Source: Flip Research Tweet

Compiled by: Biteye core contributor Crush

 

The $ARB airdrop may be one of the hottest airdrops this year. But how does it compare to previous large airdrops in terms of price?

In this post, I compared $ARB to $UNI, $OP, and $1INCH with some interesting results!

 

01. Total Token Distribution

 

Let’s start with a comparison of total token distribution, where I’ve combined some categories to allow for a more fair apples-to-apples comparison.

We can make several observations from this:

  • $ARB airdropped a slightly higher percentage. (Note that $OP has only distributed about 1/3 of its airdrop allotment so far)

  • Team + Investor allocation is higher than $UNI and $OP, but lower than $1INCH

  • The allocation of the treasury is in line with peers

Full table:

 

02. Initial Token Distribution

In addition to total token distribution, comparison of initial supply distribution also helps gauge initial selling pressure. $ARB’s initial supply was at a high level, similar to $UNI.

 

03. Token unlocking

The initial and total distribution of tokens are only part of the story, but the token unlocking schedule helps understand the relative rate at which tokens are being distributed and where they are coming from.

Note that the unlocking of $UNI, $OP, and $1INCH all comes from data from @coingecko.

Compared to its peers, $ARB’s token unlocking schedule looks relatively smooth, especially in the first year.

Please note that here I assume that the $ARB treasury is unlocked linearly (this assumption is similar to CG and TokenTerminal, which usually use linear unlocking to calculate the issuance of tokens). If there is no such linear unlocking method, there will be no $ARB token issuance in the first year.

 

04. Distribution rate

Below is a comparison of short-term distribution rates (excluding treasuries controlled by DAOs), which clearly shows the huge differences in distribution rates between different projects. This has a significant impact on how users should participate in airdrops, which I will talk about later.

 

05. Initial Price Fluctuation

The last part is the initial airdrop price fluctuations. Let’s take a look at the price trends of UNI, OP, and 1INCH as a control group after the airdrop. (Chart provided by @coingecko)

$UNI

Because of the high initial supply and no team/investor token cliff period, UNI's initial distribution rate was the highest among the projects. This led to some initial selling pressure, but the price has since risen more than 10 times, and of course, perfect market timing also helped.

$OP

Although OP has a low initial supply, its relatively high issuance and bear market launch offset this, so the price was not very ideal at the beginning.

Nonetheless, it recovered relatively quickly from the initial drop, before falling during the crypto winter and setting new all-time highs.

$1INCH

1INCH has the lowest initial supply percentage and a relatively low issuance. Therefore, after the initial drop, 1INCH quickly recovered and started a sharp rise. Again, market timing is important here.

 

06. Fundamentals

In terms of Arbitrum’s fundamentals, Arbitrum One has already attracted considerable locked value and transaction volume, becoming a professional field for financial application chains (similar to $GMX, $GNS, and $RDNT).

It is one of the few profitable chains (data source: @tokenterminal) and is still in its early stages.

 

07. Conclusion

From the above analysis, we can see that buying these airdrop tokens when the price drops is profitable. However, it is not easy to catch the opportunity at the lowest point.

For $ARB, there are three additional considerations:

  • Relatively high initial circulation

  • But in the subsequent year of token release, the emission is lower

  • The cycle the market is in

Taking all the above factors into consideration, especially the good fundamentals of $ARB, I plan to continue to hold my $ARB airdrop. In addition, if the token price drops after the airdrop, I will buy it in batches. Because according to the above analysis, I expect $ARB to recover quickly and achieve multiple returns.

After the initial sell-off, there really weren’t any significant sources of selling pressure, at least within the first year, so I felt comfortable with this strategy.

Of course, this all depends on the initial pricing of $ARB, but I expect market forces to come into play here.

Don’t discount the impact that strong price action at initial launch can have on tokens across the ecosystem, this effect will likely trickle down, and I expect this effect will help drive growth across the ecosystem.