The Merge 2.0: Offchain Labs acquires Prysmatic Labs, the leading Ethereum Consensus Client team

We’re extremely happy to announce that Offchain Labs is acquiring Prysmatic Labs, the leading Ethereum consensus client. Merging L1 and L2 together, let’s dive into details!

Who is Prysmatic labs?

If you’ve been keeping up with recent Ethereum development, you’re probably familiar with the Merge, Ethereum’s recent move from proof-of-work to proof-of stake. Prysmatic Labs is one of the core development teams that architected the Merge and built Prysm, the leading Ethereum consensus client that’s now powering Ethereum’s proof-of-stake consensus. Prysm is one of Ethereum’s biggest clients to date and is a favorite among Ethereum node runners. They’ve been working on proof-of-stake since early 2018 and are now spearheading research in sharding, MEV management, and more! Prysmatic Labs is an extraordinarily talented team of engineers and both the team and Prysm are a core part of the fabric of Ethereum.

The best L1 team joins the best L2 team

The future of Ethereum relies on Layer 1 for consensus and data availability, and layer 2 for execution and scalability. A sustainable future for Ethereum, needs not only greater communication between teams developing on both layers, but more direct collaboration as well.

Prysmatic Labs chose to join our team for many reasons, but we especially aligned on:

• our shared passion for developing cutting-edge technology,
• our ability to set industry standards with our best-in-class products,
• and of course, our shared commitment to scaling Ethereum.

All of this further cements both the Arbitrum and Ethereum communities as the go-to for secure decentralized application development.

“Our mission from day one was to scale Ethereum and make it an impactful technology for the world. Merging with Offchain Labs made perfect sense to us as an Ethereum team because: (1) we develop software extensively in Go, (2) are fully incentive-aligned with the success of Ethereum, and (3) are focused on shipping quality software for others to use. We have been inspired by Arbitrum’s organic growth and the versatility of the Offchain team to adapt to technology that is both practical and innovative. Both companies truly love the work we produce, and are extra motivated to build a unified team stronger than the sum of its parts.” — Raul Jordan, Prysmatic Labs

“I am thrilled for Prysmatic Labs to join efforts with Offchain Labs. These two world class teams are value aligned in their work to scale Ethereum and a close collaboration between Layer 1 and Layer 2 can allow for these technologies to iterate and deliver faster. Scaling Ethereum is more important than ever and this merge will help Ethereum further its impact globally. We are so excited for what’s to come!” — Preston Van Loon, Prysmatic Labs

“Prysmatic Labs possesses an incredibly talented team of engineers, and their dedication to the Ethereum community shows via their best-in-class product that is used broadly in the Ethereum ecosystem. We are looking forward to the integration of the Prysmatic Labs team as we work together to scale Ethereum.” — Steven Goldfeder, Offchain Labs

With Arbitrum One being the largest and most technically advanced general-purpose Ethereum layer 2 blockchain to date, our coalescence is a testament to how tight-knit and aligned our community is to making the most sustainable ecosystem long term. This guarantees that whether you’re developing on layer 1 or layer 2, you’ll always be using Ethereum.

What does the future hold?

The Prysmatic Labs team is officially joining Offchain Labs, and we will continue to develop Prysm as a fully open-source and neutral consensus client. The Prysmatic team is also deeply involved in further Ethereum development initiatives and is one of the teams leading the effort to bring EIP-4844 data-sharding to production. All of this work will continue uninterrupted, and we at Offchain Labs are super excited to more deeply contribute to Ethereum’s core development, and are committed to continuing to do so for the long term.

There are several other joint initiatives that we plan to work on together, furthering both L1 and L2 development. Stay tuned for more details!