Arbitrum promotes ZK settlement, and L1 withdrawals are expected to be shortened from days to hours

Comparing news, the Arbitrum development team said that zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs are being introduced into the Arbitrum platform to achieve a multi-proof settlement model. Through ZK certification, the settlement time for the Arbitrum block to Ethereum L1 is expected to be shortened from a few days to a few hours. While improving the capital efficiency of users, cross-chain bridges, and protocols, security is maintained through multiple proof mechanisms. The relevant capabilities target Arbitrum One and dedicated chains based on the Arbitrum platform, and Offchain will submit an upgrade proposal to the DAO in the future.

Current developments include: it is possible to run the same state transition function as optimistically in SP1 zKVM to generate ZK proofs for real mainnet blocks; Stylus' WASM contract can be proven along with Solidity contracts; the team launched an independent Rust validator to make ZK certification a first-class model in parallel with standard verification; the BoLD settlement protocol already supports acceptance of ZK proofs and endorsements by the Quick Confirmation Committee. The original controversial game is still a fallback path, forming ZK proofs, proof committees and fraud Multi-proof architecture to prove collaboration.

The team says it's continuing pressure drop to prove the cost and gradually incorporate the relevant code into Nitro's main production path. The next focus includes further optimizing certification and moving to Ret-based execution, completing L1 message inbox attestation, and connecting ZK settlement capabilities to node configurations so that each chain can be enabled as needed.