Arbitrum, one of Ethereum’s most popular Layer-2 scaling solutions, recently made waves with its innovative Timeboost transaction ordering policy. Since its launch in April 2025, it has produced more than $2 million in revenue. To date, Timeboost has already handled hundreds of thousands of transactions. This achievement represents an important step towards maximizing efficiency in transaction sequencing and reinforces the positive effect it has on the Arbitrum ecosystem. This new market mechanism picks up around 20–30% of daily DEX volume on Arbitrum. This is a testament to its increasing acceptance and proven effectiveness in the marketplace.
Timeboost was originally intended to increase the efficiency of transaction sequencing and reduce Miner Extractable Value (MEV) problems. It adds an "express lane," in which users can pay a fee to have their transactions prioritized and included first. This mechanism uses a sealed-bid, second-price auction to provide a fair and transparent mechanism for prioritizing transactions.
The Timeboost policy is entirely optional and customizable by chain owners, giving them the flexibility to tailor its parameters to their specific priorities. Standard chain owners have a variety of ways to maximize performance by tuning parameters. Or they can change the delay on a non-express lane transaction to make it more convenient. This flexibility makes it possible to keep improving, perfecting, and tweaking the system.
In fact, DEXs on Arbitrum alone have seen more than $500 billion in swaps. This remarkable statistic demonstrates the vigorous trading activity over this platform. Projects such as CamelotDEX, Uniswap, and 0xfluid push Arbitrum’s daily swap volume to record highs. They power uses Timeboost to turbocharge their operational efficiency.
As implementation of the Timeboost policy progresses, governance by the Arbitrum DAO embodies a community-first approach to the policy’s governance and evolution. This collaborative oversight provides guarantees that Timeboost will always be in service to the broader goals of the Arbitrum ecosystem.
