Arbitrum activates Atlas upgrade, readies for additional fee reductions on March 18

The latest upgrade is expected to significantly reduce transaction costs and unlock new use cases.

Offchain Labs, the core developer behind Arbitrum, has announced the successful activation of the ArbOS 20 upgrade, known as “Atlas,” on the Arbitrum network. The upgrade provides Ethereum’s Dencun support with the implementation of blobs to achieve efficient data processing at a reduced cost. With the Atlas upgrade now operational, Arbitrum is set to implement further reductions in execution transaction fees on March 18.

The blobs have landed on Arbitrum! 💙

🐡 ArbOS 20 “Atlas” is now live, blobs are in effect, reducing data posting costs.

⛽ Additional execution gas fee reductions for Arbitrum One will go live on March 18.

More details below 👇https://t.co/amVT5EnQWE pic.twitter.com/pyS9AVORFF

— Arbitrum (💙,🧡) (@arbitrum) March 14, 2024

Initially, the Atlas upgrade targets layer 1 (L1) posting fee reductions via EIP-4844, with additional fee reductions following next week. According to Arbitrum, Atlas is poised to bring down the L1 surplus fee per compressed byte from 32 gwei to zero and lower the layer 2 (L2) base fee from 0.1 gwei to 0.01 gwei. As a result of these changes, Arbitrum One applications should be able to benefit from the new pricing structure without having to make any modifications.

ArbOS Atlas is also introducing significant reductions in other fees for Arbitrum One, and is expected to be activated by March 18:

1️⃣ L1 surplus fee. Reduce the surplus fee per compressed byte from 32 gwei to 0.

2️⃣ L2 base fee. Reduce the minimum from 0.1 gwei to 0.01 gwei.

— Arbitrum (💙,🧡) (@arbitrum) March 14, 2024

Additionally, layer 3 Rollup chains built on top of Arbitrum One will automatically see lower fees, while self-governed Orbit L2 rollup chains are encouraged to adopt ArbOS Atlas and enable blob posting to reap the same benefits.

As noted by Offchain Labs, Arbitrum RaaS (Rollups-as-a-Service) providers such as Altlayer, Caldera, Conduit, and Gelato have committed to upgrading existing Orbit chains to support the Atlas upgrade and the Ethereum Dencun upgrade.

The Atlas upgrade also aligns Arbitrum with EVM’s security standards through support for EIP-6780. According to Offchain Labs, this lays the groundwork for future enhancements to the EVM.

Steven Goldfeder, CEO and Co-Founder of Offchain Labs, believes the Atlas upgrade will unlock more use cases for the crypto community.

“We are excited to see the Arbitrum DAO has voted to upgrade to ArbOS Atlas, which will bring significant benefits to the community in terms of improved transaction pricing. This particular upgrade aligns strongly with our mission to continue scaling Ethereum so that it is more usable for the masses and native crypto community,” said Goldfeder.

By optimizing transaction costs, Atlas will enable use cases that were previously considered impractical, like gaming, SocialFi, and DeFi exchanges, Offchain Labs noted.

Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade, which went live earlier this week, is expected to significantly lower gas fees on L2 blockchains, and thus increase adoption of the Ethereum ecosystem. However, immediate fee cuts are not guaranteed, as the team behind these projects must upgrade their architecture to adapt to the new standard.