Ethereum’s transaction throughput and gas fees have long been a known issue with many, many ways around it. Arbitrum One was launched in 2021, and by 2023 the Layer-2 amassed the highest TVL among all scaling solutions on Ethereum. Yesterday, Arbitrum airdropped its new token ARB to empower its DAO governance. Read our introduction to this new token, its purposes, prospects, and why is it in such high demand.
What is Arbitrum?
Scaling Ethereum with Optimistic rollups
The ChangeHero team has made a guide to explain how different variations of Ethereum scaling solutions work. If you have not read it yet, below is a short excerpt from it that explains what Arbitrum is.
Rollups batch transactions performed on L2 off-chain and use the L1 only for arbitration and settlement. Thus, they take the computation load off the main chain, in this case, Ethereum.
Optimistic rollups take an “innocent until proven guilty” approach. A fraud check is performed by validators only if a set number of them notice a discrepancy upon settlement. Otherwise, these protocols do not control every action — they use an optimistic assumption, hence the name. The downside to using such a rollup scaling solution is that the fraud checks are performed on withdrawal, making it last for a whole week.
Arbitrum is one of the most popular rollups on Ethereum, as evidenced by its $2+B in total value locked (TVL). Technically, it is a fork of geth, and it did not have a native token until recently. The dispute period for withdrawing from Arbitrum is one week but there are fast-bridge applications to help with that.
Meet the ARB Token
Wait, so the protocol worked for almost two years without needing a native token? Then why introduce it now? Let’s unpack.
Governing the Arbitrum Network
Before the launch of DAO (decentralized autonomous organization), the Arbitrum blockchain was in the hands of Offchain Labs, the organization that built it and helped the Arbitrum ecosystem grow. However, the whole crypto industry was established with the goal to eliminate human and corporate third parties. So it was a natural step to hand the reins of governance from a single organization to a DAO of token holders.
In this model of governance, tokens represent votes. Separate issues are turned into voting challenges, where users can cast votes themselves or through their representatives. If you are not online all the time but there is a DAO member you trust your vote with, you can delegate your tokens to them: it is convenient if you don’t want or can’t vote on every single issue.
The DAO governance is empowered by smart contracts instead of a trusted social contract with the board of directors. One of the downsides is that whales have significantly larger voting power than regular users, and therefore, power to steer the DAO.
Who is Eligible and How to Claim
The ARB token is Ethereum-based like Arbitrum itself. Offchain Labs distributed it in an airdrop for all users that have used Arbitrum Nova or Arbitrum Nitro before February 6, 2023. The official guide suggests a sure way to check eligibility with the arbitrum.foundation site.
As of March 24, 2023, both the call for delegates and the ARB airdrop have concluded. Eligible wallets should have received the portion of ARB tokens they were assigned through the smart contract.
How to Get the ARB Token?
Missed out on the airdrop? No free tokens for you, unfortunately. You can still get them on the centralized and decentralized exchanges for the current market price.
The Quick Way: Use an Instant Exchange
One of the ways to get ARB easily is by using ChangeHero! We will promptly find you the best rate across nine of our providers and update it if needed.
It only takes five steps, no account creation required:
- Choose the currencies on the home page, amounts, and the type of exchange. Provide your wallet address in the next step and check the amounts;
- Double-check the provided information, read and accept the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy;
- Send in a single transaction the sum of the cryptocurrency you will be exchanging. Fixed Rate transactions have a 15-minute limit;
- And now, relax while you wait! We are doing all the work: checking the incoming transfer and performing the swap as soon as it arrives;
- As soon as the transaction has been processed, your ARB is on its way to your wallet. We’ll be happy to hear your feedback if you enjoyed using ChangeHero.
Our support team is always available in the chat widget on the website, in the official Telegram group, or through the email: [email protected].
The Long Way: Trade on the Markets
Being one of the most anticipated airdrops from a leading Ethereum layer-2, ARB is already supported across various centralized and decentralized exchanges.
- Centralized exchanges that support ARB: Binance, Coinbase, KuCoin, Kraken, Bitfinex, Huobi;
- Market pairs with USD, USDT, BTC, TRY, EUR, USDC;
- Trade on a Decentralized exchange: Uniswap, KyberSwap, SushiSwap;
- Market pairs with WETH, USDC, USDT, DAI.
Didn’t find it on your exchange or does it have the wrong pair? The first option of using instant exchanges solves these issues, too. No need for signing up or making multiple transactions!
Conclusion
ARB is worth having to be at the cutting edge of Web3 development. People see value in it as Arbitrum is one of the most popular working scaling solutions on the Ethereum blockchain. Right after the airdrop, its price is turbulent but when it shakes out, ARB will start a journey to its fair price.
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