Arbitrum, the leading Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum, has scheduled its token airdrop for March 23rd. There will be a total of 10 billion $ARB tokens, 56% of which the community will control. 11.5% will go to Arbitrum users, while 1.1% will be allocated to decentralized autonomous organizations in the Arbitrum ecosystem. The company will send the rest to the newly founded Arbitrum Foundation treasury.
For users, some of the criteria required to receive $ARB include bridging to Arbitrum and transacting on its blockchain. Sources have said that the number of transactions users have completed on the Arbitrum blockchain will also play a role in how many tokens they receive. The Arbitrum team does not see the token drop as a potential “cash grab” but as a true attempt to decentralize in accordance with Web3 culture.
The other 44% of the Arbitrum airdrop will go to investors and employees of the firm that built Arbitrum. That portion of the airdrop will have lock-up periods and vesting schedules, a common practice that keeps whales from selling their tokens early on and tanking the price. That percentage, allocated to investors and employees, is higher when compared to the airdrops of other companies.
Arbitrum, founded in 2018, has become the L2 of choice for the Ethereum ecosystem, amassing 55% of the market share. Many observers had anticipated an airdrop after Optimism, a competitor of Arbitrum, did its own last May.
Layer-2 Ethereum Scaling Solutions Make News
Arbitrum’s airdrop is big news, but it is not the only Layer-2 Ethereum scaling solution that has made headlines recently. At Rarity Sniper, we have written countless stories about them in the past several months. Here are three.
First, three weeks ago, Coinbase announced “Base,” a Layer-2 Ethereum blockchain. The exchange built Base using Optimism’s developer toolkit, and the blockchain has on-ramps with other major blockchains, including Ethereum and Solana.
Next, six months ago, Layer-2 solution Polygon overthrew Solana to become the No. 2 blockchain for non-fungible tokens. Since then, it has made more news, housing the Donald Trump NFT collection and soon Dust Labs’ y00ts NFT set.
Lastly, nine months ago, Immutable X announced it would invest $500 million into Web3 gaming projects. The goal, according to a press release at the time, was to attract game developers to work in the Immutable ecosystem.
Arbitrum decentralizing through an airdrop will likely excite Web3 enthusiasts. Here at Rarity Sniper, we’ll pay close attention for further developments in the story.