Arbitrum has launched the DeFi Renaissance Incentive Program (DRIP), a $40 million initiative designed to boost productive DeFi activity on its network. The program, managed by Entropy Advisors and powered by Merkl, is structured across four seasons, with Season One running from September 3, 2025, to January 20, 2026, focusing on leverage looping strategies in lending markets.
Users can earn ARB tokens by borrowing against eligible ETH derivatives (e.g., weETH, wstETH, rsETH) and stablecoins (e.g., USDC, syrupUSDC, eUSDC, USDe) on participating protocols including Aave, Morpho, Fluid, Euler, Dolomite, and Silo. Rewards are distributed across two-week epochs based on time-weighted average borrow balances, with some markets also rewarding simple asset supply.
The program allocates 80 million ARB tokens for incentives, with 24 million ARB dedicated to Season One. The first two epochs serve as a discovery phase using 15% of the budget to identify top-performing markets, followed by a performance phase that rewards the best markets with larger incentives to maximize liquidity growth.
This initiative aims to increase Arbitrum's DeFi TVL, which currently stands at $3.21 billion (7th globally per DefiLlama), amid intensifying competition among Ethereum L2s. Arbitrum leads with $19.1 billion in total value secured, ahead of Base ($14.7B) and OP Mainnet ($3.6B).