Arbitrum Nova

After some period of time, the published state root is assumed to be correct. For a certain time period, one of the whitelisted actors can submit a fraud proof that shows that the state was incorrect. The challenge protocol can be subject to delay attacks.

Users transactions are not published on-chain, but rather sent to external trusted parties, also known as committee members (DAC). Members of the DAC collectively produce a Data Availability Certificate (comprising BLS signatures from a quorum) guaranteeing that the data behind the new transaction batch will be available until the expiry period elapses (currently a minimum of two weeks). This signature is not verified by L1, however external Validators will skip the batch if BLS signature is not valid resulting. This will result in a fraud proof challenge if this batch is included in a consecutive state update. It is assumed that at least one honest DAC member that signed the batch will reveal tx data to the Validators if Sequencer decides to act maliciously and withhold the data. If the Sequencer cannot gather enough signatures from the DAC, it will “fall back to rollup” mode and by posting the full data directly to the L1 chain. The current DAC threshold is 5 out of 6.

While proposing blocks is open to anyone the system employs a privileged sequencer that has priority for submitting transaction batches and ordering transactions.

Because the state of the system is based on transactions submitted on-chain and anyone can submit their transactions there it allows the users to circumvent censorship by interacting with the smart contract directly. Anyone can become a Proposer after approximately 6d 8h (45818 blocks) of inactivity from the currently whitelisted Proposers.

The user initiates the withdrawal by submitting a regular transaction on this chain. When the block containing that transaction is finalized the funds become available for withdrawal on L1. The process of block finalization usually takes several days to complete. Finally the user submits an L1 transaction to claim the funds. This transaction requires a merkle proof.

When a user initiates a regular withdrawal a third party verifying the chain can offer to buy this withdrawal by paying the user on L1. The user will get the funds immediately, however the third party has to wait for the block to be finalized. This is implemented as a first party functionality inside Arbitrum’s token bridge.

Users can (eventually) exit the system by pushing the transaction on L1 and providing the corresponding state root. The only way to prevent such withdrawal is via an upgrade.

Arbitrum One uses Nitro technology that allows running fraud proofs by executing EVM code on top of WASM.

Arbitrum DAO allows $ARB token holders to propose and vote on changes to the organization and the technologies it governs. The governance smart contracts are implemented on Arbitrum One rollup chain. The DAO can upgrade the Arbitrum One contracts on L2 with 3d delay and - using L2 --> L1 Governance Relay, update contracts on L1 with additional 3d delay + 6d 8h delay for all L2 --> L1 messages (in total a delay of 12d 8h). The Security Council can upgrade the contracts without any delay. It can also cancel any upgrades initiated by the DAO.