In anticipation of Timeboost progressing to an on-chain vote before the end of the month, Offchain Labs has created this explainer and expectations post to help educate voting delegates.
Arbitrum Timeboost: Explainer & Expectations
Introduction
Timeboost is a novel transaction ordering policy developed for Arbitrum chains. Designed through extensive research and collaboration with over 20+ teams from DeFi Projects, traders, MEV searchers and infrastructure builders, Timeboost aims to address key challenges such as spam inefficiencies and Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) while providing significant value to the ArbitrumDAO and the Arbitrum One and Nova chains. With engineering testing nearing completion and audits finalized, it is poised for consideration as a transformative feature for each chain.
Key Principles & Expectations
The DAO Is in Control
The Arbitrum DAO retains ultimate authority over Timeboost, including its goals and parameters. Additionally, any revenue generated from Timeboost will be at the discretion of the DAO. This ensures alignment with community priorities and long-term sustainability.
Data-Driven Transparency
As a novel policy, Timeboost should be closely monitored to enable chain owners to take a data-driven approach to decision-making around Timeboost’s parameters and goals. For Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova, Offchain Labs will collaborate closely with third-party data analytics and MEV experts to provide high-quality data and insights. This commitment to transparency for Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova lays the foundation for productive discussions to refine and optimize Timeboost post-launch on the DAO-owned chains.
Gradual Adoption Expected
Early participation may be modest as MEV participants adapt to the new system. However, over time, adoption is expected to grow as participants refine their strategies, learn from shared data, and understand how to leverage Timeboost effectively.
Continuous Improvement
Offchain Labs will continue leveraging feedback from users and Arbitrum DAO members to refine and improve Timeboost over time. Offchain Labs is exploring a collaborative research initiative with Espresso to ensure Timeboost is compatible with distributed sequencer setups in the future. Offchain Labs aims to share valuable insights as we progress, enabling each chain to make well-informed decisions.
Recap of Core Features
Express Lane Auctions
Timeboost adds an off-chain auction for the right to get transactions sequenced earlier/faster during one-minute intervals called “rounds.” The auctions for a future round run for 45 seconds and close 15 seconds before the start of each round, allowing participants to bid strategically based on expected MEV opportunities.
When a bidder wins an auction, transactions from everyone else (who is not otherwise the winner) will be delayed for 200ms, prioritizing the winner’s transactions. This ensures that the winner’s transactions are included in the block sooner.
New Potential Revenue Stream
Proceeds from auctions will flow to the ArbitrumDAO treasury, creating a new potential revenue stream.
Prevents Front-running
Just like the Arbitrum sequencer today, the mempool will remain private, removing any possibility of frontrunning. There is no change in frontrunning protection; with Timeboost, users of Arbitrum cannot see other users’ pending transactions, preventing users from being front-run and frontrunning others.
Ecosystem Benefits
Timeboost reduces transaction spam and network congestion by incentivizing searchers to bid for a time advantage instead of spamming.
This novel transaction ordering policy encourages more efficient DeFi markets by rewarding sophisticated MEV strategies while maintaining fast block times and continuing to protect users from harmful MEV, like front-running.
Continuous Improvement
Timeboost is implemented to allow for ongoing adjustments, empowering the Arbitrum DAO to fine-tune parameters based on community needs and market dynamics.
Expected Outcomes
Efficiency Gains: Introduces a way to capture healthy MEV and disincentivizes opportunistic spamming by searchers, likely reducing spam.
Revenue Generation and Enhanced Ecosystem Participation: Greater adoption of Arbitrum by sophisticated actors and developers building innovative tools will improve treasury inflows from auctions to support Arbitrum DAO initiatives.
Timeboost is not just a technical innovation but a new paradigm for balancing fairness, efficiency, and economic value within the Arbitrum ecosystem.
Learn More: If you have questions, visit the Timeboost FAQ page for additional information and quick answers.
Please refer to the more recent and combined Timeboost+NovaFeeSweep AIP for the latest language and proposal data for Timeboost.
The primary change is that the following paragraph from this original Timeboost proposal:
“Modifications to other Timeboost parameters, including to values outside the specified ranges and to those not already listed above, but which are otherwise listed in the design specification, will require a constitutional governance vote, in accordance with the ArbitrumDAO Constitution. In cases where the ArbitrumDAO wishes to pause or disable Timeboost, the ArbitrumDAO may use the outcome of a Snapshot vote to do so (since Timeboost has an off-chain component). This special provision allows the ArbitrumDAO to react to market conditions quicker than what a Tally, on-chain vote would allow (~14 days as opposed to ~30 days).”
“Should this vote pass, modifications to other Timeboost parameters, including to values outside the specified ranges and to those not already listed above, but which are otherwise listed in the design specification, will require a constitutional governance vote, in accordance with the ArbitrumDAO Constitution. In cases where the ArbitrumDAO wishes to pause or disable Timeboost, the ArbitrumDAO may use the outcome of a Snapshot vote to do so (since Timeboost has an off-chain component). This special provision allows the ArbitrumDAO to react to market conditions quicker than what a Tally, on-chain vote would allow (~14 days as opposed to ~30 days). The transfer of express lane rights will not be supported by the Arbitrum Nitro node software in the initial launch and may be implemented at a future date via a regular node upgrade. A round’s express lane controller, at their choice, can still sign transactions on behalf of others on a per-transaction basis.”
On behalf of Gains Network (gTrade) – Voting AGAINST on Tally
We’d like to thank the contributors behind this proposal, especially the Entropy team, for pushing forward important conversations around MEV mitigation and sustainable ecosystem revenue.
After reviewing the Timeboost proposal in detail and conversations with the proposers, we have decided to vote AGAINST this implementation in its current form.
Our perspective is based primarily on expected negative implications for user experience, and a lack of sufficient offsetting benefits.
Key concerns:
Worsened UX due to increased transaction latency.
Timeboost introduces up to 500ms of potential delay for non-express lane transactions. For a PerpDEX like gTrade, where timing matters and gas spikes already cause significant issues for users, this added latency is concerning. While 100–200ms might not seem like much in isolation, it’s a step backward in the broader competitive landscape — especially when compared to L2s that are optimizing for speed and low latency.
Unclear benefit to regular users.
While the proposal highlights potential ecosystem revenue and a more efficient arbitrage market, it’s unclear how this directly benefits everyday users or protocols. There’s no guarantee that this will lead to lower gas fees, nor is there strong evidence that arbitrage markets will improve meaningfully. Without tangible upside for regular users, the trade-off in UX feels unjustified.
Favors well-capitalized actors.
While we agree that the current MEV environment is extractive and needs reform, Timeboost shifts the dynamic toward larger market makers and statistically driven MEV players. This risks reducing competition and excluding smaller or independent actors — creating a system that’s less open, not more.
No coordination with base fee reductions.
Some of our concerns might have been mitigated if Timeboost had been paired with a reduction in base gas fees to offset the UX degradation. Without such balancing measures, we view this as a net negative for the user experience and protocol operations.
We recognize the argument that the parameters are configurable, and that analytics will be in place to assess the impact. However, we believe it would be more prudent to explore other UX-friendly paths to MEV recapture — especially those that don’t increase transaction latency or concentrate power among fewer players.
Should a revised proposal emerge in the future with a clearer positive-sum outcome for users, or a holistic approach that includes fee reductions, we would be eager to reconsider.
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @krst and @Sinkas. It’s based on their combined research, fact-checking, and ideation.
After reviewing the proposal’s calldata, we can confirm that the actions that will be carried our are indeed a sweep of the ETH fees from Nova to the DAO’s treasury. However, there’s no onchain action for Timeboost’s adoption, which is understandable given that the ordering policy happens on a sequencer level - something that the DAO doesn’t control.
We were in support of the adoption of Timeboost as well as the Nova Fee Sweep proposal when they were initially put up for temp check, and we maintained our support during the onchain vote.