Arbitrum's Multi-Proving Model with ZK Tech Cuts Settlement Times to Hours

Arbitrum has made significant progress in implementing a multi-proving model based on zero-knowledge (ZK) technology, aiming to reduce settlement times for assets on its L1 from seven days to just hours.

The system integrates ZK proofs directly into BoLD, the ARB settlement protocol toward Ethereum, without eliminating existing fraud proofs. The validator was rewritten in Rust as an independent service and the ZK code is being merged into the main Arbitrum Nitro codebase.

According to researcher Daniel Lumi, six technical milestones have already been achieved, including establishing that network blocks can be proven via ZK using SP1, the zkVM developed by Succinct. This allows for the execution of the same state transition function as the current optimistic prover.