Arbitrum launches $40M DeFi incentive amid intensifying L2 race

Arbitrum, the largest Ethereum layer-2 protocol, has launched a caller inaugural designed to transmission liquidity into decentralized finance.

The DeFi Renaissance Incentive Program (DRIP), announced connected Sept. 3, volition allocate up to $40 cardinal successful rewards to users performing targeted on-chain actions alternatively than simply generating attention.

The program, structured by Entropy and powered by Merkl, volition beryllium managed by Entropy Advisors nether the absorption of ArbitrumDAO. According to the blockchain network, astir 80 cardinal ARB tokens person been earmarked for incentives crossed 4 chiseled “seasons,” each focusing connected a antithetic country of DeFi.

The archetypal season, which runs from Sept. 3, 2025, done Jan. 20, 2026, prioritizes looping leverage connected lending markets.

During this phase, users tin gain up to 24 cardinal ARB successful rewards by borrowing against yield-bearing ETH and stablecoin assets connected approved platforms.

According to Arbitrum, the operation is performance-based and protocol-agnostic, meaning it volition reward borrowing request crossed aggregate markets alternatively than ore liquidity successful a azygous venue. Participating platforms see Aave, Morpho, Fluid, Euler, Dolomite, and Silo, with collateral options specified arsenic wstETH, eUSDC, and USDe.

Ethereum L2 ecosystem

The inducement strategy arrives astatine a clip erstwhile contention among Ethereum scaling solutions is accelerating.

Data from analytics level Growthepie shows that astir 13% of Ethereum’s exertion gross present originates connected layer-2 networks.

Ethereum Layer-2 Ecosystem (Source: GrowThePie)

In this space, Arbitrum retains a commanding pb wrong the ecosystem. Data from L2beat places its full worth secured astatine much than $19.1 billion, outpacing Coinbase’s Base astatine $14.7 cardinal and OP Mainnet astatine $3.6 billion.

These numbers bespeak however Ethereum’s broader layer-2 ecosystem is maturing quickly, with networks competing to pull developers, users, and liquidity astatine scale.

Considering this, the Ethereum Foundation has moved to trim fragmentation crossed these networks.

In an Aug. 29 update, it announced the Ethereum Interoperability Layer (EIL) arsenic a trustless model that enables transactions crossed antithetic layer-2s.

The Foundation described EIL arsenic a mode to springiness users the acquisition of “one Ethereum” portion preserving its halfway principles, including censorship resistance, privacy, and open-source development.

The station Arbitrum launches $40M DeFi inducement amid intensifying L2 race appeared archetypal connected CryptoSlate.