Google searches for Arbitrum, the largest layer 2 scaling system on Ethereum, have soared in the past 24 hours after the Arbitrum Foundation announced an airdrop Thursday.

Arbitrum appears to be attracting particular interest in China, with the country dominating the "interest by region" category on Google trends.

The Arbitrum blockchain has $1.66 billion in total value locked (TVL), with this figure distributed across derivatives exchanges, decentralized exchanges and lending protocols. The new token is part of Arbitrum's transition to a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that will feature governance votes and proposals for token holders.

The token will be airdropped to eligible users on on Thursday, March 23, with 11.5% of the total supply being allocated to Arbitrum users.

Arbitrum follows in the footsteps of Optimism, a rival layer 2 scaling system that issued an airdrop last April. The market capitalization of the Optimism token (OP) is $792 million with a market cap to TVL ratio of 0.84, according to DefiLlama. As Arbitrum has more than double the amount of capital locked on its blockchain, the token can be expected to have a market cap of around $2 billion using the same ratio.

On-chain Data Arbitrum airdrop Google

Oliver Knight

Oliver Knight joined CoinDesk as a news reporter in April 2022. Before joining CoinDesk, Knight was the Chief Reporter at Coin Rivet for three years. Having graduated with a journalism degree from Birmingham City University, Knight went on to work at various sports publications before diving into the world of Bitcoin in 2014. He does not have any crypto holdings.