Partial interruption on the Arbitrum blockchain due to increased traffic.

An increased traffic congestion causes a partial disruption on Arbitrum, the layer-2 blockchain, preventing normal operation on Friday morning. Let’s see all the details below. 

The traffic influx causes problems on Arbitrum

As anticipated, the Arbitrum network (ARB) has experienced a “partial outage” today due to a sudden increase in transaction traffic, which has impacted the layer-2 blockchain sequencer. 

According to social media posts, Arbitrum’s sequencer has crashed during a significant increase in network traffic. 

In particular, a post on the Arbitrum status web page states the following:

“We are working to solve the problem as quickly as possible and we will provide an autopsy as soon as possible.”

The sequencers have been compared to an “air traffic control” to decide the landing order of transactions on layer-2 networks like Arbitrum. 

They play a crucial role in connecting L2 with the base chain, Ethereum, but they also represent a potential point of failure. The interruption has caused chaos and confusion in the Arbitrum community.

A previously scheduled Twitter Spaces at 12:17 ET was abruptly canceled by an Arbitrum employee shortly after it started. 

In the Arbitrum Discord, traders have filled the channel with messages expressing concern about their positions when the network would come back online.

This is not the first time that Arbitrum’s sequencer has crashed. The last time it happened was in June due to a bug that caused a backlog of unprocessed transactions. 

However, on that occasion, the problem was solved within a few hours.

Despite technical issues, the markets for Arbitrum’s ARB token do not seem to have been heavily affected, as the token was already slightly down for the day.

The ‘race’ for Celo’s Layer-2 blockchain continues: new proposal from Arbitrum

The competition to develop a new layer-2 blockchain for the Celo network has become more intense. 

On Tuesday, Nina Rong, ecosystem development lead at the Arbitrum Foundation, presented a proposal to the Celo community. 

The proposal suggests the adoption of the Arbitrum Orbit technology stack, specialized in creating customizable layer 2 and 3 chains based on Arbitrum’s optimistic technology.

Rong has stated that the Arbitrum Foundation team has closely followed the development of cLabs’ proposal, the company behind Celo, for the transition to an Ethereum L2. 

The invitation has been extended to Celo to consider the Arbitrum Orbit technology stack as the preferred path. 

Initially, Celo had planned to use the OP Stack from Optimism for its layer 2 in July. However, the emergence of zero-knowledge technology-based stacks by Polygon and Matter Labs has complicated Celo’s decision.

The Celo team has set a goal to choose a stack by mid-January, giving the community time to evaluate the available options. 

The Arbitrum Foundation has expressed its alignment with Celo’s mission to build an inclusive financial system for all.

Celo Labs, the main developer of Celo, has announced that the team has started working on technical evaluations, focusing on learning and understanding each proposed stack. 

In addition, a preliminary analysis of the pros and cons of the various proposals, including that of Arbitrum, has been shared.

A notable point of Arbitrum is its status as the largest layer-2, measured by “total value locked” (TVL). 

Currently, the Arbitrum One network boasts a TVL of 8.4 billion dollars, almost double compared to the sixth-ranked OP Mainnet with 2.4 billion dollars, confirming the confidence gained by Arbitrum in the market according to the post by the Celo Labs team.