The fuse has just been lit. The countdown is on. The flame will hit the gasoline in less than one week, and everyone in crypto is about to see fireworks. Thousands of investors with a high-risk appetite will receive stimulus checks in the form of 1 billion Arbitrum tokens ($ARB). Additionally, platforms built on Arbitrum will share 100 million tokens!

The floodgates are open, and what many investors have been waiting months for is finally arriving. Individual wallets will be rewarded with as many as 10,200 ARB tokens. So even if you don't qualify for the airdrop, this is an ecosystem that you will want to pay close attention to.

Read on to learn why Arbitrum projects are positioned for potentially insane gains with the release of the ARB token. I will also share some of the most bullish projects, not named GMX.

How to see if you qualify for the airdrop

You can check your wallet in less than 1 minute to see if you qualify for the ARB token airdrop. Simply connect your wallet to: https://arbitrum.foundation/ and hit the check eligibility button. You will immediately see how many ARB tokens you qualify to claim on March 23.

Suppose you want details on how the airdrop amount was derived. Then, please check out this article describing the qualifying actions users must have taken before the snapshot date, February 6, 2023.

The airdrop must be claimed and will not go directly to your wallet. So, if you are eligible, re-visit https://arbitrum.foundation/ to claim your free tokens.

3 Reasons why everyone should be paying attention to Arbitrum now that they are launching the $ARB token

Airdropping a token is a great way to bring attention to your ecosystem. We are in the middle of a bear market, and any positive catalyst in the crypto markets ought to be embraced. Let me share the top three reasons why the ARB token will add momentum to an already powerful network.

Reason #1: The Wealth Effect

Adding a large amount of liquidity into an ecosystem will increase activity. But adding massive liquidity to aggressive traders should have even more of an impact. Arbitrum is home to GMX, one of the top-performing platforms during this bear market.

There are two types of investors on GMX: 1) Speculators who trade with high leverage and 2) GMX token investors and liquidity providers making great returns from the speculators trading with high leverage.

When you give these two groups free additional liquidity, there's a good chance it will lead to activity resulting in growth in many Arbitrum platforms. These aren't the typical crypto savers looking to accumulate small bits of BTC. Instead, these pioneers experimented with Layer 2s before they became a thing.

The airdrop will provide thousands of investors across all Arbitrum platforms with the ability to trade their ARB tokens and participate in the tremendous dApps. And for those investors who can save, the added feeling of wealth provided by ARB tokens may make them more willing to commit additional funds to the Arbitrum ecosystem.

Reason #2: DAOs in Arbitrum will receive over 100 million tokens. Think incentives.

Remember when Polygon kicked off DeFi summer in 2021? It attracted immense growth in its ecosystem as investors and developers poured in to get MATIC rewards. Soon, other chains copied the Polygon blueprint and had their reward programs.

On Arbitrum, development teams will receive an influx of ARB tokens they can use however they see fit. Smart platforms will use these free tokens to attract new users, reward loyal users, and benefit investors.

Think of it like your favorite car manufacturer giving its dealerships rebates they can use on any vehicle they sell. The rebates don't cost the dealer anything and will help them sell more cars.

Reason #3: The Arbitrum DAO treasury will still hold 42% of the supply

Only a little over 10% of the ARB supply is being released via the airdrop. Further, investor and team tokens will be locked for one year and vested over the following three years. This means the token isn't immediately hit with dramatic sell pressure from early investors who are way up. Here's a breakdown of the token deployment.

Since Arbitrum is the fastest-growing ecosystem, there is a strong narrative for buying and holding ARB tokens. And if the DAO votes on it in the future, the remaining ARB tokens can be used to grow the ecosystem further.

Potential valuation of the ARB token

Undoubtedly, there will be a lot of volatility when the ARB token drops on March 23. Some recipients will sell immediately. Meanwhile, other investors will buy ARB recognizing that Arbitrum is the fourth largest chain by TVL and Layer 2's are the best method (today) for Ethereum to scale.

Optimism is Arbitrum's closest competitor. However, Arbitrum does more than double the daily transactions and has nearly twice the value locked. So, Arbitrum has a gigantic lead.

The Optimism token, $OP, has a market cap of $770 million, with about 315 million tokens circulating. Therefore, if Arbitrum captures a $770 million market cap with 1.1 billion ARB tokens, it will value each ARB at $0.70. This should be considered the floor price regarding the value, as Arbitrum is a much more robust ecosystem (based on use, number of platforms, and TVL).

Meanwhile, Polygon ($MATIC), often considered a hybrid second-layer built on Ethereum, commands a $10.4 circulating market cap on a 9.1 billion circulating supply. Therefore, Arbitrum, at a $10.4 billion circulating market cap, would value each airdropped token at approximately $9.55.

This is a big range. However, Arbitrum recently surpassed Polygon in TVL. On the other hand, Polygon sees about 2.5 million daily transactions, while Arbitrum experiences 750,000 daily transactions. The MATIC token is also used for gas and is paired with many tokens on AMMs. Therefore, MATIC provides more utility (today) than a governance token.

My best estimate is that the ARB token should range between $1-$3 per token. Again, there will be a lot of volatility in the first month of trading, but a $1-$3 billion circulating market cap seems reasonable and justified.

Projects that I think will benefit the most from ARB airdrop

Before reading further, I am invested in all these projects except one ($RDNT). I would own some RDNT, but I have no extra funds right now as I've been finding new projects to invest in regularly.

#1) Zyberswap $ZYB: The team has already announced that 100% of the platform's ARB tokens will be distributed as rewards to ZYB stakers. I am incredibly bullish on this project as they have converted to V3 with concentrated liquidity.

#2) Radiant $RDNT: This is the top lending protocol on Arbitrum. It's also one of the top Arbitrum-exclusive projects measured by TVL. RDNT token has been around for a while on Arbitrum, and the team is making good improvements.

#3) ArbiRoul $ROUL: This is a casino platform on Arbitrum with over 2000 games and a sportsbook. The ROUL token has compelling tokenomics; all platform revenues are distributed to stakers. Additionally, ROUL went live on Optimism today.

#4) GMD $GMD: This platform has smart vaults that allow people to add liquidity to GMX and stay invested in one asset: Bitcoin, Ethereum, or USDC. The tokenomics are compelling (only 80,000 tokens) and copy GMX's successful model that encourages long-term holding.

#5) Yakuza2033 $BUGS: This gaming dApp just received outside funding from a major Web3 gaming studio. With a growing community and an inspired dev team, BUGS tokens are trading at a tremendous discount from where I bought them. The deflationary tokenomics and unique NFT-burning model excite me when the game goes live.

#6) Buffer Finance $BFR: This platform offers binary options where traders can speculate on whether the price of various crypto assets and forex currencies will go up or down in as short as 5 minutes. Buffer just expanded to Polygon and is working on achieving 1-minute options.

Key Takeaways

The Arbitrum airdrop will bring even more attention to this quickly-growing ecosystem. As a result, investors will have more funds available to spread across the chain. This should be a major catalyst in helping Arbitrum gain more ground on BSC.

It will likely attract more developers to create dynamic and valuable applications. As a result, innovation will pay the biggest dividends in the next bull market, and Arbitrum is stacked with innovative projects.

If you are an Arbitrum user, investor, airdrop recipient, or ambassador, please share this article with others to increase awareness of this airdrop and to further Arbitrum's dominance.