Arbitrum Elara Upgrade Brings Compliance Filtering and Priority Fees to Dedicated Chains

Arbitrum's Elara upgrade went live on August 20, 2026, following approval from ArbitrumDAO governance. This update brings optional protocol-level compliance filtering and priority-fee support to dedicated chains, but these features are currently switched off. On Arbitrum One itself, the upgrade introduces a new base-fee management system and quadruples Stylus smart contract capacity from 24 KB to 96 KB.

The ArbOS Elara upgrade is designed for businesses that want to run their own Arbitrum-based blockchain while meeting regulatory obligations. It gives chain owners a toolkit they can configure to match their own compliance and market-structure needs, allowing them to build screening and fee-ordering logic directly into the base protocol.

Elara also introduces an alternative data-availability interface, which lets dedicated chain operators plug in outside data-availability providers instead of maintaining a customized fork of Arbitrum's Nitro software stack. This feature is not available on Arbitrum One, as its transaction data already settles on Ethereum.