Arbitrum’s daily revenue has reached a new high due to LayerZero’s “not an airdrop” ZRO token airdrop launch.
The launch of LayerZero’s token on June 20 significantly increased fees on Arbitrum, resulting in a daily revenue of $3.43 million for the blockchain. This mark represents a 16,680% increase from the previous day.
On Thursday, LayerZero introduced the ZRO token, which elicited criticism due to its mandatory “donation” mechanism. This mechanism necessitates claimants to spend a nominal amount of money per token to obtain their allocation.
Due to these mechanics, the average gas charge on the blockchain increased from its typical less-than-1-cent fee to 89 cents.
Dune Analytics and DefiLlama data indicate that this resulted in a significant increase in the network’s profits, which reached $3.29 million on the day.
ZRO token claimants are required to donate a nominal sum per token due to LayerZero’s decision.
“In a June 20 X post, LayerZero stated that users must donate $0.10 in USDC, USDT, or native ETH per ZRO to claim ZRO.” It was also noted that the donation is directed to the Protocol Guild, which financially supports Ethereum developers.
Airdrops are incompatible with the “objectives of equitable distribution, community building, and protocol health,” according to LayerZero, who have argued that the token launch is “not an airdrop.” This is because many recipients have “little to no interest” in the project in the long term.
Arbitrum has achieved its highest revenue day since December 14, when it generated $2.13 million. This occurred before the network’s shutdown due to an unexpected increase in inscriptions.
Inscriptions are a form of data formatting that can accommodate larger bundles than simple transaction data, such as images, which results in their higher cost due to their size.
The cost is also transferred to Arbitrum, which generated a profit of $414,000 on December 14 due to the higher fees associated with posting and verifying the costly inscription data on Ethereum.
In contrast, ZRO has experienced a significant decline. The price has decreased by 23% in the past day to $3.42, with a high of $4.79, as reported by CoinGecko.