How to Lock Liquidity on Arc (Uniswap and Aerodrome)

A liquidity lock takes the LP tokens that represent your pool position and puts them in a contract that cannot release them before a date you set. It is the difference between a pool you promise not to drain and a pool you are unable to drain.

Works on Arc testnet today; mainnet September 16, 2026.

What a liquidity lock actually does

When you add liquidity to a DEX pool, you receive LP tokens representing your share. Whoever holds those LP tokens can withdraw the underlying assets. If the deployer holds them, the deployer can remove the pool — the exact mechanism behind the overwhelming majority of rug pulls.

A lock transfers the LP tokens into a locker contract with a timestamp. Until that timestamp passes, nobody — including you — can withdraw. The pool becomes structurally durable rather than conditionally durable.

Note what a lock does not do. It does not stop the team selling tokens they hold outside the pool (that is vesting), it does not audit the token contract, and it does not guarantee the project succeeds. It closes one specific attack.

Uniswap V2 style pools versus V3 and V4

V2-style pools issue fungible ERC-20 LP tokens. Locking one is straightforward: approve the locker, deposit the LP tokens, set the unlock date.

Uniswap V3 and V4 positions are NFTs, not fungible LP tokens, because liquidity is concentrated in a price range. Locking a V3 or V4 position means locking the position NFT, which requires a locker that supports NFT positions. It also means the range matters: a concentrated position locked in a narrow band away from the current price provides no usable depth, however long the lock. When you publish a V3 lock, publish the range too.

Aerodrome is in Arc's day-one ecosystem alongside Aave, Morpho and Uniswap, and uses a veAERO-style model on Base. Locking an Aerodrome LP position follows the same principle: identify what token represents the position and put that under lock.

How to lock LP tokens on Arc with Team Finance

Team Finance has been running non-custodial locks since 2020 and has secured more than $2.7 billion across 40,000+ projects on 26 chains. The flow:

1. Add liquidity on your chosen DEX and note the LP token address (or the position NFT ID for V3/V4).
2. Connect your wallet to Arc. Setup details. Fund with USDC — gas on Arc is USDC and testnet transactions average about $0.004, so the lock costs essentially nothing to execute.
3. Open Team Finance's liquidity lock tool and select Arc.
4. Enter the LP token address or position and the amount. Lock the full position, not a portion.
5. Set the unlock date. See below.
6. Approve, then lock. Two transactions; with sub-second finality both confirm effectively instantly.
7. Save the lock URL and the explorer link. Those are the artefacts you publish.

[SCREENSHOT: Team Finance liquidity lock form with an Arc LP token and unlock date]

How long should the lock be?

There is no rule, but there are reference points. Anything under three months reads as temporary. Six to twelve months is the common floor for a project expecting to be taken seriously. Multi-year or permanent locks are used by projects that want the question closed entirely.

Two practical notes. First, plan for the unlock: a lock expiring with no announced successor causes exactly the panic you locked to avoid, so extend or re-lock well before the date. Second, laddering — several locks with staggered expiries — gives you operational flexibility without handing yourself a single day on which the whole pool becomes withdrawable.

Publishing and verifying

Publish the lock as an explorer link, not a screenshot. Then verify it yourself the way a stranger would: find the LP token, open its holders tab, confirm the locker contract holds the position, read the unlock timestamp, and check the amount against the pool's total. The full verification procedure, and how to read Arcscan.

Rehearse before mainnet

Public mainnet opens September 16, 2026, and Circle has not published mainnet chain ID, RPC or explorer host. Practise the entire lock flow on the public testnet — chain ID 5042002, faucet at faucet.circle.com — so that on launch day the only new variable is that the money is real. Testnet guide.