DAO ARB airdrop mostly sitting idle: Report

More than $125 million worth of ARB tokens had been handed out to Arbitrum’s ecosystem DAOs in April.

The initial expectation was that DAOs would distribute ARB tokens to wider community members, Steven Goldfeder, CEO at Offchain Labs, told Blockworks in an earlier interview. 

Now, two months following the airdrop, venture capital firm Castle Capital has taken a look at where these ARB tokens have been allocated in a detailed research report. 

The report shows that GMX, Uniswap, SushiSwap and Curve — some of the largest ARB token holders —  have not used their tokens or made any significant plans with the tokens. 

In fact, more than 80% of the airdropped tokens to DAOs have not been used, Castle Capital noted in a tweet. 

But not all ARB tokens are sitting stale.

“12.9 million tokens have been used either through redistribution to respective communities, runway extension, elsewhere in DeFi, for incentives, or to create POL,” Castle Capital tweeted.

Projects such as native asset bridge Stargate, that received 1.6 million ARB tokens for example, has a proposal to allocate 70% of its airdropped tokens to liquidity mining, and another 30% to partner integrations.

“This would not only encourage more users and align Stargate with the Arbitrum ecosystem, but also enable support for [decentralized apps] building with Arbitrum. Furthermore this would reduce overall $STG emissions, which benefits the longevity of the protocol,” the proposal said.

Radiant, a company aimed at resolving fragmented liquidity, has also recently passed a proposal to distribute its 3.4 million ARB airdrop allocation. 

Forty percent of the ARB tokens will be allocated to dynamic liquidity with a tenure ranging from 6 months to 1 year on both the Arbitrum and BNB chains. The remaining 60% will be evenly divided between all dynamic liquidity providers and the Radiant treasury over the next year.

Other startups, such as TreasureDAO, Dopex and DForce, just to name a few, have also distributed their tokens to internal projects. 

Of course, some projects chose to sell their entire ARB allocation. These projects include TridentDAO, Bridge Network and ApolloX. 

“Tracking DAO spending after the ARB airdrop offers vital insights into resource allocation and the effectiveness of token distribution. Our study isn’t merely about the financials, it highlights the wellbeing and potential of decentralized systems,” 0xAtomist, the founder of Castle Capital told, Blockworks.

They said the research is to ensure DAOs are held accountable to their commitment of community and engagement. 

“We delved into this intriguing space because we’re firm believers that curiosity today paves the way for success tomorrow and fosters a culture of responsibility in the burgeoning DAO landscape,” 0xAtomist said.

Updated June 28, 2023 at 11:18 am ET: Added comment from 0xAtomist.

---

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

• The Breakdown: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.
• 0xResearch: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst.