Ethereum privacy protocol Tornado Cash to launch on L2 Arbitrum

Tornado Cash is about to get a scaling boost as the privacy protocol prepares for deployment on the Ethereum layer two network Arbitrum. 

Tornado Cash’s smart contracts are ready to roll on thArbitrum Layer 2 scaling network following contributions from the community to ensure the stability of the protocol.

The Nov. 29 announcement explained that deploying on Arbitrum will “allow users to take advantage of all the benefits a Layer 2 can offer, with cheaper transactions being the biggest comparative advantage.”

Tornado Cash is a fully decentralized Ethereum (ETH) mixer protocol. Tornado Cash masks the path that tokens such as ETH take from sender to receiver, providing completely private transactions without the need to use privacy-focused coins.

Layer two networks on Ethereum boast faster transactions and cheaper fees while still benefiting from the security and decentralization of Ethereum.

The Tornado Cash team believes that the deployment onto Arbitrum will allow more users to perform private crypto transactions while avoiding Ethereum’s high gas fees. L2 transactions are expected to be around 95% cheaper than those on L1 Ethereum according to the team.

In order to use Tornado Cash on Arbitrum, users must first send ETH, ERC-20, and ERC-721 tokens from Ethereum to Arbitrum via the Arbitrum Bridge.

Related: DeFi TVL hits new highs while Metaverse tokens show signs of exhaustion

Arbitrum is currently the biggest L2 on Ethereum with $2.68 billion in total value locked, representing 39% of the L2 market share. This is second only to Boba Network’s $1.38 billion in TVL, making Boba and Arbitrum the only two L2’s with over $1 billion in TVL, according to L2Beat.

The number of unique addresses on Arbitrum has grown steadily since September, and stands at 291,876 as of the time of writing. Tornado Cash has $847 million in TVL according to DeFiPulse.

As reported by Cointelegraph, Tornado Cash unveiled its TORN governance token in Dec. 2020 and airdropped them to users in Feb. 2021.

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