Arbitrum, the Ethereum layer-2 solution, has been experiencing a surge in network activity lately. On March 21, the network processed over 1.3 million transactions, marking a significant increase from the 1 million transactions recorded the day before. The rise in daily transactions began in late January and intensified after Arbitrum announced a large airdrop of 1.27 billion ARB tokens to its users, representing 12.75% of the token’s circulating supply.
Scheduled for March 23, the airdrop will also distribute 112.8 million ARB tokens to various DAOs in the Arbitrum ecosystem, aiming to “empower subcommunities” and incentivize participation in governance decisions once the network fully transitions to a DAO. In addition, several decentralized exchanges and projects such as Uniswap, SushiSwap, MakerDAO, KyberSwap, and DODO will receive over 1 million ARB tokens each.
Interest in Arbitrum has also surged thanks to Coinbase’s announcement of supporting the upcoming ARB token and listing it for trading, with trading expected to begin after the airdrop, subject to sufficient supply and liquidity. The network has also seen a significant increase in the number of unique addresses, with almost 1.5 million new addresses created since the start of the year.
The speculative value of ARB currently hovers around $1, but various IOU markets suggest that the token could trade around $6 following the airdrop. Additionally, many users have started selling wallets eligible for the airdrop, adding to the frenzy around Arbitrum’s recent activities.
