Arbitrum Owner Acquires Ethereum Consensus Software Prism

Offchain Labs, the company behind the Ethereum layer 2 solution Arbitrum, announced that it has acquired Prysmatic Labs, one of the key companies in charge of Ethereum’s maintenance and upgrades.

This acquisition further strengthens Offchain’s importance in the Ethereum ecosystem. According to DeFi Llama, Arbitrum is already the most popular rollup solution based on total value locked, with $965 million spread over 123 protocols.

As for Prysmatic Labs, its Prysm consensus software is used by 41.5% of node validators to authenticate transactions. While there is a potential conflict of interest in this case, as Prysm has a role in Ethereum’s relations with layer 2 solutions, Prysmatic Labs’ representative claims that any favoritism would be condemned by the community, effectively putting a stop to it.

Regardless, Arbitrum is becoming an increasingly powerful player in the Ethereum ecosystem. Together with another layer 2 solution, Optimism, Arbitrum accounts for more than 96% of financial dealings on Ethereum.