There is an upswing in social media mention of ARB, the native token of Arbitrum, a layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum, suggesting growing interest and potential for price gains.

According to AlphaScan data on January 4, ARB had the “best sentiment” in the last 24 hours, with more than 40% of all weekly mentions occurring within this timeframe. Notably, ARB was the most mentioned token, right behind Bitcoin. This surge in positive sentiment shows in the weekly timeframe, where over 30% of all monthly mentions occurred in the last week of December.

ARB Is Trending As Prices Rise To 2024 Highs

Social media mentions can be a good metric for tracking sentiment. As such, with ARB trending, only trailing Bitcoin, it could show that the crypto community is taking note of the project and tracking its progress. Since there was no hack or steep losses on January 3, the ARB social media count spike is a net bullish for the project.

Interestingly, ARB is trending across social media platforms when token prices are at an all-time high and decentralized finance (DeFi) activity is recovering. From the daily chart, ARB is changing hands at around $2, the highest price point for the token, according to Binance data. 

In 2023 alone, ARB surged roughly 300% from March 2023 lows, peaking in late December. The uptrend remains, and bulls are pressing on, absorbing any attempts for lower lows.

Arbitrum plays a key role in addressing the scaling limitations of Ethereum. The layer-2 roll-up option re-routs transactions from the mainnet, relieving the base layer. This helps keep gas fees low, enhancing the overall user experience. 

Based on L2Beat data on January 4, Arbitrum is the largest layer-2 scaling solution with a total value locked (TVL) of over $9.8 billion. Of note, Arbitrum has implemented a permission fraud-proof system that overly enhances transaction transparency, allowing for the effective monitoring of its sequencer’s activities.

Arbitrum Orbit Supports Custom Tokens For Gas Payment

The uptick in social media activity also follows the recent enhancements to Arbitrum Orbit. Launched in Q1 2023, the platform allows developers to build layer-3 protocols on Arbitrum. 

Protocol developers have now added support for custom gas tokens. This feature relieves Orbit chain deployers from using ETH to pay gas fees and, instead, opt to select ERC-20 tokens, including ARB. 

With Arbitrum Orbit evolving, developers and projects launching on layer-3 solutions will have more flexibility. This move will also likely enhance the utility of their respective tokens, boosting demand and even prices since they are not tied to using ETH or, expressly, ARB to pay gas fees.