Districts · Arbitrum family
Arbitrum Nova
A low-cost chain for games and social apps. Once an AnyTrust chain whose data was held by a committee, it has posted everything to Ethereum blobs since the end of August 2026.
Arbitrum Nova is Arbitrum’s sister chain, launched in 2022 for uses with many small transactions, such as games and social apps.
It first kept fees low with AnyTrust, in which a committee held the data instead of posting all of it to L1. Since the end of August 2026 it no longer uses the committee: all its data is posted to Ethereum blobs, which makes it an optimistic rollup, while Arbitrum DAO voted in September 2026 to gradually wind down official support in favour of Arbitrum One.
Arbitrum Nova was originally engineered before EIP-4844 blobs existed, using an AnyTrust Data Availability Committee (DAC) to deliver sub-cent fees for gaming and social apps when L1 calldata was still expensive.
Once Ethereum blobs made Arbitrum One itself ultra-cheap, maintaining a separate general-purpose sister chain became less necessary. After switching Nova’s batches to Ethereum blobs at the end of August 2026, the Arbitrum DAO passed a governance proposal in September 2026 to minimize ongoing support and consolidate activity around Arbitrum One and Orbit chains.
| Type | Optimistic rollup |
|---|---|
| Technology | Arbitrum Nitro |
| Rollup stage | Stage 0 (L2BEAT) |
| Fees are paid in | ETH |
| District weather follows | ETH |
Weather in the Monday, October 19, 2026 morning edition: ⛅ Cloudy +0.4% · Morning Edition →
Main tokens on this chain
- 🏦 USDCUSD CoinBanks & exchange counters (stablecoins)
- 🏦 USDTTetherBanks & exchange counters (stablecoins)
- 🏦 DAIDaiBanks & exchange counters (stablecoins)
- ⛽ WETHWrapped EtherGas stations (native gas tokens)
- 🎪 MOONMoons (r/CryptoCurrency)Night market & arcade (meme · AI · culture coins)
- 🛒 AIUSArbiusMarkets & shops (DeFi tokens)
- 🏛 ARBArbitrumDistrict office (chain governance token)
The 7 tokens in the site’s registry for this chain.
Related essays
- Rollups, Validiums, and Optimiums: Where Does the Transaction Data Actually Live?Comparing Ethereum blobs against external data availability layers like EigenDA and committees
- The Pillars of Arbitrum: Nitro Execution, BoLD Validation, Stylus, and Orbit ChainsInside the engineering that powers Ethereum City’s deepest DeFi liquidity hub and institutional L2s
- What Happens When an L2 Winds Down? Lessons from Polygon zkEVM, Blast, and Arbitrum NovaHow L1 settlement protects user funds during chain sunsets and how Ethereum City preserves historical records
Outside links
Facts on this page are as of 2026-10 and may change. If you spot a mistake, please tell us through the contact page.