Arbitrum announces launch of ARB token, but here’s the caveat

Arbitrum, the popular layer-2 solution, registered a sharp increase in trading activity on its network. As per Dune Analytics, the number of daily transactions went past 1.4 million on 16 March.

The number of daily active users also went past 135,000, representing a jump of more than 50% over the past week.

Source: Dune Analytics

Such an upswing was last witnessed during the latter part of February, during which Arbitrum managed to surpass Ethereum in daily transactions. However, since then trading activity slowed down considerably.

So, what’s changed on 16 March?

The Arbitrum ecosystem announced the launch of its native token, ARB, speculations of which were rife in the crypto space since the unprecedented increase in trading activity on the blockchain.

Arbitrum joined other layer-2 solutions like Optimism [OP] in launching its governance token. Arbitrum said that the upcoming airdrop, slated for 23 March, will distribute 12.75% of the tokens meant for community allocation. While 56% of the tokens will be community-owned, 44% will be set aside for investors and core contributors.

Today The Arbitrum Foundation is extremely excited to announce the launch of DAO governance for the Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova networks, alongside the launch of $ARB. https://t.co/TB3wG0QK0v

— Arbitrum (💙,🧡) (@arbitrum) March 16, 2023

Additional data from Dune Analytics showed that about 625,143 addresses were eligible for the airdrop. While 11.62% will be received as part of user airdrop, 1.1% will go to DAOs that operate in the Arbitrum ecosystem.

The launch of the governance token will enable holders to vote and propose changes regarding Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova networks, marking Arbitrum’s transition to a full-fledged decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

Arbitrum even published the list of recipients and the eligibility criteria for the upcoming airdrop.

On expected lines, there was a surge in the number of transactions on the network, which in turn pushed the number of total layer-2 transactions to a record high, as per a tweet by Colin Wu.

The number of L2 transactions reached 1.546 million on March 16, a record high in a single day, which is about 148% of the Ethereum L1. The number of Arbitrum transactions exceeded 1 million, which may be the withdrawal of funds after the https://t.co/OyPP4zyd1b… https://t.co/anPooJZhlu

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) March 17, 2023

On top of this, there was a considerable jump in Arbitrum’s total value locked (TVL). On a year-to-date basis, the TVL rose by 86%, indicative of the confidence the investors reposed in the network.

The decentralized derivative exchange GMX had a dominance of more than 38% in Arbitrum’s TVL.

Source: DeFiLlama

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