at scaling Ethereum smart contracts. It uses Optimistic Rollup technology to bundle large batches of transactions off-chain from Ethereum smart contracts and decentralized applications before submitting them to Ethereum.<\/p>\n A number of well-known protocols use Arbitrum, such as decentralized exchanges SushiSwap, Uniswap and GMX, lending protocol Aave and liquidity transport protocol Stargate. According<\/a> to L2Beat, at the time of writing it has a current total-value-locked (TVL) of $2.59 billion. <\/p>\n Delphi analysts noted that weekly active users had spiked on Arbitrum, having grown 125% since Oct. 10 to reach a new high of 282,000 in the week ending Oct. 24.<\/p>\n The analysts also suggest that much of the surge in activity is likely driven by speculators trying to boost their on-chain activity in the hope of receiving a larger airdrop for a native token which has been hinted<\/a> at by Offchain Labs co-founder Steven Goldfeder.<\/p>\n On Aug. 31 the Arbitrum One mainnet upgraded to Nitro<\/a>, which Offchain Labs claimed<\/a> in an April 7 post would result in reduced transaction costs while increasing network capacity, adding:<\/p>\n \u201cWhile Arbitrum today is already 90\u201395% cheaper than Ethereum on average, Nitro cuts our costs even further.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Related: <\/em><\/strong>White hat finds huge vulnerability in Ethereum\u2013Arbitrum bridge: Wen max bounty?<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n The low fees have resulted in various players from within the crypto ecosystem wanting to integrate with Arbitrum One, and on Nov. 1 decentralized finance (DeFi) optimization tool Furocombo<\/a>, capital raising protocol Aelin<\/a>\u00a0and insurance protocol Y2K Finance<\/a> each announced they were live on the popular scaling solution. <\/p>\n On Oct. 13 Offchain Labs announced they had acquired<\/a> one of the core development teams behind the Ethereum Merge<\/a>, Prysmatic Labs, which it hopes will enable greater communication and collaboration between developments on both layers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n