Arbitrum: Crypto airdrop didn’t go as planned

After several delays and problems, Arbitrum’s native token, ARB, has finally been launched on the crypto market via an airdrop.

However, the price of Arbitrum (ARB) has dropped 90% from its initial IOU price and is currently trading around $1. Only 16% of the ARB airdrop has been claimed, according to data provided by Nansen analytics.

The performance related to Arbitrum’s airdrop has not pleased the crypto world

The token’s official claim was initiated at 1:05 PM (UTC), at the block height of 16,890,400 on Ethereum.

Due to overwhelming demand, both the network block explorer and the claim website crashed. Despite this, users still obtained tokens from the smart contract independently.

In addition, 1.16 billion ARB tokens were part of the airdrop, accounting for 11.6% of the total supply of 10 billion tokens. In addition, another 113 million tokens are available for distribution to certain decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) on the Arbitrum network.

Since only 16% of the total Arbitrum offering (ARB) has been claimed and only a small number of crypto exchanges are responsible for most of the daily trading volume, the ARB price has been subject to significant volatility.

On 19 March, the price of the IOU token peaked at $14, with a 24-hour trading volume of about $8 million. However, after its initial airdrop, ARB was subject to a massive sell-off, resulting in a 90% price drop that brought its current value to today’s low of $1.07 and is currently trading down 77% at $1.32.

Hundreds of phishing scams were detected before the ARB crypto airdrop

The airdrop of Arbitrum’s “ARB” token, a layer-2 solution for scaling Ethereum, appears to have been a popular target for scammers.

The community has reported hundreds of phishing scams aimed at deceiving crypto-users. The airdrop sent 10 billion governance tokens via an airdrop to allow holders to vote on changes to the code, launched on 23 March.

However, several scammers created fake airdrops with the goal of stealing funds from victims before the official event.

In a post on 19 March, Redefine, a blockchain security company, said it had found a fake website posing as the official Arbitrum airdrop website. Screenshots show that the website asks the user to authorize access to their funds, which allegedly results in scammers draining the wallet.

The Arbitrum Foundation used a point system to determine who could claim Airdrop tokens and how many they could get, including completing at least four transactions or interacting with at least four smart contracts, transferring funds into the Arbitrum One chain, and depositing more than $50,000 in liquidity into Arbitrum.

Scam Sniffer has already identified more than 273 phishing sites linked to Arbitrum, and the number appears to have increased by far before the official launch on 23 March.

Only 625,143 wallets out of more than 2.3 million linked to the Arbitrum One chain were found to be eligible for the airdrop, according to Nansen, a blockchain analytics company that helped develop the criteria with Arbitrum.

How the world of web3 changes with Arbitrum

Arbitrum’s token distribution will not only be limited to users, but also to decentralized applications (dApps) that have been most successful in the ecosystem.

These dApps largely originated in Ethereum and have moved to Arbitrum in recent months, including Uniswap, Aave, Sushi, and OpenSea. These popular Web3 companies decided to integrate Arbitrum’s blockchain, facilitated by the great similarity between Ethereum’s blockchain architecture and that of its Layer 2.

One of the most successful projects on Arbitrum is the decentralized exchange (DEX) GMX, which was born on this very blockchain and Avalanche. GMX allows its users to engage in leveraged trading through financial instruments called perpetual futures.

However, the Arbitrum blockchain is not only populated by decentralized finance projects (DeFi), but also by dApps dedicated to gaming and NFTs.

One of the most famous in this regard is Treasure, a Metaverse dedicated to gaming that calls itself “the Nintendo of the Web3.” On Treasure it is possible to play a variety of play-to-earn video games, the ecosystem of which works thanks to the MAGIC token.

This token allows players to obtain the non-fungible tokens required to play and is distributed to players as a reward.

We can thus say that Arbitrum is proving to be one of the most promising scalability solutions for Ethereum.

In the near future, the airdrop of Arbitrum and the ARB token could help make the ultimate leap forward for a blockchain that will most likely continue to make waves in the cryptocurrency world.

And despite the popularity of the Arbitrum blockchain, it is important that users maintain caution and care to avoid falling victim to phishing scams and other frauds.

Conclusions

Despite the disappointing performance of Arbitrum’s ARB token in its debut, the importance of this layer-2 solution for scaling Ethereum cannot be ignored.

Due to its Ethereum-like architecture, Arbitrum has attracted the attention of many decentralized finance, gaming and NFT projects, proving to be one of the most promising solutions for scaling the Ethereum blockchain.

Despite initial difficulties, it is possible that the ARB token may achieve better performance in the future, helping to solidify Arbitrum’s position as an important solution for the future of cryptocurrencies.

Furthermore, the fact that many successful dApps have already chosen to integrate with Arbitrum is a positive sign that indicates confidence in the platform and its ability to effectively scale transactions.

There are also interesting projects such as GMX and Treasure that are leveraging the potential of Arbitrum to offer innovative services in decentralized finance and NFT games.

Despite the recent underperformance of the ARB token, there are still many reasons to be optimistic about the future of Arbitrum as a scalability solution for Ethereum.

As the DeFi and NFT ecosystem grows, the demand for effective scalability solutions will only increase, and Arbitrum has proven to be a robust solution well positioned to meet that demand.

At the same time, it is important to remember that the cryptocurrency market is highly volatile and the value of tokens can fluctuate significantly in the short term.

However, in the long term, Arbitrum’s technical robustness and adaptability could make the difference in positioning it as a leading scaling solution for Ethereum and the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem.