Layer-2 Ethereum scaling solution Arbitrum has announced the date for one of its most significant upgrades to the protocol.  The update is set for Wednesday, August 31st, also its one-year anniversary.  Simplifying Cross-Chain Communication Arbitrum’s Nitro upgrade, one of the most significant upgrades to the protocol, will look to improve the transaction fee crisis that has plagued Ethereum over the past couple of years. The upgrade will increase transactions throughout, significantly reduce transaction fees, and also improve cross-chain communication between Arbitrum and Ethereum.  The Nitro Upgrade  In a recent update on Twitter, the platform reconfirmed the date of the upgrade, stating that it will take place on August 31st, 10:30 AM Eastern Time. The post also stated that users should expect a downtime of around two to four hours while the upgrade is in progress.  “Reminder — Arbitrum One is upgrading to Nitro on Wednesday, 8/31. There will be 2-4 hours of planned network downtime, starting 10:30 AM ET / GMT-4. Two days until Nitro!” A Fully Integrated Layer-2 Roll-up System Arbitrum is a Layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum utilizing Optimistic Roll-up Technology to bunch up large batches of transactions, taking them off-chain from Ethereum smart contracts and decentralized applications and then submitting them to the main blockchain. Offchain Labs’ described Nitro on its GitHub account, calling it a “fully integrated, complete Layer-2 optimistic roll-up system.” Nitro looks to build on Arbitrum One using improved Fraud Proofs, updated sequencers, token bridges, and call data compression mechanisms Updated ArbOS  The entity behind Arbitrum is Offchain Labs, a blockchain-based company founded in 2018. Offchain Labs is creating a suite of Ethereum scaling solutions, with Arbitrum One the most notable network deployed by the firm. Offchain Labs recently updated its ArbOS (Arbitrum Operating System), which is now written in the programming language Go. The update ArbOS will significantly improve cross-chain communication between Arbitrum and Ethereum and transaction batching and data compression, which will drastically lower costs drastically on Ethereum.  “The Most Advanced Ethereum Scaling Stack”  Offchain Labs has described the Arbitrum Nitro upgrade as the “most advanced Ethereum scaling Stack” and that it would significantly increase network capacity and reduce transaction costs. In the article, Offchain Labs stated,  “Today, we throttle Arbitrum’s capacity, but with Nitro, we’ll be able to release those controls and significantly up our throughput. And while Arbitrum today is already 90–95% cheaper than Ethereum on average, Nitro cuts our costs even further.” According to DeFi aggregator DeFiLlama data, Arbitrum has a total value locked (TVL) of around $946 million, spread across 111 different protocols. Some of the most popular applications are Curve, Uniswap, GMX, and Stargate, among a host of others. Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.