PANews reported on January 10 that according to The Block, Arbitrum DAO is currently voting publicly on an improvement proposal (AIP) to transition Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova to the Bounded Liquidity Delay (BoLD) mechanism. BoLD has been online on the Arbitrum testnet since April 2024. It is an interactive fraud proof dispute protocol for optimistic rollups that aims to improve the security of Arbitrum chains.

If the AIP is approved in the vote, BoLD will be implemented on Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova in February 2025. At that time, the two chains will adopt a permissionless system, replacing the current allowlist validator system, allowing anyone to participate in network security. As of the time of writing, the on-chain vote has been unanimously supported by community members.

The BoLD mechanism will introduce a fixed time window to resolve Arbitrum chain state disputes to reduce the risk of delay attacks, that is, to prevent malicious actors from damaging the system by deliberately prolonging the dispute resolution process. The time window is currently set to two challenge periods (about 13 days), and there is a two-day grace period for the Arbitrum Security Council to intervene if necessary. In addition, another highlight of BoLD is to shift the focus of disputes from a single validator to the deterministic execution of L2 states, which is achieved by allowing anyone to participate in the verification process.