Ethereum Layer-2 Solution Arbitrum Now Live on Mainnet, Raises $120 Million

Arbitrum, the Ethereum layer-2 solution, is now live on the mainnet, open to all network users.

As per an announcement of August 31, the deployment also coincided with the solution's developers, Offchain Labs, receiving $120 million in a Series B funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Following this round, Ravi Mhatre, the co-founder of the crypto fund, has joined its board. Other participants include serial investors Pantera Capital, Alameda Research, and Mark Cuban.

With this, Arbitrum is now valued at $1.2 billion—another Unicorn rising from Ethereum.

It would be redemption for Mark Cuban, who had earlier voiced his concern on Ethereum's lack of scalability leading to high trading fees. 

Vitalik Buterin, earlier on in 2020, called upon the network's developers to focus on creating Layer-2 options as a means of scaling Ethereum. This is ahead of their transition to Eth2, where Sharding would be integrated as an on-chain scaling solution. 

Even so, Sharding will be compatible with any other layer-2 options currently in Proof-of-work like Arbitrum and Optimism—currently in Alpha--, creating a multiplicative effect. 

Out of this, it is expected that Ethereum will cement its lead as a dominant smart contracting platform, trouncing competitors whose selling points revolve around scalability—and thus low trading fees.