The Synergy of Arbitrum Orbit and Celestia: A New Era of Affordable, Scalable Chains

𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐧𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬, 𝐀𝐫𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐦 𝐎𝐫𝐛𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐚 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐟𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐬, 𝐢𝐟 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬, 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐫 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬...

The technology underpinning modular blockchain designs, specifically data availability (DA) layers, can lower fees on rollups by an order of magnitude.

Combine this with the already well-established Arbitrum Orbit 'launch your own chain' Stack and you come to this lovely cryptographic equation:

Orbit chains settling to Arbitrum L2 + Celestia for DA + security of Ethereum + hungry, smart developers = secure, scalable modular blockchains ripe for mass adoption.

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫.

In today's post, I'll explain the ins and outs of Arbitrum Orbit <> Celestia collaboration, how this works under the hood, and a small glimpse into what the future holds for this superhero team. 

As the demand for dApps and thus, new chains, continues to surge, the limitations of existing blockchain infrastructure in handling high TPS operations is becoming increasingly apparent. 

The need for scalable solutions that can support our growing ecosystem of blockchain applications has become a pressing concern.

We have witnessed the explosion of L2s to help scale Ethereum and solve high gas fees.

More recently, we've seen the development of L3s as well.

L3s are a layer 'on top' of L2s in the stack. 

In the same sense that L2s have a sequencer which batches transactions (tx's) into one tx onto Ethereum L1, L3s undergo this same process back to an L2.

In Arbitrum Orbit's case, the tech stack offers developers the opportunity to create their own dedicated Orbit chain that settles to one of Arbitrum’s L2s chains (Arbitrum One, Nova, etc.).

If you know how cheap one tx is on Arbitrum L2 (~$1), imagine sharing that single cost amongst hundreds if not thousands of other users.

Very, very cheap.

Furthermore, the integration of Celestia with Arbitrum Orbit allows for RaaS providers like Gelato network to quickly integrate this option into their deployment dashboard, as seen below:

One of my favorite things about modular blockchains is optionality, truly a core ethos of crypto. 

This optionality opens up new possibilities for Arbitrum Devs, allowing them to tap into Celestia's modular consensus and data network, which securely scales with demand.

What's even more exciting about this integration is that it aligns with one of the core innovations of Arbitrum Nitro: 

Using interactive fraud proofs to enhance the security and reliability of the system. 

Let's take a look at how an Arbitrum Nitro tx looks before the Celestia integration:

As you can see, the sequencer batches the tx's then posts this data onto L1. 

Now, and in the future, the data is actually batched and compressed then posted to Celestia (a Cosmos-based chain with its own validator set) and only a 'data pointer' is created and added to the L1 inbox contract as shown below:

Should this fail, Celestia has a fallback mechanism in which that data can be directly posted to the L1 with little to no blockchain state misalignment risk (yet to be seen).

The integration also ensures that in the case of an dispute, data inclusion in Celestia is (soon to be) verified using Blobstream and an inclusion proof, which is aligned with the ethos of optimistic rollups.

You can see how verifying data using an inclusion proof allows for the fraud proof program of Nitro to verify if the data was indeed posted to Celestia.

This is pretty crucial to me as it re-emphasizes the importance of sticking to the fraud-proof model and ensures a reliable, verifiable proving system for dispute resolution.

The last thing you want in any high TPS execution environment is a lack of consensus at the node level. 

𝐀𝐬 𝐰𝐞 𝐰𝐫𝐚𝐩 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐮𝐩, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭...

Developers can now explore the basic integration with Nitro x Celestia, providing a glimpse into the future of blockchain deployment. 

As we look ahead to early 2024, when Orbit x Celestia with Nitro fraud proofs and Blobstream will be available on Mainnet, things will become even more exciting.

The integration of Celestia into the Arbitrum ecosystem marks a significant step forward in making high TPS, customizable chains a reality, further empowering builders and expanding the possibilities of blockchain technology. 

You know what they say...

𝘉𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 🧱