Last Updated on March 16, 2023 by Bitfinsider

Project on Layer 2 On March 23, Arbitrum will airdrop a governance coin with the symbol ARB to its community members. This moves Arbitrum one step closer to complete decentralization.

According to governance papers and a freshly written constitution, the cryptocurrency will control the governance of the Arbitrum One and Nova networks via a DAO, which will be backed by a security committee. The airdrop will account for 12.75% of the token’s total quantity, and coins will be distributed to those who have used the network in the previous year. The currency will not be used to pay network transaction costs.

“The goal of the airdrop and the token is really to give governance power over to the community members and try to identify the real community members that are active in the chain, are participating, and will participate,” said Steven Goldfeder, CEO of Offchain Labs, which created Arbitrum, in an interview.

The transition is notable in that Arbitrum’s type of administration will be a self-executing DAO. This implies that governance members will be able to approve protocol upgrades that will be implemented on-chain automatically. Offchain Labs has chosen a more extreme form of decentralization, one that Goldfeder believes is unquestionably essential.

“I believe it’s really the only way to decentralize,” Goldfeder said. “If it’s not self-executing, what it means is the DAO is just a signal and there are some individuals with the keys to actually do it, and they could or could not separate from the DAO, and it’s just that bit of confidence. We want a decentralized structure that does not depend on confidence in crucial areas.”

Arbitrum Orbit, a method for developers to create Layer 3 networks on top of Arbitrum, was also released by Offchain Labs. The newly established governance system will be able to accept licenses for other Layer 2 networks that use Arbitrum’s technology to resolve on Ethereum.

The governance token will be native to the Arbitrum One network, but it will also be used to control the Arbitrum Nova network and any other Layer 2 networks formally supported by the DAO.

Offchain Labs collaborated with crypto data supplier Nansen to develop the criteria for who should receive the airdrop, with the goal of awarding genuine users rather than those who attempted to farm the system. It’s a points system that rewards those who bridged to the network and conducted frequent trades. The snapshot was captured on February 6, and no adjustments will be made to the allotment, even if the community discovers additional addresses that attempted to game the system.

Arbitrum users will receive 11.6% of the overall quantity, with an extra 1.1% going to DAOs in the Arbitrum ecosystem and Protocol Guild, a DAO made up of Ethereum developers. A significant portion of the supply — 42.8% — will go to the Arbitrum Foundation, which will be controlled by the recently created Arbitrum DAO.

The overall value secured in the protocol and the length of time they’ve been on Arbitrum are among the criteria for airdrops to DAOs. Goldfeder anticipates that DAOs will find a method to disperse these tokens to consumers.

Offchain Labs and its advisers will obtain 27% of the token allocation, while Offchain Labs investors will receive 17.5%. The overall number of coins available is ten billion.

Airdrop receivers will be able to verify their balances today and collect their tokens within a week. The week exists to allow people to designate themselves as delegates and for airdrop receivers to delegate their tokens to such delegates. During this period, the Arbitrum Foundation will confirm delegates.

According to Goldfeder, Offchain Labs has not engaged with any centralized exchanges about listing the Arbitrum cryptocurrency.