Arbitrum’s native token, ARB, has surged in value after a successful airdrop, placing it among the top 40 most valuable cryptocurrencies by market cap. The token’s price experienced an initial surge before experiencing a sell-off, with 81% of the tokens claimed thus far, according to public blockchain data curated by Dune. In the past day, $2.5 billion worth of ARB tokens have been traded. Despite a brief peak of $8.76, ARB is currently trading at $1.27, down 2.8% in the last 24 hours. Arbitrum is an Ethereum scaling solution designed to facilitate faster and cheaper transactions on the Ethereum blockchain through a sidechain. This makes it particularly attractive for quick trades in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. The recent launch of the ARB governance token allows holders to vote and propose changes to the network. DeFi traders have shown particular interest in Arbitrum, with analytics site DeFi Llama reporting that approximately $2.11 billion worth of tokens are locked up in Arbitrum’s smart contracts. The high demand for the airdrop caused the project’s landing page to crash.
