The biggest layer-2 protocol in Ethereum (Arbitrum) has deployed the DeFi Renaissance Incentive Program (DRIP) to speed up the adoption of decentralized finance. The program has a 40 million dollar budget, in the form of 80 million ARB tokens, and incentivizes a set of actions on-chain, rather than generic user participation in DeFi.
Seasonal Incentives in Lending Markets.
There are four seasons in the DRIP program. The former, which is active between Sept. 3, 2025, and Jan. 20, 2026, deals with lending protocol looping leverage. A total of 24 million ARB tokens will be given out to borrowers of yield-generating ETH and stablecoins. Supported platforms are Aave, Morpho, Euler, Silo, Fluid and Dolomite and supported assets include wstETH, eUSDC and USDe.
Throughout the Protocol-Agnostic Structure, Performance-Based.
The program will incentivize borrowing demand on platforms without liquidity being concentrated in one location. Merkl powers it and it is controlled by Entropy Advisors, under the supervision of ArbitrumDAO.
Increasing L2 Competition and Interoperability.
Arbitrum makes this move in the face of intense L2 competition. Aditionally L2beat has a total value secured of $19.1B, amounting to more than Base and OP Mainnet. Growthepie reports that L2s are currently providing almost 13 percent of Ethereum app revenue.
Etherium Proposes Standard Layer-2.
In order to overcome L2 fragmentation, the Ethereum Foundation recently declared Ethereum Interoperability Layer (EIL), which will help to achieve a unified cross-rollup experience- another step towards the development of programs such as DRIP.
