The Arbitrum Foundation published its first-half 2026 progress update covering the six months through June 30, according to the Foundation’s release carried by PR Newswire. The report combines network activity across Arbitrum One and other Arbitrum chains with operational figures, ArbitrumDAO income and treasury information.
The update presents activity from both a public network and purpose-built chain perspective. Arbitrum describes this as a barbell strategy: Arbitrum One provides a liquid public chain, while organizations can run dedicated Arbitrum chains on the same technology stack. This focus on bringing financial activity onchain also appears in other ecosystem initiatives, including how Mantle Vault expanded into DeFi with real-world-asset yield partners.
Transaction volume and enterprise deployments
Arbitrum processed 478 million transactions during the half, bringing its lifetime total to 2.7 billion, the Foundation reported. Average monthly stablecoin transfer volume exceeded $70 billion. The report also said Arbitrum ranked first in tokenized real-world-asset deployments, citing RWA.xyz, with more than 2,000 assets deployed. These network figures provide a contrast with incidents that can interrupt chain activity, such as the previously reported MANTRA Chain network halt and transaction freeze.
The Foundation put ecosystem GDP at $206 million for the six-month period and $1.7 billion cumulatively since launch. It also listed several enterprise developments: LG Electronics announced a pilot onchain advertising network, Mastercard expanded stablecoin settlement support to assets on Arbitrum, and PayPal’s PYUSD reached a first-quarter peak of $475 million on the network.
DAO income broadens across four lines
ArbitrumDAO accrued $6.19 million in income during the half across Arbitrum One transaction fees, Timeboost, Arbitrum Expansion Program license fees and treasury income. According to the release, the collective gross margin on protocol revenue exceeded 97%, compared with more than 90% for full-year 2025. The income and budgeting focus is relevant to broader protocol governance, including Compound Finance’s approved budget and leadership changes.
Under the Arbitrum Expansion Program, chains that settle outside Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova return 10% of net protocol revenue to the ecosystem. Robinhood Chain launched on mainnet on July 1 after processing more than 200 million transactions on its public testnet. In July, its first month on mainnet, program license fees totaled $360,000 and represented 35% of ArbitrumDAO income.
Treasury position and remaining ARB vesting
As of August 17, approximately 9.23 billion ARB, or 92.3% of total supply, was unlocked or held in the DAO treasury. The remaining 0.77 billion ARB represented 7.7% of supply under the original vesting schedule, with the final vest expected in March 2027. Separately, ArbitrumDAO held $125 million in non-ARB treasury assets at June 30.
The Foundation said it generally releases capital through milestone-based funding. During the first half, less than $200,000 of its ecosystem grants was issued upfront without milestone conditions. Together, the network, income and treasury figures offer a Foundation-produced snapshot of the ecosystem’s scale and financing at midyear rather than an independently audited assessment in the release itself.
