Arbitrum vs Cardano

Arbitrum One and Nova are optimistic rollups using Nitro fraud proofs that compress transactions into calldata submitted to Ethereum. The Orbit toolkit lets projects deploy their own Arbitrum Orbit chains with configurable permissions. ARB token governance manages the 3 000‑plus validator whitelist and a 1 billion‑dollar ecosystem grant fund.

Cardano uses the Ouroboros Proof‑of‑Stake protocol and an Extended‑UTxO ledger that enables deterministic smart contracts in Plutus and Aiken. Its ‘Basho’ scaling era introduced Hydra Head sidechains capable of 1000 TPS per head, and Mithril light‑client proofs for mobile wallets. Over 1 500 stake pools secure the network and participate in on‑chain treasury governance.