Developers of Arbitrum's Layer 2 solution for Ethereum have launched the core network

The startup behind Ethereum second-tier solution Arbitrum, Offchain Labs, announced that it has launched a mainnet and raised $120 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners and other investors.

Polychain Capital, Ribbit Capital, Redpoint Ventures, Pantera Capital, Alameda Research and Mark Cuban also participated in the Series B funding round.

The startup received unicorn status with a valuation of $1.2 billion. The funds raised reached $124 million.

The team will direct investments to further research and develop solutions to scale Ethereum.

The launch of the core network, dubbed Arbitrum One, means the ability to run decentralized applications for users. Previously, only developers could use it.

To use the solution, users will first have to use the Arbitrum bridge to transfer funds from Ethereum to their wallet on the network.

The developers promise a cost reduction of more than 50 times compared to the blockchain of the second most capitalized cryptocurrency.

In the testing of the main network, 350 projects have expressed interest.

DeFi-project Balancer Labs announced integration with the network on the first day of its operation.

Earlier, the users of the decentralized exchange Uniswap approved the launch in the Arbitrum network.

Arbitrum uses Optimistic rollups. The technology makes it possible to achieve higher throughput at lower costs compared to Ethereum. Transactions are processed in the sidechain, grouped and returned to the blockchain of the second most capitalized cryptocurrency.