Epic Arbitrum Showdown: Crypto Whales Battle For Dominance Amid Governance Chaos

Whale activity has surged as major crypto holders continue to accumulate an Ethereum ETH/USD Layer 2 governance token, Arbitrum ARB/USD.

On-chain analysis shows that Andrew Kang of Mechanism Capital recently acquired an additional 1.51 million Arbitrum tokens at $1.23, using about $1.85 million worth of USD Coin USDC/USD, The Block reported.

Kang, who's also a PleasrDAO member, has bought a total of 2.3 million ARB at an average price of $1.24 per token, according to Lookonchain analysts

Another prominent Arbitrum whale, the largest individual holder of the project's governance token, withdrew 5.85 million ARB tokens ($7.15 million) from the centralized exchange Gate.io.

This whale now holds 17.62 million ARB, valued at around $21.5 million at current rates.

A third whale acquired 795,381 Arbitrum governance tokens for roughly $1 million in USDC, at $1.26 per token.

This whale's ARB holdings now stand at 10.6 million ARB, worth $12.94 million.

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Meanwhile, a fourth whale address received an inbound transfer of 532,012 Arbitrum governance tokens, valued at about $661,000, bringing its total holdings to 4.58 million ARB, worth approximately $5.59 million.

These acquisitions come after earlier reports of Arbitrum whales retaining their tokens despite ongoing governance turmoil.

The price of Arbitrum's governance token has temporarily halted further drops in response to the recent drama.

Arbitrum addresses governance issues by backtracking on the contentious Arbitrum Improvement Proposal 1 (AIP-1) that planned to allocate 750 million governance tokens, worth around $1 billion at the time, to the Arbitrum Foundation.

The proposal appeared to be moving forward without token holder approval. Members of the project's decentralized autonomous organization voted overwhelmingly against it.

Arbitrum now seeks to include community input and implement new AIPs, such as AIP-1.1 and AIP-1.2.

The Arbitrum Foundation has committed not to move any of the remaining 700 million tokens in the Administrative Budget Wallet until the DAO approves an acceptable budget and smart contract lockup schedule.

The foundation also released a transparency report regarding its initial formation, alongside the revised proposals.

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