On October 12, Off-chain Labs announced that the developer of the well-known Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution Arbitrum, has settled a deal to acquire Prysmatic Labs, one of the core software development teams responsible for upgrading, maintaining, and innovating the Ethereum network.  

The move implies a significant improvement for Arbitrum. Rollups evade the Ethereum mainnet’s slow speed and volatile, frequently exorbitant gas fees by gathering huge amounts of Ethereum exchanges into a unit that is then introduced to the mainnent as a single transaction. 

Arbitrum, one of the many so-called rollup solutions built atop the Ethereum network, is right now Ethereum’s leading roll-up solution by complete value locked. As per data from DeFi Llama, some $965 million presently streams across its 123 protocols. By obtaining Prysmatic Labs—one of the key teams responsible for improving the Ethereum mainnet—Arbitrum’s creators are supporting the scaler’s centrality to the Ethereum ecosystem. 

“We believe that Arbitrum at layer 2 and Ethereum at layer 1 will grow and succeed together,” Ed Felten, co-founder of Arbitrum developer Offchain Labs said. “Joining up with the Prysmatic team connects us even more closely to some of the most exciting and important research happening in the Ethereum community.” 

Node validators across the world use Prysmatic Labs, which is the developer of Prysm, a consensus client software to implement the proof of stake consensus algorithm that has powered Ethereum and valid its transactions since the historic merge of the network in September.  

Regardless of the fact that recently Prysmatic’s developers will report to Arbitrum’s owners, the team doesn't anticipate that its day-to-day work to change so much.  

“The Prysm client will continue to be a leader in Ethereum node software,” Prysmatic Labs co-founder Raul Jordan stated. “We will continue to develop the Ethereum roadmap at the same pace as other consensus client teams and be present at the forefront of the challenges Ethereum L1 faces.”