AIP: BOLD - permissionless validation for Arbitrum

Based on feedback, research, and further development, we have made some updates to the BoLD AIP. Key highlights include:

  1. Reducing the challenge levels from 4 to 3 and reducing the challenge bond sizes by ~43% without compromising on security! This means that previously, it would cost 1000+100+10 ETH to fight off 1 challenge, but now it will only cost 555+79 ETH! These new numbers were carefully selected using the formulas and specifications in the whitepaper - optimizing for security (resource exhaustion ratio) and the worse-case scenario of elevated, sustained L1 gas costs during an attack. The top level assertion bond of 3600 ETH remains unchanged because it acts as a deterrent to open a challenge and spam the protocol to begin with.

  2. A “defender’s bounty” of 1% of confiscated bonds has been added to incentivize honest parties to defend Arbitrum One in the event of a challenge. This 1% would only go to defenders who put up bonds to defeat malicious actors during a challenge. Since confiscated funds will be sent to the ArbitrumDAO treasury, a DAO vote would be required to pay out this reward though because confiscated funds (by default) go to the DAO.

  3. An upper bound on L1 gas cost reimbursements to defenders has been added and is proposed to be 100% of confiscated bonds during a challenge. Honest parties should always be made whole when defending Arbitrum.

  4. Challenge bonds are now automatically refunded in-protocol once a sub-challenge assertion has been confirmed by the protocol!

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