Arbitrum Activates Elara With Optional Compliance Filters for Dedicated Chains

Arbitrum has activated ArbOS 61 Elara on August 20th, adding optional protocol-level transaction screening and priority-fee support to dedicated chains. The upgrade was approved through Arbitrum governance and includes compliance and priority-fee capabilities, although these are intentionally disabled on Arbitrum One and Nova.

The compliance filter is a configurable tooling for owners of dedicated Arbitrum chains, allowing them to select an external compliance provider or define rules covering transfers, contract calls, and other interactions involving restricted addresses. Enforcement operates at two levels: the sequencer simulates transactions and rejects those that violate configured rules before they enter a block.

The second level is designed to prevent a restricted user from bypassing the sequencer through Arbitrum's force-inclusion path. Restricted addresses are stored as salted hashes rather than plaintext, and chains are recommended to wait at least 30 days after the ArbOS 61 release on Arbitrum One before adopting the feature.

Priority fees can also be collected by dedicated-chain owners, but this feature is disabled and requires explicit configuration through the access-controlled `ArbOwner` precompile. On Arbitrum One, activating priority-fee collection still requires a separate constitutional DAO vote.