Arbitrum to Unlock $1B Worth of $ARB By March 2024

Ethereum layer-2 solution Arbitrum is set to “cliff unlock” over 1 billion worth of $ARB on March 16, 2024 and finally start ARB’s staggered unfreezing over the next four years. The first unlock is set almost a year after the $ARB token finally launched last March 2023. According to Token Unlocks, after the initial March 16 unlock, more $ARB tokens will be unlocked every four weeks for the next four years. At present, over 5 billion ARB tokens remain locked. Staggered unfreezing is a way to ensure that investors do not immediately sell the token in large quantities (thus drastically lowering the price so as to be completely worthless) and also to ensure that its stakeholders stay involved for a longer period. The initially turbulent launch of the ARB token last March was somewhat remedied by its $120 million airdrop to DAOs. But ARB is currently on the decline partly because of security issues plaguing the still relatively-new platform. Just last July, Rodeo Finance suffered a significant $1.5 million blow when a code vulnerability was exploited. Last June, Chibi Finance executed a rug pull that stole approximately $1 million worth of tokens from users. The disturbing fact is that these were not the only incidents of some form of exploit in the Arbitrum platform. They highlight the pressing need for security measures in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. Still, according to DefiLlama, Arbitrum is the fourth biggest protocol as of writing, with $1.88 billion in Total Value Locked (TVL). ARB on the other hand is currently trading at $1.09 according to Coingecko, down from $1.3 last July. Investors and traders should remain vigilant for developments in the protocol as the unlock date nears. Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.