The Arbitrum ecosystem continues to grow, and token issuance may become a new point of rise.

Recently, a research institution conducted an in-depth investigation into Arbitrum and discovered some interesting trends and developments.

Arbitrum, as a second-layer scaling solution for Ethereum, aims to enhance the performance and scalability of smart contracts while improving privacy protection. It allows developers to run unmodified EVM contracts and transactions directly, without compromising the security of the Ethereum main chain.

When building layer two expansion solutions, inheriting the base security of the main chain is crucial. This is one of the key factors that differentiate it from sidechains, as the security of sidechains primarily relies on validators. By comparing different solutions, we can see that there are differences in speed and security. The security of Optimistic and ZK-Rollups is significantly better than that of sidechains and Plasma, although they face some limitations in speed and execution.

Recently, these two main Rollup technologies have received widespread attention. Based on the characteristics of various Layer 2 scaling solutions (including sidechains), researchers believe that ZK-Rollups provide the best solution in terms of security, performance, and usability. However, before zkEVM matures sufficiently, Optimistic Rollup may gain broader application.

About a month ago, Arbitrum upgraded its platform to the "Nitro" version, which is a key long-term development improvement. Nitro introduces a two-stage transaction processing mechanism: first, transactions are placed into a pending queue, and then each transaction is processed through a deterministic state transition function.

By observing the transaction data on Arbitrum, we can see a positive growth trend since the beginning of the year. Researchers believe that the Arbitrum Odyssey event is a key factor driving further adoption, but more support from centralized exchanges is needed to maintain long-term growth.

Although the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi was initially larger on Arbitrum, the TVL of Arbitrum and Optimism is now almost equal. Therefore, despite Arbitrum's recent progress, we have not seen a significant rise in market share. However, considering the token balance, Arbitrum may still have growth potential in terms of TVL.

In addition to a well-known NFT platform announcing support for Arbitrum and its NFT ecosystem, the construction of new infrastructure, new users and NFTs brought by the Odyssey event, and the potential token issuance have collectively created favorable conditions for Arbitrum's continued rise.

In summary, despite facing competition from Optimism and other scaling solutions, the Arbitrum ecosystem has maintained continuous growth throughout the year.

It is noteworthy that while Arbitrum's centralized compromises made in the short term to pursue lower Gas fees are understandable, centralization remains a key risk factor. However, Arbitrum is not the only project facing this challenge; most layer two solutions have some form of centralization risk to some extent.