As custom Layer2 and Layer3 blockchains grow in popularity and adoption, the demand for powerful rollup frameworks sees impressive responses, including Arbitrum Orbit. Orbit stands out with features such as simplified Layer3 adoption, expansion to MultiVM, and chain clusters fostering true interoperability. Moreover, it has the backing of the broad Arbitrum network, recording a whopping $2.585B TVL. And, now that many promising Layer3s are built using Arbitrum Orbit, let’s highlight all the advantages of Arbitrum Orbit for application-specific rollup chains in all the niches– be it Web3 gaming, DeFi, RWA tokenisation, or general-purpose applications. 

Arbitrum Orbit Explained 

Arbitrum Orbit is an Optimistic rollup-based framework designed to empower web3 businesses by allowing them to build custom, use case-specific Layer2 or Layer3 chains in a purely permissionless way. Orbit leverages the Arbitrum Nitro Tech stack that powers all the Arbitrum Orbit chains with unparalleled scalability, advanced compression, full EVM compatibility, and cross-chain interoperability (rolling out soon). For a clear understanding, we can think of Arbitrum Orbit as Nitro stack’s deployable and configurable instances that together form an ecosystem of independent chains. 

With Arbitrum Orbit, developers or enterprises have the choice to build a Layer2 or Layer3. Meaning, they get the flexibility to choose Ethereum as their settlement layer or any of Arbitrum’s L2 chains, for example- Arbitrum One. Plus, the ease of customizability allows for personalisation of the chain as per project-specific requirements. All the essential components of a rollup chain, including precompiles, transaction throughput, governance, privacy, sequencer, and data availability (DA) layers, can be configured effortlessly, plus the customisation possibilities are endless. 

Also, Arbitrum Orbit is often confused with application-specific blockchains or “appchains”. Here, the idea should be clear that an Orbit chain can work as an appchain, but they do more than just powering a single application, such as supporting smart contracts on one or more apps, an ecosystem of apps or absolutely no apps. Additionally, your dApps can utilise multiple L2/L3 Orbit chains to enable high availability and advanced features in its ecosystem. 

Key advantages Arbitrum Orbit offers for Layer3s

Customizable, dedicated throughout:

High-traction dApps, such as gaming and crypto trading platforms, demand massive scalability and they often need to adjust their ecosystem’s throughput capacity as per the traffic volume. With Orbit chains, your dApp is managed on its own independent chain so that you don't need to compete with other dApps for storage or computation resources. This helps chains overcome scalability limitations and get a separate opt-in environment to ensure the high availability of all types of resources. 

EVM+ Compatibility of Stylus: 

L2/L3 Orbit chains benefit from the multiVM support features that Stylus introduces. This means developers can write smart contracts in their preferred languages, be it Rust, C++, C, or Solidity, while still maintaining full compatibility. Basically, any language that compiles to Arbitrum's WASM VM is supported for smart contract programming. After the giga-update, Stylus has been optimised to offer 2-4x cheaper fees, compression of contract sizes, broader tooling support, reliable safety, and new host I/Os. 

Unparalleled customisation in all aspects:

Layer3s building with Arbitrum Orbit can customise various aspects of their network. For example, they can introduce a custom ERC-20 token as their chain’s native token, define their own governance protocol, or modify the chain logic (like execution, settlement, DA, etc) to meet specific needs. All these are possible while retaining the high level of security from Ethereum through DAO-governed L2s of Arbitrum. 

Predictable gas cost:

Predictability of transactions/gas cost is important for a lot of dApps that want to forecast their business cost and thereby implement cost-prohibitive strategies such as subsidisation of transaction fees. Doing this is easier for Orbit chains as they do not share a common ecosystem and remain isolated from underlying Layer1 like Ethereum or Arbitrum L2s. Managing an ecosystem of your own means your dApp won’t get affected by other dApp’s on-chain activity, which makes way for more reliable gas fees for dApp users. 

Broad Data availability (DA) options:

Arbitrum Orbit supports broad data availability choices, enabling L3s to build their chain as an Arbitrum rollup or Arbitrum AnyTrust chain. Rollups allow for the use of Ethereum Layer 1 as the DA layer, while AnyTrust leverages a data availability committee (DAC) for off-chain storage of raw transaction data, offering users extremely cheaper gas costs. On top of that, Orbit chains can use third-party DA layers such as Celestia for off-chain data availability. The ultimate decision depends upon your project’s requirements. 

Btw, you can launch your fully functioning Arbitrum Orbit L3 devNet on Zeeve RaaS in just a few clicks. Here, you have the options for DAC in the Arbitrum AnyTrust chain and off-chain DA of Celestia, NEAR, Avail, and Eigen. 

Let’s get back to the discussion. We were on the advantages of Orbit chains, and here’s the next one. 

Quick launch for faster time-to-market: 

Having witnessed the rising popularity of the low-code approach to launching rollups, Arbitrum Orbit allows developers to use the Orbit chain deployment portal or choose from a range of Rollups–as-a-Service (RaaS) providers that guarantee the quick launch of your Orbit chain through their low-code deployment platforms, pluggable integrations, and innovative developer tools. Hence, the time to market becomes quite fast, which also lowers the overall cost. 

Robust security guarantee:

With Ethereum’s inherited security and Arbitrum Nitro, Arbitrum continues to keep its commitment to powering the most Layer2s across diverse industries. L3s can use this same powerful and mature technology stack to maintain robust security on their chain. 

Flexible technology stack: 

Flexibility in Arbitrum Orbit stack refers to the Layer3’s ability to choosing to build between L2 rollup, AnyTrust chain, or a Layer3 chain. However, there are crucial parameters for making the right decision. For example, Layer2 rollups are ideal for use cases that prioritize security and reasonable scalability the most. Rollups allow them to inherit security from Layer1 and meanwhile ensure massive scalability through off-chain computation where cost is much lesser than Layer1. Speaking about Layer3s, this is good for enabling scalability and low computation cost, however security here cannot be unmatched as Layer1. Likewise, AnyTrust is preferred when your chain wants to maintain data privacy through storage of data off-chain and its on-demand release. Security in DAC is based on assumption, which again introduces slight security trade-offs.

Permissioning feature:

Orbit chains have the flexibility to either add permissioned access to their ecosystem or keep it open to everyone, just like Ethereum. Meaning that, you can restrict smart contract deployment for your chain so that only your dApps can utilize the chain or make it permissionless, depending on the level of privacy you seek. 

Support for rollups modularity:

Arbitrum Orbit significantly focuses on modularity; hence, the protocol allows for seamless integration of alternative rollup components into Orbit and Arbitrum Layer2 chains. For example, you can integrate an off-chain DA layer, use a decentralized sequencer, a wallet, and an explorer with distinct features—everything is on you.

Freedom to use execution environments:

Different Arbitrum chains can experiment with full or partial restriction in their execution environment. For example, Orbit chains optimize their project by restricting some of the smart contract functionalities despite the EVM-compatibility of Arbitrum chains. 

Independent product roadmap: 

Orbit makes it possible to separate your L3 chain’s roadmap from that of Layer1 Ethereum or Arbitrum L2s. This means if you want to introduce cutting-edge features such as Account Abstraction (AA) on your network, you can accomplish this even when the feature is not yet enabled on the base chain Arbitrum public chains. 

Interoperability with Chain clusters: 

Although Orbit chains exist within an ecosystem of interconnected L2 or L3s, natively, interoperability between them still seems a heavy lifting. To solve this, Arbitrum has introduced chain clusters, which are essentially a communication layer to enable fast cross-chain communication token/resources transfers across standalone layer 2 and layer 3s. The idea of this chain cluster is new; thus, it might see a lot of changes, but it has been seen as a component that can enable true interoperability for Arbitrum. 

A look at some of the recent Layer3s built with Arbitrum Orbit 

Below are the Layer3s that have recently developed using the Orbit technology stack, leveraging the Arbitrum Orbit advantages:

Millicent Labs is launching Millicent One, an Ethereum-based public rollup Layer3 powered with Arbitrum Orbit’s highly scalable and unparalleled customization benefits enabled through the best-in-class Arbitrum Nitro stack. Millicent One will work as a dedicated chain for real-world asset tokenization (RWAs) and digital currencies, including stablecoins, tokenized banks or even central bank assets. Further, Orbit allows Millicent One L3 to maintain granular control for its essential parameters, such as privacy, permissioned access, transaction fees, and gas tokens. 

DODO, the popular decentralized exchange protocol and liquidity provider, has announced the first phase of the DODOChain launch. DODOChain will serve as an Omni-trading layer3 for enhancing trade efficiency and ensuring swift transactions for the DODO ecosystem. Built with Arbitrum Orbit technology,  DODOChain will offer faster confirmation of rollup transactions, the implementation of crypto-economic security for eliminating malicious participants, and purely decentralized validation of its rollup state. More updates will be released with the rolling out of the second launch phase.

Anomaly, the leading AI-powered gaming appchain, has recently announced a testnet launch for its zero-gas gaming Layer3 built with Arbitrum Orbit. The platform is designed to empower game developers to build immersive web3 gaming experiences through Anomaly’s AI-enabled Game Engine and complexity-free blockchain implementation. Leveraging AnyTrust DAC technology, Anomaly L3 boasts a 250ms blocktime, near-instant finality, $nom native token, and thousands of transactions processing per second. Also, Anomaly stands out as one of the fastest EVM rollup Layer3 across the gaming market, offering a play-to-airdrop model to achieve 900 million DAU (daily active users).

Degen, the memecoin surging in popularity, has now launched its standalone Layer3 network built using the Arbitrum Orbit technology stack. With the Degen chain, Degen aims to host DEGEN tokens more efficiently and take the community forward for its surpassing growth. Leveraging Arbitrum Orbit, the Degen chain settles its transactions on Layer2 Base Network, taps into AnyTrust for DAC services, and gets additional utility for the DEGEN token (ex, using it as a network gas token). All these have allowed Degen to grow tremendously, leading to a more than 2000% price increase of DEGEN's value in the past 30-day period.

ALIENX has launched the ALIENX chain, the next-gen staking blockchain built with Arbitrum Orbit technology and thus optimized for high-performance, EVM compatibility, and battle-tested security. The ALIENX chain allows users to automatically earn rewards in BTC, ARB, SOL, and NFTs. This L3 is driven through AI nodes running in the Arbitrum ecosystem, which plays a crucial role in maintaining network security and driving mass adoption of gaming and NFTs on the platform. 

Continue reading: What’s brewing on Arbitrum Orbit? Navigating the Hottest Projects

Launch your Arbitrum Orbit chain at a lower cost with Zeeve RaaS

Zeeve offers a comprehensive, modular rollups-as-a-service (RaaS) stack for rapid launch and low-cost management and scaling of Arbitrum Orbit Layer2s and Layer3s. With low-code deployment tools, pluggable rollup components, and 30+ third-party rollup service integrations– Zeeve RaaS guarantees 2X faster deployment of your L2/L3 chain and up to 40-50% reduction in total cost. Also, Zeeve offers a sandbox tool for Arbitrum Orbit, allowing you to deploy a DevNet for your Arbitrum Orbit chain with 40+ third-party integrations. The same kind of sandbox is available at Zeeve for Polygon CDK, zkSync ZK Stack, and OP Stack, along with a 30-day free trial. 

For more information on Zeeve’s RaaS offerings and blockchain services, contact us. Also, you can schedule a call with our blockchain experts for an in-depth discussion about your projects.