Arbitrum, one of the leading Ethereum scaling solutions, has launched its much-anticipated token, ARB, which will be airdropped to community members on March 23. This news has created a buzz in the cryptocurrency community as it marks the network’s transition into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), and ARB holders will be empowered to vote on key decisions that govern Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova networks.

According to Blockworks Research, a total of 625,143 addresses are eligible for the Arbitrum airdrop, which accounts for 23.5% of the total addresses. The average airdrop is 1,895, of which 625 are the main proportion, accounting for 16.8%. The number of addresses that meet the full allocation airdrop conditions is 4,428.

The announcement of the airdrop seems to have driven a surge of activity on the Arbitrum network, with the number of L2 transactions reaching a record high of 1.546 million on March 16, which is about 148% of the Ethereum L1. The number of Arbitrum transactions exceeded 1 million, which may be the withdrawal of funds after the announcement of the airdrop.

Arbitrum One is an optimistic rollup and the leading L2 in terms of TVL, bringing cheap transactions to tens of thousands of users in an environment that feels very similar to Ethereum. Some of the largest dApps live on Arbitrum, including GMX, Radiant, Uniswap V3, and Gains Network. However, it is important to note that rollups are in their infancy and carry risks. Arbitrum relies on a centralized sequencer, which could exploit its centralized position to front-run user’s transactions to extract MEV.

Additionally, the optimistic rollup design assumes a whitelisted verifier is monitoring transactions to ensure their validity and challenge malicious transactions via fraud proofs. Arbitrum One’s most relevant competitor is often considered Optimism, another optimistic rollup seeking to help scale Ethereum. To compare relevant statistics on both protocols, one can refer to the L2 Comparison Dashboard.

The launch of the ARB token is a significant development for the Arbitrum ecosystem as it marks the network’s transition into a DAO, and ARB holders will have a say in key decisions that govern the network.

#ARBITRUM #ARB #ARBairdrop #azcoinnews #Airdrop

This article was republished from azcoinnews.com

The Arbitrum Foundation has clarified that Arbitrum Improvement Proposal (AIP-1) is merely a “ratification,” and that it has already sold governance tokens for fiat — causing many to question the Ethereum Layer 2’s supposedly decentralized governance structure.

Questions are being asked on a Sunday regarding Arbitrum's governance after its centralized, self-titled foundation sold ARB tokens before the conclusion of a key governance vote, rendering the democratic process essentially moot.

The "special grants" program sees the Arbitrum Foundation receiving 750 million ARB governance tokens — worth nearly $1 billion — to spend without the expressed approval of token holders.

Rebranding the keystone Arbitrum Improvement Proposal's vote as a "ratification," the Arbitrum Foundation nonetheless claims "decentralized governance is working as intended" via both the official Arbitrum Twitter account and a lengthy governance forum post.

It also claimed it did not sell 50 million governance tokens but rather allocated 40 million "as a loan to a sophisticated actor in the financial markets space" and converted 10 million to fiat for "operational costs." Prominent market maker Wintermute confirmed it is the former via retweet.

Free governance responsibilities (kind of)

The debacle follows the high-profile airdrop of Arbitrum governance tokens to users of the Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution last week, which saw more than one billion ARB tokens allocated to nearly 300,000 wallets — creating a so-called decentralized autonomous organization, ArbitrumDAO.

Token holders and the wider crypto community have taken to Twitter to voice concerns (and jokes) over the apparent lack of decentralized autonomy. A wider theme is that some aren't buying the Arbitrum Foundation's lengthy argument, claiming it's merely a lot of words to say, "we sold."

#Binance #crypto2023 #BTC #BNB #ARBITRUM