Offchain Co-founder Goldfeder: ARB Remaining Locked Supply is About 7.7%
Steven Goldfeder, co-founder of Offchain Labs, the company behind Arbitrum, stated that the market is misinterpreting the supply by counting the DAO treasury as traditional locked supply.
He clarified that the unlocking of investor and team shares is nearing completion, with all tokens set to expire by March next year; the portion of tokens that have not yet been unlocked accounts for approximately 7.7% of the total supply. The Arbitrum DAO treasury currently holds about 2.84 billion ARB, which is not time-locked but controlled by circulating token holders, requiring votes from other holders for transfers. The total supply of ARB is 10 billion, with the team and advisors originally accounting for 26.9%, while the foundation and DAO received a larger share; the public unlocking schedule marks the end date for allocations as March 23, 2027, after which tokens will continue to be released monthly until that date.
Counting the treasury as locked supply would imply a potential selling pressure of "still 30% cannot be released"; according to his breakdown, the forced vesting is now only a single-digit percentage, with the rest becoming governance inventory. If the 2.84 billion tokens were to enter the market all at once, the scale would far exceed the remaining vesting, but each allocation must go through a vote, and the pace depends on proposals rather than a linear timeline. Data websites still calculate the total unreleased amount as higher, with the difference stemming from whether the DAO inventory is included in the "unlocked" count.
Since the token's generation in March 2023, it has undergone four years of vesting. The market often uses fully diluted market capitalization to compare with circulating supply; the larger the treasury, the greater the controversy over circulating metrics. The co-founder is now changing the denominator for valuation: locked supply only counts for team and investor time locks, while the treasury is counted as governance floating supply.
Mechanically, this is a narrative-driven supply reclassification, not an on-chain burn. Buyers are trading the narrative of selling pressure into short derivative accounts, while sellers aim to lower the "unlocked ratio" of the project. Funds do not immediately enter or exit the treasury due to the publication, but the valuation shifts from "locked supply ratio" to "whether governance can approve allocations." The beneficiaries are addresses holding circulating tokens that can vote, while the pressured side is treating the 2.84 billion tokens as a passive locked supply model that will never sell; after March next year, the time lock narrative ends, and the selling pressure narrative will be rewritten with each treasury proposal.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Goldfeder aims to separate two accounts. Time locks are contractual obligations that must enter circulation upon expiration; the DAO treasury is a political inventory that requires votes to enter circulation. Counting the latter as locked supply assumes that token holders will never allocate funds. Three years after Arbitrum's launch, investor unlocking is nearing completion, and the project must change its narrative, or the valuation model will continue to rely on an outdated release schedule.
The capital path is governance replacing vesting. The 2.84 billion tokens are ammunition for ecological funds, incentives, and collaborations, as well as the largest potential supply in the market. The voting threshold shifts selling pressure from a calendar to a political cycle: if a proposal passes, there is selling pressure; if rejected, there is none. After the team’s 7.7% is cleared, the conflict of interest shifts from "team dumping" to "large holders voting for their own allocations."
A comparison can be made to the separation of the Ethereum Foundation's holdings from its unlocking schedule, as well as Uniswap's treasury occupying a large portion of supply for a long time: the market ultimately trades on governance credibility, not cliff dates. The industry phase has shifted from linear unlocking post-issuance to a treasury political period, with control residing in voting alliances rather than in the vesting contracts from four years ago.
Structural judgment pertains to the transfer of pricing power. The mechanism shifts the definition of circulating supply from unlocking contracts to governance votes; whoever can convince traders that "the treasury does not equal locked supply" can rewrite the denominator of fully diluted valuations.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
The treasury is not locked supply; the treasury is supply that requires voting to exit.
After the vesting schedule is completed, selling pressure will be rewritten in each allocation proposal.
The essence of the supply dispute is about who has the right to define the circulating supply.