Arbitrum, a Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum, has surged in network activity in the last few months
A report from Delphi Digital on Tuesday found that weekly transactions on Arbitrum are up 550% since August 31, when the rollup solution activated a new upgrade.
Arbitrum works to make Ethereum faster, more scalable, and perhaps most importantly, cheaper to use. The Nitro upgrade cuts down transaction costs even further by enhancing Arbitrum’s throughput tenfold. It uses advanced compression techniques to bring pricing for EVM-operations in line with Ethereum.
After the upgrade, Delphi found that the average number of new contracts deployed on Arbitrum increased from 1,800 per week to 6,000 per week. The analysts also pointed to Arbitrum’s weekly active users hitting an all-time high of 282,000 as further evidence of its wider adoption.
However, the analysts noted some of this on-chain activity could be down to users hoping to improve their payout from a potential airdrop. Although Arbitrum has not announced an airdrop, market participants speculate that an airdrop may be imminent.
A tweet from Offchain Labs co-founder Steven Goldfeder in April first set off the wave of speculation. Goldfeder tweeted, “the appetizer is always served before the main course,” leading many to assume he was hinting at an upcoming airdrop.
Since then, users have been upping their efforts to qualify for an airdrop. Some of these strategies include interacting with Arbitrum dApps – the most popular choice being GMX, which accounts for more than 40% of the $1.05 billion locked up on Arbitrum.
Given the success of Arbitrum competitor Optimism’s airdrop in May, it is hardly surprising that DeFi enthusiasts expect more fortunes will be made if Arbitrum goes the same route.
Crypto analyst and airdrop hunter Miles Deutscher called the event “potentially the biggest airdrop of the year.”
