According to CoinDesk, the Arbitrum Foundation has announced that new layer-3 networks created through its Orbit program can now settle to the Arbitrum main network. The foundation, which is dedicated to decentralizing Arbitrum, the largest layer-2 network on the Ethereum blockchain, made the announcement after months of development. Orbit is a program launched earlier this year that allows blockchain developers to create their own layer-3 networks on top of Arbitrum. Previously, these new layer-3 networks were only settling on an Arbitrum test network, according to Steven Goldfeder, CEO of Offchain Labs, the primary developer behind Arbitrum.
The Orbit program was one of the first initiatives by the foundation when it was formed in March to decentralize Arbitrum. In June, Offchain Labs released Orbit documentation for developer-only networks or 'devnets.' Orbit enables developers to create their own dedicated chain that settles to one of Arbitrum's layer-2 or L2 chains, such as Arbitrum One, Arbitrum Nova, Arbitrum Goerli, and Arbitrum Sepolia. Projects like Syndr had previously disclosed that they had chosen Arbitrum's Orbit network to build on, settling to Arbitrum's Goerli testnet at that time.
The announcement comes as major developers of Ethereum layer-2 networks, including Arbitrum, OP Labs (behind Optimism), Polygon, and Matter Labs (behind zkSync), are making their technology available for builders to clone or modify for their own use. This approach allows projects to derive benefits or potentially licensing or other revenue from providing the blueprint or foundation for additional networks that would theoretically be interoperable or at least compatible. Goldfeder said that the announcement of Arbitrum Orbit's mainnet readiness and the initial cohort of 10 Orbit chains marks a significant moment for the continued proliferation of the Arbitrum technology. Separately, the Arbitrum Foundation announced on Wednesday that it has partnered with Celestia, a modular solution, for Orbit to use as a data availability layer. Apps built on top of Orbit will have the option to publish their data to Celestia once the solution goes live.
