Union is integrating with Arbitrum, to facilitate message passing and asset transfers between the Arbitrum ecosystem and other networks. This strategic integration enriches Arbitrum and Orbit chains by enabling seamless interoperability with not only IBC chains, but also with other L2s, such as Scroll, which already have an integration with Union.
The integration aims to enhance Arbitrum’s Orbit ecosystem by providing direct access to a broad network of users and assets, promoting increased liquidity and improved user experiences across chains. With Union, assets and their staked derivatives will be bridged more efficiently for Orbit chains and users.
Addressing Liquidity Fragmentation
With the increasing fragmentation of liquidity across new optimistic rollups, zk-rollups, and sidechains, a scalable and trustless interoperability solution is more important than ever.
To address this, Union’s zk-powered interoperability offers scalable cross-chain communication without compromising on speed, cost-efficiency, or security. Over the past year, Union has expanded to new ecosystems, including Ethereum L2s, EVM-compatible L1s, and Cosmos SDK chains. By integrating with Union, Arbitrum Orbit chains will enjoy swift, cost-effective, and secure connection to all these ecosystems without lock-in or startup costs.
“The integration between Union and the Arbitrum extends beyond a physical integration; it is a testament to both projects’ commitment to addressing the siloed nature of blockchains while upholding sovereignty,” said Karel Kubat, Founder of Union Labs. “A secure link between Orbit chains and the rest of Web3 will greatly benefit developers building DeFi, social, gaming, and privacy applications.”
The integration will unlock greater liquidity between Arbitrum Orbit chains and IBC-enabled chains. Developers building on Arbitrum will benefit from the freedom to innovate brought by open standards, as well as unrestricted liquidity movement and composability with other Web3 protocols.
As part of the Union and Arbitrum communities’ efforts to reduce the inherent latency in optimistic cross-chain operations, the research teams will explore a pre-confirmation mechanism that allows certain operations to proceed under provisional trust before finality is achieved. The integration will utilize rate-limiting and economic guarantees (e.g., slashing conditions for malicious behavior) to balance speed with security.
“The modular era has arrived and with it an increased need for scalable, trustless, and secure interoperability, which Union is leading the charge in,” said Ed Felten, Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of Offchain Labs. “Thanks to this integration, existing chains in our network and developers looking to build on Orbit chains will benefit from enhanced modular connectivity with many of the largest blockchain ecosystems, in turn having a major impact on the DeFi, NFT, gaming, and other applications in Web3.”
This integration builds on the work with other ecosystems such as the Polygon Agglayer, Scroll, Noble, Movement, and Berachain to connect the most exciting and innovative ecosystems in web3 with secure, scalable, and high speed modular interoperability.
Further details on the completion of the Arbitrum integration will be announced in the summer, alongside Union’s anticipated mainnet launch. Follow @union_build and join the Union Discord for updates.