LayerZero’s token launch on June 20 had a significant impact on fees on the Arbitrum blockchain, resulting in a record-breaking daily revenue of $3.43 million, a staggering increase of 16,680% compared to the previous day.
LayerZero introduced the ZRO token on Thursday, but it faced criticism due to its mandatory “donation” mechanism. This mechanism required claimants to spend a small amount of money per token to secure their allocation. As a result, the average gas fees on the blockchain surged to 89 cents, a significant increase from the usual less-than-1-cent fee.
According to data from Dune Analytics and DefiLlama, this led to a record-high profit of $3.29 million for the network on that day. LayerZero’s decision to require a donation of $0.10 in USDC, USDT, or native ETH per ZRO token was met with mixed reactions. The company stated that the donations would go to the Protocol Guild, which helps fund Ethereum developers. LayerZero justified its token launch by stating that it was not an airdrop, as it aimed to achieve equitable distribution, community building, and protocol health, unlike traditional airdrops that often attract recipients with little long-term interest in the project.
This surge in revenue marks Arbitrum’s most profitable day since December 14, when it generated $2.13 million before going offline due to an overwhelming number of inscriptions on the network. Inscriptions are a type of data formatting that can carry larger packages, such as images, making them more expensive due to their size. The costs associated with inscriptions were passed on to Arbitrum, resulting in a profit of only $414,000 on December 14.
In contrast, the value of the ZRO token has declined by 23% in the last day, currently priced at $3.42 and reaching a peak of $4.79, according to CoinGecko.
In related news, the Ronin blockchain has seen a rise in daily users, thanks to the presence of bots and airdrops, surpassing Not Pixels fans and securing the second position in terms of popularity.