Arbitrum daily revenue surges 16,500% after LayerZero’s ZRO launch

LayerZero’s token launch on June 20 caused a massive surge in fees on Arbitrum, leading to a record $3.43 million daily revenue for the blockchain, a bump of around 16,680% compared to ththe day prior.

LayerZero launched the ZRO token on Thursday but triggered criticism over its obligatory “donation” mechanism — which requires claimants to spend a small amount of money per token to nab their allocation.

These mechanics pushed up the average gas fees on the blockchain, which hit 89 cents, up from its typical less-than-1-cent fee.

This led to its profits soaring on the day to $3.29 million, another record high for the network, according to Dune Analytics and DefiLlama data .

LayerZero made it so ZRO token claimants must donate a small amount of money per token.

“To claim ZRO, users must donate $0.10 in USDC, USDT, or native ETH per ZRO,” LayerZero wrote in a June 20 X post. It added the donation goes to the Protocol Guild which helps fund Ethereum developers.

LayerZero has argued its token launch is “not an airdrop” as airdrops aren’t compatible with the “goals of equitable distribution, community building, and protocol health,” as many recipients have “little to no interest” in the project long-term.

It’s Arbitrum’s biggest revenue day since earning $2.13 million in revenue on Dec. 14, the day before it went offline due to a surge of inscriptions on the network.

Related: Tensions in DeFi industry exposed by LayerZero’s anti-Sybil strategy

Inscriptions are a type of data formatting that can carry bigger packages than simple transaction data, such as images which makes them expensive due to their size.

That cost also gets passed on to Arbitrum, which made a profit of only $414,000 on Dec. 14 as it was hit with steeper fees to post and verify the expensive inscription data on Ethereum.

ZRO, meanwhile, has tanked. It’s down 23% in the last day to $3.42, hitting a peak at $4.79, according to CoinGecko.

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