ArbitrumDAO Launches $40 Million DeFi Renaissance Incentive Program to Accelerate DeFi Growth in the Arbitrum Ecosystem
NEW YORK, Sept. 3, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The ArbitrumDAO today announced the launch of Season One of the DeFi Renaissance Incentive Program (DRIP) with a budget of up to 24 million ARB tokens. This first season will focus on leveraged looping strategies for yield-bearing ETH and stablecoins, further solidifying Arbitrum's position as the leading hub for decentralized finance.
In June of this year, the ArbitrumDAO approved the creation of DRIP, earmarking 80 million ARB tokens, over $40 million, to be distributed over four seasons. Each season is designed to target a specific DeFi use case, driving high-impact experimentation while amplifying liquidity, capital efficiency and protocol growth across the ecosystem.
Season One will be supported across select lending and borrowing protocols, including Aave, Morpho, Fluid, Euler, Dolomite and Silo. Participants can earn ARB rewards for borrowing against a curated range of collateral types, such as:
-- ETH-type collateral: weETH, wstETH, rsETH, ezETH, gmETH
-- Stablecoin collateral: sUSDC, sUSDS, USDe, sUSDe, syrupUSDC,
RLP, wstUSR, sUSDai, thBILL
This targeted rollout introduces an aligned framework: protocols that are contributing meaningful innovation to DeFi receive incentive support, while users benefit from new opportunities to optimize strategies on Arbitrum.
Prior to Season One's official launch, DRIP had already begun attracting deployments from some of the fastest-growing protocols in the space. Morpho, Euler and Maple Finance are among those that have recently expanded operations onto the Arbitrum network, citing the program as a strong catalyst for growth.
"DRIP isn't about spraying incentives across the ecosystem and hoping something sticks," said Matthew Fiebach, Co-Founder of Entropy Advisors. "It's about directing resources where they create real, tangible outcomes."
Arbitrum remains one of the largest L2s by liquidity, with more than $19 billion in total value secured, accounting for over 36% of Ethereum's L2 market share. The launch of DRIP further amplifies this leadership by introducing a flexible, seasonal incentive model that can dynamically evolve alongside the market.
"DRIP will help Morpho both attract DeFi native liquidity, and provide deeper liquidity and better rates for DeFi Mullet integrations like the Earn feature on Gemini Onchain," said Kirk Hutchison, Chain Expansion Lead at Morpho. "The combination of incentives and wide distribution network makes Arbitrum the natural home for our next stage of growth."
Each season of DRIP will run for approximately four to five months. At the end of every season, results will be reviewed by a committee approved by the ArbitrumDAO and composed of representatives from the Arbitrum Foundation, Entropy Advisors and Offchain Labs. Successful strategies can be renewed or expanded, while underperforming ones will be adapted or discontinued.
"This structure ensures incentives focus on lasting value," said Sid Powell, CEO at Maple Finance. "The program unlocks sustainable yield opportunities while advancing DeFi development on Arbitrum and syrupUSDC's expansion across active ecosystems."
To learn more about DRIP, please visit arbitrumdrip.com.
About Arbitrum Foundation
The Arbitrum Foundation, founded in March 2023, supports and grows the Arbitrum network and its community with secure scaling solutions for Ethereum. Arbitrum One, a leading Ethereum Layer-2 scaling solution initially developed by Offchain Labs, offers ultra-fast, low-cost transactions with security derived from Ethereum through Optimistic Rollup technology. Launched in August 2021, the Arbitrum One mainnet beta is EVM-compatible at the bytecode level. Thousands of DeFi and NFT projects are live in the ecosystem to date. In August 2022, Arbitrum One upgraded to Nitro tech stack, enabling fraud proofs over the core engine of Geth compiled to WASM.
Media Contact
Garret J. Shaw
gshaw@offchainlabs.com
View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/arbitrumdao-launches-40-million-defi-renaissance-incentive-program-to-accelerate-defi-growth-in-the-arbitrum-ecosystem-302544493.html
SOURCE Arbitrum Foundation
