Top Ethereum L2 Arbitrum Unveils Timeboost Upgrade to Accelerate Transactions

Arbitrum, a Layer 2 (L2) scaling solution for Ethereum with a total value locked of $2.4 billion, today announced the launch of Timeboost, an upgrade designed to speed up transactions across all Arbitrum chains.

Timeboost – the result of over a year of research by the team at Offchain Labs – introduces a new transaction policy aimed at enhancing network efficiency, capturing maximal extractable value (MEV), and reducing spam, according to documents provided to The Defiant by Arbitrum.

Arbitrum is currently the 2nd largest Ethereum L2 and the 8th largest chain by DeFi TVL, per data from DeFiLlama.

“The core motivation behind Timeboost is to increase efficiency in how MEV searchers’ transactions compete for inclusion,” Ed Felten, co-founder and Chief Scientist of Offchain Labs, told The Defiant.

How the Timeboost upgrade works

Felten explained that while the Arbitrum Sequencer’s first-come first-served policy offers strong user guarantees, it causes latency races, congestion, and off-chain value leakage.

“Timeboost modifies this by adding a sealed-bid, on-chain auction that allows competition among MEV searchers to happen transparently and more efficiently, while maintaining protection for users against front-running and sandwiching attacks,” Felten said.

The upgrade gives auction winners control of a new “express lane” at the sequencer, where transactions are processed instantly. All others face a brief, 200-millisecond delay.

‘Useful in any scenario’

Felten noted that Timeboost can be useful in any scenario where transaction priority is tied to value. “Searchers can now participate in on-chain auctions rather than off-chain races,” he said. “Builders can design systems that leverage that priority predictably.”

For regular users, the result is less congestion, reduced spam, and more consistent network performance.

Felten concluded that Timeboost aligns with Arbitrum’s long-term goals by keeping value in the ecosystem, generating new revenue streams for its Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), and providing a better experience for both users and strategic actors. ”It's a direct extension of our work to make Arbitrum the most technically advanced and economically aligned L2,” he said.

Arbitrum’s native token ARB currently boasts a market capitalization of $1.3 billion and is trading around $0.28, up just over 3% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.

Last week, in a post on its official forum, the Arbitrum Foundation proposed changes to how the Arbitrum DAO makes decisions about proposals. The proposed changes identify five “Arbitrum Aligned Entities” (AAE) and grant these entities the power to review and make recommendations for or against all proposals before they are sent to delegates for a vote.

The official post from Arbitrum reads: "If the relevant AAE thinks that the proposal is not a good idea, the OpCo should report back to the delegates the position of the AAE with a recommendation to vote against the proposal."

Disclaimer: This article has been updated to clarify Arbitrum's suggested changes to the proposal process for the Arbitrum DAO.