Arbitrum Activates ArbOS 61 ‘Elara’ With Optional Compliance Filters
Arbitrum just gave regulators an opt-in button, and gave developers four times the room to build.
The network activated its ArbOS 61 “Elara” upgrade on August 20 across Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova, bundling several infrastructure changes into one release. The headline feature is optional, protocol-level compliance filters built specifically for Orbit chains, the application-specific chains built on top of Arbitrum, letting operators satisfy local regulatory requirements without forcing those rules onto the main Arbitrum One and Nova networks, where the filters remain switched off entirely. Elara also quadruples the Stylus contract code size limit to 96 KB, opens up customizable priority fees for Orbit chain operators, and ships an alternative data-availability interface for dedicated chains.
Separately, and on a longer timeline, Arbitrum’s research arm Offchain Labs is exploring how zero-knowledge proofs could plug into the network’s settlement process. Using Succinct’s zkVM in a multi-prover setup, the goal is cutting L1 withdrawal and settlement times from days down to hours, without giving up the security guarantees and fallback mechanisms that optimistic rollups rely on. ARB rose roughly 9% around the Elara news, alongside a broader short squeeze.
Making compliance tooling opt-in rather than mandatory is a deliberate hedge, it lets regulator-facing Orbit chains exist within the Arbitrum ecosystem without changing what Arbitrum One itself is. Whether the ZK settlement research actually ships, and on what timeline, is a much bigger and slower bet than this week’s upgrade.
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