The Arbitrum One and Nova chains currently enforce a floor gas price (currently 0.1 gwei on Arbitrum One and 0.01 gwei on Nova), which is described in the developer documentation. However, that guide doesn’t indicate WHY there is a gas floor price enforced at all.
I’ve heard it mentioned (and got one response in Discord confirming) it’s to prevent certain attack vectors/spamming/DoSing of the chain, but nowhere is detailed if that’s a temporary thing, or a permanent thing.
I’m posting this as a Governance discussion as I think a long-term plan should be decided-upon, and whatever that plan is, to make it more clear to developers and users.
Assumption: It would be ideal for end-users if a gas floor price was not enforced, or if it was enforced, it was as low as possible.
Assumption: There is a current possible attack vector that the current-enforced gas floor price makes it financially not possible for a bad actor to sustain.
Therefore, questions I think needing clear answers:
- Is the attack vector the gas floor price is guarding against expected to always exist? (If it’s expected to eventually become obsolete, the gas floor price could be retired at that time)
- Are there other guards against this attack vector possible (theoretical, planned, or in development)? (If there’s better guards against that attack vector, the gas floor price could be phased out when they’re enacted)
- Is a planned step-down of the gas floor price over time possible (without risking the security/usability of the chain)?
- Why is Nova able to exist with a lower gas floor price compared to One?
- Would a governance proposal to reduce the gas floor price at a certain rate (e.g. reduce by 0.001 gwei/year) be a good idea? What ramifications would that have that would need to be addressed before enacting?
Depending on what the answers are, an update to the documentation explaining why it will not be changing may be all that’s needed. But if it is possible to step down those limits, creating a governance proposal to do so could be the next step?