Dive deep into the cutting-edge innovations shaping Ethereum's scalability with Ed Felten, Co-founder of Offchain Labs (creators of Arbitrum). In this exclusive discussion, Felten breaks down four game-changing concepts:
🔹 Timeboost – How prioritizing transactions could revolutionize Ethereum's efficiency 🔹 Optimistic Proving – The surprising middle ground between optimistic and ZK rollups 🔹 Interoperability – Solving blockchain's "island problem" without compromising security 🔹 Sequencing – Who controls transaction ordering, and why it matters more than you think
Whether you're a developer, investor, or crypto enthusiast, this conversation reveals how these technologies could: ✅ Dramatically reduce gas fees ✅ Enable seamless cross-chain interactions ✅ Preserve Ethereum's decentralization
Timestamps: 00:00 - The Scalability Trilemma Revisited 03:45 - Timeboost: Ethereum's Missing Priority Lane 09:12 - Optimistic Proving Explained (No Math Required!) 15:30 - The Interoperability Breakthrough Nobody's Talking About 22:05 - Sequencing: The Hidden Power Struggle in Rollups 28:40 - Q&A: When Will Users See These Changes?
🔔 Subscribe for more expert insights on Ethereum scaling 💬 Comment below: Which innovation excites you most? Timeboost or Optimistic Proving?
00:00Hi Ayd. First of all, I would like to welcome you on the Rollup and AppChain Day by Zeef.
00:08Thanks. It's great to be here.
00:09We are very, very excited to have you here. You are the first keynote speaker here on the day.
00:13So I think there is lots and lots of exciting things happening at Arbitrum.
00:17Sure.
00:18Arbitrum Bold, before that Arbitrum Stylus, and we are one of the partners of Arbitrum Stack.
00:23Of course.
00:24In implementing a lot of rollups using Arbitrum and Arbitstack.
00:27So can you tell us a bit about Arbitrum Bold and some of the exciting things happening at Arbitrum?
00:32Yeah. Bold is the latest big upgrade in the Rollup protocol.
00:37That's the protocol that does proving of execution of Arbitrum chains.
00:41And the big unlock with Bold is that it lets chains have fully permissionless validation in a way that's safe.
00:49And that allows a chain to have what I think is an incredible security guarantee.
00:55That any one party anywhere in the world, just with a laptop, can enforce the correct execution of an Arbitrum chain.
01:05Whether it's a main chain like Arbitrum One or an AppChain.
01:08And so it's a big unlock.
01:10And there's a lot of fancy technical things that went into making Bold work.
01:14But it's out there now and any Arbitrum chain can have it.
01:17Big step forward that happened recently.
01:19And I see that now, you know, one component, which is the centralized sequencer.
01:24Yeah.
01:25So I think a lot of stuff is happening on the sequencing side itself.
01:27Exactly. Yeah.
01:28So any any.
01:29Sure.
01:30A couple of things.
01:31There are a couple of things in the pipeline for sequencing.
01:33One of them is TimeBoost.
01:34And TimeBoost is a method that helps chains to control MEV spam and also allows chains that are involved in DeFi especially to recapture some of the value of MEV or some of the value that parties like arbitragers, for example, are extracting from users and liquidity providers.
01:55So what that does is it's not only a source of potential revenue for a chain, but also it allows the chain to better control sort of extractive behavior that might be going on by some users.
02:07Got it.
02:08And now we are seeing that, you know, there are lots and lots of different stacks which are there and lots of different drawlops.
02:14So one thing is very clear that the whole paradigm of this drawlops and app chains is very well established.
02:19Sure.
02:20A lot of builders are now building their own app chains and drawlops and they are realizing the benefits, whether it be UX, UI, whether it be high performance, lower gas fee.
02:27But then this fragmentation is still there.
02:31The ecosystems are evolving.
02:33So how do you see this panning out?
02:35How the liquidity problem being solved?
02:37How do you see the ecosystem evolving over the next two years?
02:39It's a big it's one of the main challenges that we're working on the Arbitrum community and our team at Offchain Labs is working on is interoperation.
02:47How can we make it fast and cheap and trustless to interact across chains?
02:53So if you have liquidity in one place, you want it somewhere else or you're on one chain.
02:58You want to do an action on another chain.
03:02That's easy and natural and the support is there for doing it.
03:05And so that requires some some tweaks to the basic protocol.
03:10And it also requires a bunch of user experience work.
03:15But we've been looking at that problem sort of comprehensively top to bottom.
03:19Some really exciting stuff is happening.
03:21So I think we're going to see the growth of a cross chain interop experience so that it's much more like using one unified service as opposed to 130 separate app chains.
03:35Got it. And so one trend that what we are seeing is that, you know, there are certain thoughts that ZK is the end game, right?
03:44Yeah.
03:45And and we see that there are quite a few initiatives like, you know, Sucksend, you know, which is making ZK onto the optimistic draw up.
03:51Yeah.
03:52So what are your strategy on the ZK side as far as Arbitrum Stack is concerned?
03:57I mean, I think there's still a lot to like about optimistic proving.
04:01It is the cheapest.
04:02Right.
04:03And it is really well established and battle tested.
04:07That said, there is active work going on with on making Arbitrum chain ZK provable so that that is available as an option to chains that want it.
04:17ZK proving will always be somewhat more expensive.
04:21It is a lot of work going on to reduce that cost differential, but it will never be zero.
04:26And so the idea is we want to be in a position.
04:30We as an Arbitrum community where when ZK proving is really cheap and fast and easy that it's available.
04:37Got it.
04:38And there's a tons of tons of work toward making that happen.
04:41You know, we've been talking to a bunch of the ZK technology teams here in here in Denver and before.
04:50And, you know, we on our off chain labs research team, we have several really eminent cryptographers who are helping us with this.
04:56Got it.
04:57So what you're saying is that right now the trade off, you know, higher cost, lack of maturity in terms of benefits.
05:03That's right.
05:04It doesn't make any sense for most of the builders.
05:06Right. That's right.
05:07Optimistic proving is a better deal.
05:09It's it.
05:10It is the cheapest form of proving and always will be.
05:13Right.
05:14And it's really well established.
05:15Right.
05:16The first the first design for Arbitrum optimistic proving dates back to 2014.
05:22But it's been on mainnet since 2011 or 2021, the very beginning of mainnet Arbitrum.
05:29So it's really a mature technology.
05:31It's low cost and it meets the needs of common use cases.
05:36So I think there's a lot to like that said, you know, we always want to give optionality to Arbitrum chains.
05:42And so the the option to use the key proving that's in the pipeline.
05:47Got it.
05:48So one one last question.
05:49So one area we have been working with different dollar builders for last more than one more than a year now.
05:54And one thing we have realized is that, you know, the roll ups have got a lot of expenses.
05:59They have L1 gas, they have infrastructure cost.
06:02But on the on the revenue side, it's only the transaction driven.
06:05Yes.
06:06And now and in some of the use cases, whether it be gaming, whether it be enterprise use case, you know, with having gasless transactions on the user side, sometimes even this revenue is not there.
06:15Yes.
06:16So it becomes very difficult for most of the young startups, young builders to make their roll ups economically sustainable.
06:22Yes.
06:23Right.
06:24So we have come up with a decentralized sequencing model.
06:27Yeah.
06:28Where, you know, we are creating additional revenue streams so that it becomes more economically viable for these builders.
06:34Sure.
06:35What are your thoughts on that?
06:36Yeah.
06:37Something of this sort is required.
06:38Again, I think options are important.
06:41Right.
06:42Having options for for chains because sequencing, there are complicated trade offs in sequencing.
06:47Right.
06:48Certainly revenue is an important part of that of that trade off space for a lot of people.
06:53It's important that sequencing be fast.
06:55It's important that it be fair and so on.
06:57Revenue is a part of that.
06:59And so, you know, having different models available makes a lot of sense.
07:03Um, and, um, then, because that's a big part of what we've learned in, uh, as the Arbitrum
07:10Orbit ecosystem has grown out is different chains of different needs and to provide that optionality
07:15and to make it easy for them to adopt, uh, really is, uh, is what the market has been asking for.
07:21So having that option seems, seems pretty useful.
07:24Absolutely.
07:25I think thanks for the input because this is something what we have, we have recently launched
07:28the alpha test net for zero, which is a decentralized sequence network.
07:31And the idea is to create new revenue, um, revenue stream at the same time.
07:36Of course, you know, we need to take care of performance, low latency, but at the same time,
07:40bring additional revenue stream.
07:42So that how to make rollups more economically sustainable, especially when the startups initially
07:46in the six months, one year, they don't have a million or 2 million kind of transactions.
07:50Oh yeah.
07:51To recoup most of the expenses.
07:52Sure.
07:53I mean, it's a, it's a competitive market for at all layers of the stack.
07:57Right.
07:58And everybody's working hard to find ways of capturing revenue.
08:02Right.
08:03While still, you know, providing the experience that users want.
08:06Oh, absolutely.
08:07Absolutely.
08:08So thanks a lot.
08:09I think it was excellent, uh, talking to you.
08:10Thanks.
08:11And thanks again for joining us.
08:12It would be lovely to, uh, hear you, uh, today.
