Arcade, the Ethereum-based DeFi protocol for NFT lending, will launch the next airdrop of its native ARCD token next week, the company has announced. 

On February 21, bundles of 750 ARCD tokens will be airdropped to 4,000 lucky holders of select NFT and Bitcoin Ordinals collections frequently used as loan collateral on Arcade. Some 2,000 wallets holding Ethereum-based NFTs Pudgy Penguins, Lil Pudgys, and Sappy Seals will be randomly selected for the airdrop’s allowlist. 

Another 2,000 wallets holding either Solana-based Mad Lads and Tensorians NFTs, or Bitcoin-inscribed Ordinal collections Bitcoin Puppets, NodeMonkes, and RSIC, will also be selected at random for the whitelist. The airdrop’s snapshot will be taken two days prior, on February 19. Users in several countries, including the United States, will not be eligible to participate in the airdrop. 

While the majority of Arcade’s business takes place on Ethereum, and ARCD is an Ethereum-based token, company co-founder Robert Masiello said that the upcoming airdrop signifies Arcade’s intention to expand its presence on Solana and Bitcoin.

“We're fans of those communities,” Masiello told Decrypt. “In the future, we can envision Arcade having its own protocols on those networks and supporting those collections with our lending mission directly.”

Raffle winners from those NFT collections whose wallets are added to the airdrop’s whitelist will have only two hours to claim their ARCD tokens on February 21, starting at 1pm EST. After that, any unclaimed spots in the 4,000-wallet airdrop will be open to any holder of the NFTs and Ordinals listed above, on a competitive first come, first served basis that Arcade is dubbing “Clash of Claims.”

Initially, the entire upcoming 3 million ARCD airdrop was designed to operate on that competitive model. But after some pushback from frustrated community members worried about losing out due to slow reflexes, the Arcade team decided to lighten up on the “clash” element of their “Clash of Claims” giveaway.

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“Some folks I think were not used to the first-come, first-served mechanic,” Maisello said. “We wanted to take in the community feedback.” 

First launched in October during Arcade’s initial airdrop, the ARCD token is currently locked to prevent transfer or sale on secondary markets, and can only be used to vote on governance proposals in the ArcadeDAO. ARCD will eventually have a total token supply of 100 million; after next week’s airdrop, the token’s circulating supply will rise to roughly 6.5 million. 

Masiello said, however, that steps are already underway within ArcadeDAO to unlock ARCD, and permit its sale. While he was sparse on details, he indicated that next week’s airdrop was timed largely to set the stage for ARCD’s unlocking. 

“We don’t have an exact date,” he said. “But we expect it to be pretty relatively soon.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward