Arbitrum’s Timeboost Feature Launches Successfully, Contributing $2,491 to DAO Treasury on First Day

Arbitrum’s newly introduced Timeboost functionality has gone live, marking a significant milestone for the Layer 2 scaling solution. The feature, designed to optimize transaction processing, generated an immediate impact by contributing $2,491 to the decentralized autonomous organization’s (DAO) revenue within its first 24 hours of operation. This successful debut demonstrates the protocol’s ability to create sustainable value for its ecosystem while enhancing network efficiency for users. The revenue generation mechanism, tied to Timeboost’s priority transaction capabilities, showcases Arbitrum’s innovative approach to monetizing Layer 2 solutions while maintaining decentralized governance through its DAO structure.

After a mere one day of being live, Timeboost has generated $2492 in DAO revenue.

OK, so Timeboost is great. But there are broader complaints.

Some worry that the ability to monetize sequencer revenue means a shrinking incentive for Arbitrum to decentralize the sequencer. Max Resnick, for instance, has previously made that argument on the Bankless podcast.

Personally, I think the hand-wringing around centralized sequencers is somewhat overblown. Recall back in January how users were able to bypass sequencer-level censorship on the Soneium chain by triggering a forced transaction inclusion on the L1. Sequencer centralization is a problem, but it’s not quite as important as, say, having fraud proofs.

Yet, Arbitrum has plans to make Timeboost compatible with decentralized sequencing. It’s all part of the roadmap, Offchain Labs CEO Steven Goldfeder told me at ETHDenver.

The complexity of Timeboost’s design and making it eventually compatible with a decentralized sequencer set was part of the reason the launch was delayed, Arbitrum CTO Harry Kalodner told Blockworks.

A September 2024 blog points to Arbitrum’s collaboration with Espresso to create a decentralized Timeboost. Rollups using Timeboost would be able to auction off the right to sequence blocks on the Espresso marketplace (see the formal specs here).

That’s essentially an auction (Timeboost) inside of an auction (Espresso) inside of an auction (L1 settlement). But hey, at least everything is decentralized.

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