Arbitrum’s New Chain Arbitrum Nova Is Open to Developers

Nova is intended to be used for social applications and gaming, while the Arbitrum mainnet will continue to be available for NFT and DeFi projects.

Jul 12, 2022 at 4:42 p.m. UTC

Updated Jul 12, 2022 at 7:20 p.m. UTC

The co-founders of Offchain Labs, the firm behind Arbitrum. (Offchain Labs)

Margaux Nijkerk reports on blockchain protocols with a focus on the Ethereum ecosystem. A graduate of Johns Hopkins and Emory universities, she has a masters in International Affairs & Economics. She holds a very small amount of ETH and other altcoins.

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Offchain Labs, the company behind Ethereum-scaling project Arbitrum, said this week it launched its new chain built on AnyTrust technology, Arbitrum Nova. Arbitrum Nova is now live on its mainnet and open for developers to deploy their apps.

Arbitrum is a protocol that implements optimistic rollup technology to create a full Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) environment, providing a user experience that’s faster and cheaper than Ethereum’s mainnet.

What is Arbitrum Nova?

Arbitrum is Ethereum’s largest rollup provider, valued at nearly $2.5 billion according to DefiLlama. With the introduction of Arbitrum Nova, there are now two separate Arbitrum chains running live on mainnet that together can support a wide variety of use cases for blockchain.

Nova is intended to be used for social applications and gaming, while Arbitrum One will continue to be available for NFT and decentralized Finance (DeFi) projects.

Arbitrum Nova was built using Arbitrum AnyTrust, a new technology developed by Offchain Labs aimed at lowering fees, speeding up transactions and alleviating security concerns. AnyTrust chains are a more centralized alternative to optimistic rollups.

Next steps for Nova

Developers interested in working on the Nova platform can now apply for access and then start deploying their applications. The chain won’t be open to the broader user-base for another two weeks, giving time for developers to onboard onto Nova.

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