Arbitrum team buys Prysm client, promises to remain “neutral”

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Offchain Labs, the company primarily responsible for developing the Arbitrum scaling solution for Ethereum announced that it’s acquired Prysmatic Labs, the company responsible for developing the Prysm Ethereum client.

Prysm is the most popular Ethereum client and is currently used by approximately 41% of clients according to Sigma Prime’s Blockprint via clientdiversity.org. The next closest is the Lighthouse client with about 37% of clients using it.

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Offchain Labs specifically cited the work of Prysmatic Labs in advancing Ethereum Improvement Proposal 4844 which will introduce ‘Proto-Danksharding’ and make it easier for rollups like Arbitrum to continue scaling as a motivator for the deal.

Ethereum has struggled for years with the centralizing pressures induced by key pieces of infrastructure being owned by key entities, and with the effect that’s had on the governance and direction of Ethereum. The acquisition of the top layer 1 client by the top layer 2 protocol (according to L2Beat) will bring those issues to the forefront again.

Offchain Labs insists that Prysm will continue to be a “neutral Ethereum client” and emphasizes that it’s “excited to more deeply contribute to Ethereum’s core development.”

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