Arbitrum, Ethereum’s layer two scaling unicorn, is expected to unlock over $1.24 billion worth of ARB token to reward its team, advisors, and investors on March 16, 2024, six months from today. This raises concerns among ARB holders about the price impact of the unlock.

Over 1.1 billion ARB tokens will enter the market, expanding the circulating supply by 87%. Arbitrum’s total supply is fixed at 10 billion tokens, with 1.275 billion in circulation before the unlock. That number will nearly double to 2.375 billion following the unlock.

Market Impact and Investor Behavior

Traders may look to front-run the token unlock as millions of dollars worth of ARB could flood the market. Although it is unlikely that early investors will sell all of their tokens once released, some selling pressure could arise as investors are currently in the money.

Offchain Labs, the development foundation behind Arbitrum, raised $123.7 million by promising over 438 million ARB tokens to investors at an estimated price of $0.28 per token, four times the current ARB price.

Token distribution and Future Control

More than 50% of ARB tokens remain locked, awaiting a token schedule that involves monthly releases spanning a four-year timeline. By 2027, investors will control over 17%, and the team will control nearly 27% of the total ARB token supply.

ARB’s price is down 5% over the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.

The BNB Beacon Chain is poised to undergo a scheduled hard fork and security upgrade on July 19th, 2023, as announced by the network’s technical team. This update, expected to occur at block height 328,088,888, will require all full node operators to shift to software version v0.10.16.

The upcoming changes include the introduction of BEP-255, a feature that aims to boost security on the BNB Beacon Chain through on-chain asset reconciliation. This mechanism allows for the tracking of user balance changes in each block, ensuring the detection and rectification of any inconsistencies. In the event of reconciliation errors, the blockchain is designed to halt the production of new blocks, thereby mitigating potential security threats.

In addition to the new feature, the hard fork upgrade will address a security vulnerability known as the ‘Rogue Key Attack.’ This bug, which could potentially compromise the network’s “Fast Finality” mechanism, will be rectified through the clearing of all existing vote addresses once the hard fork is activated. Post-upgrade, validators will be required to add their vote addresses once again to ensure the continued proper functioning and integrity of the BNB Beacon Chain.