Arbitrum on Saturday will unlock over $2 billion worth of ARB tokens to team members, advisors, and investors of Offchain Labs, the software firm tasked with developing the layer 2 blockchain network. The token unlock is the largest in Arbitrum’s history and will nearly double the circulating supply of ARB, which currently stands at roughly 1.45 billion tokens, per CoinGecko.
Data from crypto intelligence firm Messari shows that 1.11 billion ARB tokens worth roughly $2.08 billion will be unlocked on March 16, with 673.5 million ARB allocated to the team and advisors of Offchain Labs. The remaining 438.25 million is dedicated to Offchain Labs investors.
Saturday’s unlock will also be the first of regular monthly unlocks for the next three years, according to the protocol’s documents. Messari’s data shows that each subsequent monthly unlock will be 92.64 million ARB tokens, $173 million at mark-to-market prices.
The $2 billion unlock comes as ARB holders are currently conducting a governance snapshot vote to garner community sentiment about whether to allocate 200 million ARB tokens from the Arbitrum treasury and invest the capital into The Gaming Catalyst Program.
The program aims “to rapidly accelerate Arbitrum’s support for game builders and also strategically allocate resources towards vetted experts to accelerate the onboarding and go-to-market of the best builders in the gaming industry,” wrote Daniel Peng, the author of the proposal, in the protocol’s governance forum on Tuesday.
ARB, the native governance token for Arbitrum, has seen its price drop 6% in the past 24 hours and 9.3% in the past 30 days to trade at $1.88, according to CoinGecko.
Offchain Labs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
