Arbitrum to unlock over $2 billion in tokens this month

Ethereum’s layer 2 scaling protocol Arbitrum is set to unlock over $2 billion worth of ARB tokens on March 16, 2024, according to data from Token Unlocks.

Arbitrum’s upcoming unlock will distribute over 1.1 billion ARB tokens, equivalent to around 87% of the circulating supply, to the project’s team, advisors, and investors. The project has released around 1.5 billion tokens so far, equivalent to nearly 16% of its total supply.

This is the biggest token unlock this month. Apart from Arbitrum, dYdX (dYdX), Aptos (APT), and Immutable (IMX) are projects with major releases. DYdX released around $111 million worth of tokens today. Aptos will release around $234 million in tokens on March 13 and Immutable will unlock around $105 million in tokens on March 22.

Robinhood has recently integrated Arbitrum to its Web3 wallet to offer users faster and more cost-effective transactions by leveraging its layer 2 technology.

ARB is trading at around $1.9, down almost 3% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko’s data. The token’s market cap is around $2.5 billion.

Will Arbitrum’s price dump?

Crypto projects often lock up a portion of their token supply, releasing it gradually to prevent early investors and insiders from immediately dumping large quantities and destabilizing the market.

When a large amount of tokens is suddenly released after a lockup period, investors often fear that early investors and insiders might sell their unlocked tokens, flooding the market and driving the price down. Arbitrum’s investors are no exception.

However, the exact impact of a token unlock on the price is often uncertain and subject to various factors. According to an annual report from Token Unlocks, tokens rise 34% on average after being unlocked for private investors.