Arbitrum vs Sonic

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.

Sonic is an ultra‑fast EVM Layer‑1 claimed to reach 400k TPS and sub‑second finality via a custom SonicVM and DAG‑based consensus dubbed Tempo. Blocks are final once two‑thirds of stake attest, and state is stored in an in‑memory ledger that snapshots to disk every epoch. The project focuses on GameFi and real‑time social dApps, with an incentive testnet launched in May 2025.