Arcus First Week Points Revealed: Median Only 1.53 Points — Is dYdX Team's New Project Worth Farming?

Original | Odaily（@OdailyChina）

Author | Asher（@Asher_ 0210）

On October 1, Arcus, the decentralized exchange built by the dYdX team, announced the launch of its Season 1 points campaign and updated individual point balances accordingly.

The dYdX team previously executed one of the largest airdrops in the industry, so its new project naturally carries airdrop expectations. Combined with the FOMO sentiment around Variational's Q4 token launch in the Perp DEX sector (related reading: "Variational Announces Airdrop Details — How Much Are Your Points Actually Worth?"), Arcus, also in the Perp DEX space, has become a key focus for airdrop farmers.

Below, Odaily introduces Arcus and provides an in-depth analysis of the Season 1 points campaign.

Arcus: 24/7 Zero-Fee Trading of Tokenized Stocks

A Decentralized Exchange Developed by the dYdX Team

Arcus is a decentralized exchange built by the dYdX team, running on Robinhood Chain, focused on 24/7 trading of stock tokens and perpetual contracts. Stock token spot trading offers zero trading fees, is issued and redeemable by Robinhood Chain, and supports self-custody and integration with the DeFi ecosystem; perpetual contracts cover stocks, commodities, indices, and crypto assets.

Additionally, Arcus plans to support tokenized stocks and crypto assets as collateral for perpetual contracts in the future, and to offer pre-IPO trading for popular private companies such as OpenAI.

Token Allocation Reserved for the dYdX Community

Arcus is not deployed on dYdX Chain, but instead runs on Robinhood Chain, advancing as an independent product with independent infrastructure. Furthermore, dYdX founder Antonio Juliano stated in the official dYdX documentation that "a portion of future Arcus tokens will be allocated to the dYdX community."

Season 1 Points Campaign Officially Launched on October 1

250,000 Points Distributed Weekly; Season 1 Ends No Later Than Late June Next Year

On October 1, Arcus officially launched its Season 1 points campaign. Specific details are as follows:

• Points are updated weekly at 3:00 AM Beijing Time every Thursday;
• The weekly points pool is fixed at 250,000 (does not change with platform growth);
• The Arcus points program will end no later than the end of the first half of 2027, i.e., the end of June;

Ways to earn points include:

• Trading: Trade on the Arcus platform. Point allocation is driven by multiple factors and comprehensively evaluates users' trading behavior, not solely based on trading volume;
• Market Making: Provide order book liquidity;
• Deposits: Deposit on the Arcus platform;
• Referrals: Invite friends to trade on the Arcus platform, to earn bonus points.

Currently available points multipliers primarily involve trading RWA tokens, specifically:

• RWA Tokens: Trading stock tokens and other RWAs currently earns more points;
• Outside Regular Trading Hours: Trading RWA perpetual contracts outside U.S. stock market hours currently earns more points. (On Arcus, regular hours include U.S. extended trading sessions: U.S. stock trading days from 4:00 AM to 8:00 PM ET. The boosted period covers all other times: overnight from 8:00 PM to 4:00 AM ET, as well as weekends and U.S. public holidays for markets that provide quotes. All times are in U.S. Eastern Time, with daylight saving transitions handled automatically.)

Additionally, using the Robinhood wallet to Swap and executing through the Arcus platform will earn Arcus spot points bonuses.

Season 0 Points Already Distributed, Currently Hidden

According to official information, to reward early users, Arcus has already distributed Season 0 points, covering the period from July 1 to September 30. Unlike Season 1's weekly point updates, Season 0 points are currently still hidden, with the specific release date to be determined. Once announced, users will not need to manually claim them — simply connecting their wallet to the points dashboard will display their Season 0 points and leaderboard ranking.

Season 1 First Week Data Analysis: Average Only 25.88, 90% of Addresses Below 37.64 Points

Season 1's first week of 250,000 points was distributed at 3:00 AM yesterday, with over 9,600 addresses receiving points. Total trading volume during the period was approximately $2.94 billion, open interest value was approximately $64.06 million, RWA trading volume was approximately $727.6 million, of which overnight and weekend RWA trading volume was approximately $258.8 million. The top 10 on the points leaderboard received the following points:

According to the points analysis tool (link: https://boost123.lol/arcus/points/), Arcus is still in its early stages. Among the 9,659 addresses that made the leaderboard and received points, the average points were only 25.88, far below the top 10 users shown in the chart above. Further analysis reveals that the median points for the first week were even more strikingly low, at just 1.53, with 4,271 addresses scoring below 1 point, and 90% of addresses scoring no more than 37.46 points.

Specifically, the point distribution by range is as follows:

• Addresses with over 1,000 points: total points of 68,832.73, accounting for 27.53% of that week's total points;
• Addresses with 500 to under 1,000 points: total points of 34,346.80, accounting for 13.74% of that week's total points;
• Addresses with 100 to under 500 points: total points of 76,039.01, accounting for 30.42% of that week's total points;
• Addresses with 50 to under 100 points: total points of 23,075.62, accounting for 9.23% of that week's total points;
• Addresses with 10 to under 50 points: total points of 34,934.55, accounting for 13.97% of that week's total points;
• Addresses with 1 to under 10 points: total points of 11,639.14, accounting for 4.66% of that week's total points;
• Addresses with over 0 to under 1 point: total points of 1,132.15, accounting for 0.45% of that week's total points.

Moreover, the top 100 addresses on the leaderboard earned 44.78% of total points, with points concentrated among top-tier large holders.

Is Arcus Worth Participating In?

Arcus Season 1 has only been running for one week, and controlling the cost of point acquisition may make it worth participating.

According to Didi's analysis, Season 1 will end no later than the end of the first half of next year. It can be expected that Season 1 will span 39 weeks, distributing 250,000 points per week, totaling 9.75 million points. Adding approximately 3.25 million points from Season 0, the total points at TGE would be approximately 13 million. Based on different FDV and airdrop ratio scenarios, the summarized cost table is as follows:

Taking Variational's airdrop ratio of 32%, falling into the 30% tier, with a pre-market FDV of $15 — which just falls into the 1.5B tier — the corresponding potential return per point is $46.2, which could serve as a cost-control threshold for point farming.