Why the Arbitrum (ARB) token rose 20% in 24 hours
The cryptocurrency of the Arbitrum network gained 20% in 24 hours. The day before, analysts at British bank Standard Chartered forecast that the ARB token could rise to $10 by 2030.
ARB token rises 20% in 24 hours
The price of the ARB token of the Arbitrum Layer 2 network* rose by 20% over the past 24 hours, making it the best-performing asset among the largest cryptocurrencies on September 16. Arbitrum's market capitalization exceeded $1.1 billion, placing the project 55th in CoinMarketCap's ranking by this metric.
* Layer 2 (L2) network is a blockchain network built on top of a base network to increase transaction speed and throughput while reducing transaction costs. L2 processes a significant portion of transactions separately while relying on the base network for security and final data settlement.
Since the beginning of September, the ARB token has gained about 50%, while since the beginning of August, its price has increased by more than 110%. At the same time, as recently as late June, ARB hit an all-time low of $0.07.
Several factors may have contributed to ARB's price recovery in August and September: an overall improvement in crypto market sentiment, the rise of Ethereum, the launch of the ArbOS Elara upgrade in late August, and a low-base effect following ARB's prolonged decline.
After the ARB token had fallen by more than 90% from its 2024 highs, even a relatively moderate influx of buyers could have produced a substantial percentage increase in its price.
At the same time, the latest 24-hour price surge was not accompanied by announcements of new features or any other major protocol upgrades. However, the day before, British bank Standard Chartered published a bullish price forecast for the token.
Standard Chartered expects ARB to reach $10
The bank's analysts believe that the price of the ARB token could reach $10 by 2030. As of 5:30 p.m. on September 16, ARB was trading at approximately $0.166. Thus, if Standard Chartered's forecast materializes, ARB could increase in value by around 6000% over the coming years.
Despite the scale of such an increase, gains of this magnitude are possible in the cryptocurrency market — its history has already seen comparable and even significantly stronger price movements.
According to CoinGecko, Avalanche, for example, rose by approximately 5100%, from its all-time low of $2.80 in December 2020 to a peak of $144.96 in November 2021. Chainlink gained around 35500%, rising from $0.1482 in November 2017 to $52.70 in May 2021, while Solana increased by more than 58000%, from $0.5008 in May 2020 to $293.31 in January 2025.
Arbitrum and its role in the Ethereum ecosystem
Arbitrum is one of the leading and longest-running Layer 2 (L2) protocols built on the Ethereum blockchain. The network was launched in late 2021, while its native ARB token entered the market only in early 2023.
The Arbitrum project also became widely known for distributing tokens to early network users: the launch of ARB was accompanied by one of the largest airdrops in the history of the cryptocurrency market.
As part of the airdrop, Arbitrum allocated 1.275 billion ARB, or 12.75% of the token's initial supply, for distribution. Of this amount, 1.162 billion ARB was designated for early network users, while another approximately 113 million ARB was allocated to DAOs and projects within the Arbitrum ecosystem. The user allocation was distributed among more than 625,000 wallets depending on their level of network activity.
Based on a price of around $1.38, where the ARB token stabilized shortly after trading began in March 2023, the entire 1.275 billion-token allocation was valued at approximately $1.76 billion.
ARB growth amid the development of the Robinhood network
One of the factors supporting the ARB token has been the success of the network developed by U.S. broker Robinhood*, which is built on the Arbitrum technology stack.
* Robinhood is a U.S. financial technology company that operates a digital platform for retail investors. Through Robinhood's applications, users can trade stocks, ETFs*, options, futures, and cryptocurrencies, as well as use retirement investment accounts, managed portfolios, and a range of banking and payment services.
Robinhood selected Arbitrum because its technology makes it possible to create a separate L2 network while retaining a connection to Ethereum and flexibly configuring the network to meet the requirements of financial services.
In particular, Arbitrum technology enables transaction confirmations in about 100 ms, provides high throughput and predictable transaction costs, and lets you customize network parameters to meet performance, security, and regulatory compliance requirements.
Another advantage is compatibility with Ethereum and familiar EVM* tools, which makes it easier to integrate wallets, applications, and other existing infrastructure.
* EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) is Ethereum's virtual computing environment. The EVM defines a common standard for how decentralized applications operate within the Ethereum ecosystem. EVM compatibility lets other blockchains run applications and smart contracts originally developed for Ethereum, while enabling developers to use familiar programming languages, wallets, libraries, and tools without completely rewriting software for a new network.
For using the platform, Robinhood Chain pays 10% of its net revenue to the Arbitrum ecosystem under Arbitrum's standard licensing model. According to DeFiLlama, this payment amounted to approximately $3.71 million over the past 30 days.
The RWA could become Arbitrum's main growth driver
Standard Chartered analysts identify the development of the tokenized real-world assets market — RWA* — as the main factor that could drive further growth of the ARB token. They forecast that the size of this segment could reach $4 trillion by 2028.
* RWA (Real-World Assets) are real financial or physical assets whose ownership rights are represented on a blockchain in the form of tokens. RWAs can include government and corporate bonds, stocks, investment fund units, real estate, gold and other precious metals, commodities, bank deposits, loans and debt obligations, invoices, works of art, and collectibles.
Standard Chartered experts believe that as banks and asset management companies move more traditional financial instruments onto blockchains, Arbitrum could benefit by providing the technological infrastructure needed to build networks similar to Robinhood's solution.
What could hinder Arbitrum's growth
At the same time, Standard Chartered also points to risks that could prevent this scenario from materializing. Among the main threats, analysts highlight slower-than-expected tokenization of traditional assets and increasing competition from alternative blockchains.
Arbitrum's direct competitors among Ethereum Layer 2 solutions include Base, Optimism, zkSync, and Starknet, which also offer faster, cheaper transactions than the Ethereum mainnet.
In addition, independent blockchains are competing for projects in the asset-tokenization sector, primarily Solana, Avalanche, Stellar, and XRP Ledger. These networks already host tokenized government bonds, investment funds, stocks, debt instruments, and other real-world assets.
For example, Solana hosts products from BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and other major financial companies, while Avalanche hosts tokenized products from BlackRock and VanEck.
Therefore, Arbitrum's success will largely depend on whether the project can continue attracting new financial companies and developers amid the growing number of alternative platforms.