Reducing Costs Through Trust Assumptions

At the heart of the Arbitrum protocol lies the requirement for all its nodes, including validators responsible for verifying chain accuracy and staking on correct outcomes, to access data from every Layer 2 (L2) transaction within the Arbitrum chain's inbox. Traditionally, achieving this data access involved posting data on Layer 1 (L1) Ethereum as calldata, incurring significant Ethereum gas fees, the primary cost factor in Arbitrum.

However, AnyTrust introduces a fundamental change by delegating the storage and on-demand provision of data to an external entity called the Data Availability Committee (the "Committee"). Comprising N members, the Committee operates under the trust assumption that at least two members are honest. This assumption ensures data availability critical for the rollup protocol's proper functioning. Even if N-1 Committee members pledge access to certain data, the trust assumption guarantees that at least one entity must be honest, ensuring data availability until the specified expiration time.