What is ARPA (ARPA)

Who created it

Felix Xu (co-founder, CEO), Yemu Xu (co-founder)

Why it was created

To provide decentralised cryptographic infrastructure based on threshold BLS (BLS-TSS) for applications that require verifiable signatures/randomness and resilience against a single point of trust (e.g., verifiable RNG, secure wallets, cross-chain bridges, decentralised custody).

How it’s used

• Verifiable random number generation (Randcast) for games, lotteries, NFT minting, allocations, etc.
• Threshold BLS signatures for secure wallets and shared key control
• Cryptographic foundation for cross-chain mechanics (bridges/multichain operations) where threshold signing is important
• Decentralised “quorum” model for executing cryptographic tasks via groups of nodes (DKG, BLS signatures)
• Network participation via staking/delegation and earning ARPA rewards (for node operators)

Risks

• Collusion/centralisation of part of the nodes within a signing group could enable selective delays or disruption of result delivery (impacting availability and trust in “fair randomness”).
• Errors or compromise of distributed key generation (DKG) and partial keys could undermine threshold security and open a path to manipulation.
• Vulnerabilities in the infrastructure smart contracts (node registry, group controller, coordinator, adapter) could cause incorrect verification, faulty callbacks, or service stoppage.
• Reliance on protocol parameters/updates and their administration increases the risk of abuse or “silent” changes to operating rules (grouping, tasks, fees).
• Economic incentives may be insufficient, leading participants to operate superficially or leave, increasing the risk of service degradation and availability attacks.
• Application-side integration mistakes (how randomness is consumed) can allow outcome “tuning” at the dApp level even if the randomness source is correct.
• Delisting of specific trading pairs on major exchanges can reduce liquidity and make price manipulation easier.
• A bug bounty reduces risk but does not eliminate “unknown” critical vulnerabilities prior to discovery and disclosure.

FAQ

Question: What is ARPA?

Answer: ARPA is a utility token in the ARPA Network ecosystem, used to economically secure the network and its services (including Randcast).

Question: What does Randcast do in simple terms?

Answer: Randcast provides smart contracts with verifiable “randomness” — the result can be verified on-chain rather than simply trusting a source.

Question: Where is it used in practice?

Answer: In games and GameFi (odds/loot), NFT mints and whitelists, and in giveaways and random allocation mechanisms.

Question: Can the “randomness” be manipulated?

Answer: The result is designed to be verifiable on-chain; however, availability risks can exist (e.g., delays or failures to deliver results) if network participants encounter issues.

Question: What are the key risks for trusting the service?

Answer: The main risks relate to smart-contract/infrastructure vulnerabilities, participant outages, and application-side integration errors that can distort how randomness is used.

Question: What is the ARPA token used for within the ecosystem?

Answer: The token is used for payments/economic incentives for participants and, where applicable, governance elements around protocol parameters.

Question: Is there staking or network participation?

Answer: The ecosystem provides participation mechanisms via staking/delegation and supporting network operations; terms depend on the current protocol rules and platforms.

Question: Where can ARPA be stored?

Answer: ARPA in ERC-20 format can be stored in wallets that support Ethereum tokens (and compatible networks if bridging/wrapping is used), provided the correct token contract address is used.