Fast Withdrawals Now Available on Select Orbit Chains, Offering 15-Minute Withdrawal Finality

NEW YORK, Oct. 24, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Offchain Labs, the initial developer of Arbitrum and Stylus, today announced Fast Withdrawals, a new feature allowing select Orbit chains and RaaS providers to achieve withdrawal finality in under fifteen minutes, compared to the usual wait time of up to seven days. Orbit chains that plan future support for the new feature include Apechain, Cheese, Nova, Sanko, Xai and others. RaaS providers include Offchain Labs, Alchemy, Altlayer, Ankr, Caldera, Conduit, and Gelato.

Implementing Fast Withdrawals cuts withdrawal times by over 90%, making the process extremely similar to withdrawing funds from a bank account. Although it is not identical, it represents a substantial improvement over the traditional blockchain standard, bringing it much closer to the experience of conventional tradfi funds transfer.

To streamline the process, Fast Withdrawals on Orbit chains have their transactions processed by a committee of validators. Transactions with a unanimous vote across the committee will have their state transition immediately confirmed. This allows Orbit chains and user withdrawals to achieve a fast confirmation frequency within fifteen minutes. Fast Withdrawals enhance cross-chain communication by allowing cross-chain applications to read the finalized state up to the fast confirmation frequency. Previously, optimistic rollups had to sustain a multi-day challenge period to allow time for fraud proofs, making this launch a big upgrade over prior existing models.

Steven Goldfeder, CEO and Co-Founder of Offchain Labs, commented on the new feature: "With the introduction of Fast Withdrawals on Arbitrum, users can now access their funds in as little as 15 minutes. This is a game-changer for how people interact with blockchains, making transactions faster and more seamless, and bringing the experience closer to what people expect from traditional financial systems. We hope the familiarity of a traditional financial system can incentivize individuals outside the crypto space to participate in the ecosystem."

Fast Withdrawals can be adopted by chains optimizing for a speedy user experience such as gaming and social chains. While any Orbit chain can adopt the speedy feature, AnyTrust chains are best leveraged to maximize user experience as this chain already has minimum trust assumptions placed in their Data Availability Committee (DAC), therefore it stores data and provides it on demand. The optimal setup for an AnyTrust chain is to have all DAC members run validators as part of the Fast Withdrawals committee, which leverages the existing trust assumption on the DAC. Therefore, enabling Fast Withdrawals does not introduce any additional trusted parties.

Goldfeder continued, "This advancement represents a significant leap forward in our mission to create an interoperable set of chains within the Orbit ecosystem, putting Orbit steps ahead of others. We firmly believe this enhanced interoperability, combined with the familiarity of a transacting experience, will not only benefit our existing users but also encourage builders and users to participate in our ecosystem. This is a pivotal moment in making blockchain technology more accessible and appealing to all."

Fast Withdrawals is a pivotal advancement in Offchain Labs' ongoing commitment to enhancing user experience and streamlining the efficiency of its ecosystem. This announcement comes shortly after the launch of Stylus, which enables DApp development with WebAssembly languages, and the Tandem program, designed to nurture and grow new projects entering the space.

About Offchain Labs

Offchain Labs is a venture-backed, Princeton-founded company that has dedicated over six years to blockchain research and development. As the original contributors to Arbitrum, the leading Ethereum scaling solution, and Prysm, the leading consensus client for Ethereum, Offchain Labs has been instrumental in revolutionizing the industry through groundbreaking advancements in blockchain scalability and efficiency. The team continues to build upon this foundation by innovating and enhancing products such as Arbitrum Orbit, Stylus, Prysm, and Arbitrum Nitro.

SOURCE Offchain Labs