Arbitrum (ARB) Begins Trading: Here’s What the Airdrop is Worth

Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution Arbitrum has initiated its long-awaited token airdrop, bringing protocol governance rights to the entire community. 

The governance token, ARB, trades for $1.38 at writing time – falling significantly from when the airdrop began. 

• ARB spiked to $8.67 apiece following its airdrop at 9:05 am ET, before quickly plummeting to nearly $1.00 within an hour, according to data from CoinGecko.
• Heavy traffic at the time of the airdrop caused the claim website to go down. 
• Applications to become a delegate for Arbitrum ended on Wednesday, but those eligible for the airdrop still have 6 months to claim their tokens. “Gas fees will be quite high, and there will be server congestion,” added Arbitrum. 
• As of Thursday, 12.75% of the total ARB supply was distributed to individual token holders and DAOs within the Arbitrum ecosystem. 
• The top 3 DAOs in the airdrop included the decentralized gaming ecosystem Treasure_DAO ($8 million ARB), decentralized exchange GMX ($8 million ARB), and Uniswap ($4.3 million ARB). 
• “The hope and intention is that by distributing to Arbitrum DAOs, we’re able to spread governance power more widely amongst users than solely allocating to those who were eligible for the airdrop,” explained Arbitrum on Tuesday. 
• The remaining distribution of Arbitrum tokens remains allocated for its DAO treasury (42.78%), team and advisors (26.94%), and investors (17.53%). 
• Before the airdrop, traders could still exchange IOUs for actual ARB tokens before today, which traded for roughly $6.00 on Wednesday. 
• Arbitrum is the largest layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum, using roll-up technology to settle cheaply settle transactions in batches on Ethereum’s main chain. Ahead of the airdrop, daily Arbitrum transactions hit a record high.