What’s brewing on Arbitrum Orbit? Navigating the Hottest Projects

023 has been a kickstarting year for blockchain rollups. Several enterprises and businesses realized the importance of having a customizable, single-use Layer2 rollup, which led to the outstanding popularity of rollup frameworks like Polygon CDK, Zk Stack, OP Stack, and Arbitrum Orbit.

For this article, let’s focus on Arbitrum Orbit. We have already published a dedicated article on Arbitrum Orbit’s offering for dApps, hence we are now discussing the hottest projects launching with Arbitrum Orbit. This will give everyone a clear understanding of what kinds of projects are building for Arbitrum Orbit and how you can launch highly customized and futuristic projects for your use case.

What new is there for Arbitrum Orbit?

Arbitrum keeps evolving its tech stack with interesting feature launches and technical upgrades. For example, Arbitrum earlier enabled custom gas tokens, modular DA layers, and sequencer decentralization to stay on the front. Speaking about the most recent upgrade, Arbitrum has announced the Stylus upgrade for the Arbitrum Nitro Tech stack. Nitro currently powers Arbitrum Orbit, Arbitrum One, and Arbitrum Let’s dive into what Stylus exactly offers:

Web3 developers can leverage the power of WebAssembly smart contracts to deploy programs in their preferred programming languages, for example- Rust, C, C++, etc.
They can use any type of tools– be it Rust, Solidity, C or Vyper—despite their industry and use-case type.
Stylus will offer a 10x performance boost to the Arbitrum’s Nitro Stack.
Arbitrum dApps programmed with Stylus will be exceptionally faster than its Solidity counterparts.
No need for selecting between Ethereum and alt L1’s, as Stylus programs are completely interoperable.

Let’s dive into the Hottest Arbitrum Orbit Projects

The Arbitrum Orbit ecosystem is turning massive, with a range of innovative projects being launched on it. Steven Goldfeder, the co-founder of Offchain Labs and a valued Arbitrum contributor, claims that 50+ Arbitrum Orbit chains are currently in their development phase, and he has a prediction of 150 Orbit chains on the mainnet by the end of 2024.

However, for this article, we are considering only the Arbitrum Orbit projects that are live on the mainnet, testnet, or those that have officially announced their Arbitrum Orbit chain launch/migration. Let’s dive in!

Projects live with their mainnet:

XAI Games

XAI– the gaming-focused permissionless network is one of the hottest Arbitrum Orbit projects that recorded 150,000,000 testnet transactions, 500,000 users, and over 13,000,000 in Node sales. Now that XAI has launched the mainnet for its gaming-based Orbit Layer3 chain, the popularity will be even more remarkable.

Initially, XAI has chosen Arbitrum Orbit to scale endlessly for the next billion users, but XAI is amazed at other benefits of Arbitrum Nitro technology stack, such as:

Seamless onboarding of popular gaming-based L3s like Ex Populus, Camelot, Orivium, and Crypto unicorn on the XAI ecosystem.
High transaction speed for increased response time.
Ease of launching custom ERC-20 tokens for transaction fees.
Extremely low transaction fees.
Support for increased size of contract.
Account abstraction feature.
Integration support to high-volume DEX like Binance, etc.

RARI Chain

From the time when RARI DAO and RARI Foundation were introduced, RARI created a vision to provide a more powerful, decentralized and highly scalable infrastructure for NFT use cases. Earlier, RARI Chain’s testnet saw notable engagement of 46,000 registered wallets and a total of over 251,000 transactions. RARI Chain, one-of-a-kind creator-centric network, recently announced the launch of its mainnet as L3 Arbitrum Orbit chain. Now, RARI is offering an innovative, NFT-focused Layer3 chain that offers:

Unique royalty enforcement mechanism, where royalty is embedded on the chain’s sequencer level.
Flexibility for use-case specific optimization.
Ethereum-inherited high security.
100% compatibility with EVM and Ethereum blockchain.
Ultra-fast block finality.
Compatibility with main programming languages like Rust, C, and C++.

Deri Protocol

Deri Protocol— the innovative, Web3 version of Trading and DeFi view is next to launch another huge-potential Arbitrum Orbit project– Deri chain or D-chain, having a total of 196,863 transactions and $141B trading volume as of today on its mainnet. The chain serves as a highly scalable, dedicated Layer3 rollup appchain for Deri V4 as it leverages the following unique features from Arbitrum Orbit:

Improved cross-chain communication.
Customization of the ecosystem to match advanced DeFi standards.
Execution of main logic on D-chain’s Layer3 infrastructure improves the transaction processing tenfold.
Reduction in gas fee due to settlement of translation on Arbitrum Orbit L2.
Adoption of Ethereum’s reliable security and unique properties.

Parallel Network

Parallel Finance, the advanced DeFi project has launched its omni-chain Layer2 blockchain– Parallel Network, which is currently the mainnet limited to developers, and the Parallel team plans to make it public by February 2024. The testnet launch was a success for Parallel as it recorded 8,841 NFT supplies and a $2.17T total supply. Meanwhile, Parallel Super App TVL exceeded USD $230 million.

Parallel Network’s reason for choosing Arbitrum Orbit was mainly the liquidity, scalability, and security concerns, but it is now offering the below outstanding features, with support to Orbit:

Completely gasless transactions for users.
Account abstraction-enabled wallets for 50% reduction in the total development time and 20% less transaction fee.
Enhanced privacy features with Ethereum’s top-tier security.
Near-instantaneous transaction processing.
Unparalleled trust & transparency enabled due to full decentralization.

Kinto

Kinto– the decentralized platform offering safe and insured on-chain financial services, has launched Layer2 rollup powered by Arbitrum Orbit. From the beginning, Kinto is focused more on security and maturity, therefore their partnership with Orbit’s most advanced tech stack– Nitro has benefitted them significantly. Kinto claims to be the first KYC-enabled L2 that can meet all the compliance requirements and thus reduce the counterparty risks.

Let’s see what benefits Kinto derives from Arbitrum Orbit:

10x reduction in the total transaction cost.
Option for gasless transactions.
Battle-tested security inherited from Ethereum.
Higher and customizable TPS for massive scalability.
Support to account abstraction (AA) feature.
Easy bridging of TradFi into DeFi for a seamless trading experience.
A dedicated ecosystem to support Kinto’s user-owned KYC system.
Enhanced privacy of user data.

Projects currently on Testnet:

Align Network

Align Network is a Layer2 rollup built on the top of Arbitrum Nitro. Align has been designed to offer a decentralized identity management and verification network for social interactions. In mid of January 24, Align released its testnet and made it public.

To date, it has around 4,202 transactions, 2095 blocks, and 992 registered wallet addresses, which signals its long-term success in the web3 space. Powered by Arbitrum Orbit, Align Network offers the following innovative features:

Simple, gasless transactions to reward users.
Native account abstraction (AA) support.
EVM-compatibility and security benefits.
Cheaper transaction fees are facilitated through pre-compiled contracts.
Customizable bridge infrastructure.
Seamless cross-chain interaction.

Frame

Frame is a Layer2 Ethereum-based rollup designed for NFT creators and collectors worldwide. Frame’s test net launch has been a success, with a total of 3,998,160 transactions, 442,673 wallet addresses, and 1,839,597 blocks. The mainnet was scheduled for January 31, 24, but it has been pushed forward for a few days.

Now, let’s check out the features of Frame that are enabled through Arbitrum Orbit’s Nitro Stack:

A highly scalable ecosystem, Frame can handle up to 100,000 users currently.
Unparalleled security, ensured through Ethereum and rigorously tested fault proofs.
ERC-4337; Account Abstraction feature.
Extremely low gas fee and fast block times.
Offers an ecosystem for creating their custom marketplaces in a permissionless way.
EVM-equivalency.

Sanko Chain

Sanko GameCorp is building Sanko Chain– a customized Arbitrum Orbit Layer3 chain dedicated to crypto and NFT gaming. Sanko Chain is currently running on testnet, and is open for the public to claim airdrops, which has a total of 2165 transactions, 770 wallet addresses, and 1079 blocks as of now. Further, Sanko aims to utilize the chain for releasing their ‘Dream Machine’, which is a gaming console and arcade designed for NFTs and token-based games.

Here’s what main features Sanko chain will offer, backed by the Orbit tech:

A highly sustainable and liquidity-rich ecosystem consisting of + Native Dex, Native NFT platforms, and Independent $DMT Games & Developers.
Cutting-edge Ethereum security.
Higher processing time and TPS.
Custom Gas token– $DMT.
Cross-games interoperability via safe bridging.

Avive World

Avive World, the popular decentralized social networking platform, DePin, and UBI project has launched its testnet on Arbitrum, and is successfully heading toward becoming one of the largest Orbit chains with a strong community of over 8 million users from 130 countries.

Arbitrum Orbit and its Nitro Stack allows Avive to get the below capabilities:

Great inclusivity with the ability to write smart contracts in Rust, C and C++.
Full EVM compatibility.
Ultra-low transaction costs; usually under a cent.
Ethereum-based high security.
10x and 100x increase in computation and memory efficiency with Stylus.

Polychain Monsters

Polychain Monsters, the largest multi-chain NFT gaming & collection ecosystem with 2.5M+ boosters and 65K+ holders has released testnet for its On-Chain Monster Battles. The chain has been launched as Layer3

Arbitrum Orbit chain with the following features:

Ease of creating a tailor-made gaming ecosystem.
Ethereum’s reliable security.
Custom gas tokens.
Significant driving down of gas cost.
Quick response time.

Alpha Dune Network

Alpha Dune is launching a gaming-focused chain powered by Arbitrum Nitro stack that will offer a completely new paradigm for digital asset ownership, cross-gaming interoperability, and monetization. This EVM-compatible chain is currently available on the testnet and will be live on mainnet by 2024’s Q1.

The advantages Alpha Dune Network offers gets from Arbitrum Orbit are:

Low transaction fees.
High transaction throughput.
Extremely fast transaction finality.
Reliability with Arbitrum’s AnyTrust Guarantee.
Interoperability between various gaming applications.

HYTOPIA

Hytopia, next-gen web3 game and creator platform is migrating to Arbitrum Orbit for building its dedicated Hytopia chain. The testnet is currently live with a total of 1865186 transactions and 30061 wallet addresses, plus Hytopia is gearing up for a huge mainnet launch with 11, 00,000 pre-registered users and 3,000 content creators.

Hytopia is leveraging the following benefits from Arbitrum Nitro stack:

50% reduction in block time.
Optimistic block production for zero congestion on chain state.
Gasless transactions.
Customization of tokenomics.
Improved asset interoperability.

Officially announced/under development projects:

As discussed, the Arbitrum Orbit ecosystem is growing rapidly. Hence, apart from the projects that are live on mainnet and available on testnet, a lot of promising projects are coming to the Orbit in 2024, and they have officially announced their decision lately. These projects include Superposition, Cometh, Oursong, Hook Protocol, Syndr, Fiefdom, Lumiterra Game, Meloria FND, WINR Protocol, and Treasure DAO. Further. There are tons more that are building in stealth, and some are yet to be announced in 2024.

Zeeve’s RaaS– Launch Arbitrum Orbit chain faster, at lower-cost

Zeeve offers enterprise-grade, modular RaaS stack that allows enterprises, startups, and scaleups to launch, manage, and scale their custom L2/L3 Arbitrum chain 2X faster and at upo 40-50% less cost. Zeeve’s RaaS stack is optimized for low-code deployment, in-depth monitoring, analytics, and real-time alerts. With Zeeve, you can quickly launch an Orbit chain either from scratch or migrate from an existing public chain/rollup to Arbitrum Orbit with minimal turnaround time and without any risk of data loss. Further, Zeeve will soon offer a one-click deployment Sandbox for Arbitrum Orbit chains, while Sandbox for Polygon CDK and zkSync Hyperchains have already been launched.