There’s a new layer-2 token in town, and it comes in the form of ARB, the Arbitrum network’s newly announced token. It was airdropped on March 23rd, 2023, and is now listed on Mudrex, too, for you to invest.
Fun fact- The ARbit (ARB) token surged 2000% as traders confused it with Arbitrum’s new token. That, folks, is why you should DYOR before jumping into an investment.
But what does Arbitrum do, and why did this airdrop receive all the hype? Let’s take a closer look at it!
What Is Arbitrum?
Arbitrum is a layer-2 scaling solution built on the Ethereum blockchain. It was developed by a New York-based firm, Offchain Labs, with the intention of solving the congestion problem on the Ethereum mainnet.
The Arbitrum network offloads transactions from the Ethereum mainnet and processes them. This allows for faster settlement times and better scalability on Ethereum. Transaction fees are also lower on the Arbitrum network compared to Ethereum.
The Arbitrum Airdrop
On March 16th, Arbitrum announced the launch of its new native token called ARB, which was airdropped to eligible users on March 23rd. The ARB token also acts as a governance token. Essentially, this means that all token holders can vote on decisions regarding the platform.
With the airdrop, 1.275 billion ARB tokens (12.75%) were released out of a total supply of 10 billion tokens. Of the 12.75%, individual user addresses received 11.6%, while other projects on Arbitrum are eligible for 1.1%.
Where Can You Buy ARB?
If you are someone who missed the airdrop, you can invest in the ARB token on the Mudrex app from 24th March 18:00 UTC.
ARB Market Action
Following its launch, the ARB token began trading at just above $8 before falling steeply to its current price of $1.37 at the time of writing. A mad sell-off rush saw ETH shortages on crypto bridges and server overloads. But during all this, the token’s trading volume, which kicked off at $1.3 million at its $8.67 price point, ballooned dramatically to $2.7 billion. For reference, the ARB token’s market cap is $1.7 billion.
A Leading Layer 2 Blockchain?
This airdrop is bound to pique the bulls’ interest and cause an influx of liquidity into the crypto industry. While there’s no dearth of competition in the layer-2 blockchain game, Arbitrum’s an outright leader with over 55% of the market share. And it’s crushing the numbers game in more ways than one — daily transactions on Arbitrum outnumber those on Ethereum. What’s more? It beats Polygon by a mile in terms of TVL. However, keep in mind that Arbitrum achieved these features long before the airdrop announcement.
