Agoric vs Arbitrum Nova

Agoric is a Cosmos-based Layer 1 blockchain for building cross-chain smart contracts in JavaScript. The platform’s asynchronous, multi-block architecture uniquely enables developers to orchestrate liquidity and services across the growing multi-chain universe, making Agoric ideal for building software with seamless user experiences. The native token BLD is used for staking and governance. The over-collateralized IST stable token is used to pay network fees.

Arbitrum Nova is a high-performance alternative to Arbitrum One's chain. While Arbitrum One implements the purely trustless Rollup protocol, Arbitrum Nova implements the mostly trustless AnyTrust protocol. The key difference between Rollup and AnyTrust is that the AnyTrust protocol introduces an additional trust assumption in the form of a Data Availability Committee (DAC). This committee (detailed below) is responsible for expediting the process of storing, batching, and posting child chain transaction data to Ethereum's parent chain. This lets you use Arbitrum in scenarios that demand performance and affordability, while Arbitrum One is optimal for scenarios that demand Ethereum's pure trustlessness.