Arbitrum eyes $400 million crypto gaming fund with proposal to DAO

Gaming • March 14, 2024, 3:10PM EDT

Published 1 minute earlier on

Quick Take

Arbitrum Foundation announces program designed to invest 200 million ARB (about $400 million) in promoting gaming projects on its blockchain over a two-year period.
The plan, which the foundation will ask its DAO to approve, would invest the majority of the funds into accelerating the growth of its gaming ecosystem through grants awarded to publishers and builders.

Arbitrum ARB -3.18% Foundation wants to expand into blockchain gaming and is aiming to "earmark" about $400 million over the next two years with the aim of convincing publishers and builders to create video games using its blockchain.

In a post, Arbitrum Foundation outlined its plan for the "Gaming Catalyst Program." The program proposes asking the Arbitrum DAO to approve the earmarking of 200 million ARB (about $400 million at current prices) over a two-year period to incentivize building games on its blockchain.

"Arbitrum has emerged as a leader in the competitive network race through a dynamic formula of innovation, robust technology, organic builders, and a variety of short and long-term incentives," the organization said in its post. "This dynamic has not occurred within the web3 gaming vertical, but we believe that the same opportunity exists to attract the best builders that will in turn create sticky, quality games that bring and retain new users within Arbitrum."

Arbitrum Foundation is the organization that supports the Ethereum Layer 2 network Arbitrum.

Majority of funds would go to game publishers

The new proposal suggests allocating the vast majority of funds — 160 million ARB — to incentivize publishers and builders to create new games on Arbitrum. The other 40 million ARB would support infrastructure initiatives such as creating tools "needed to support gaming within Arbitrum."

"The Gaming Catalyst program has an overarching goal to bring in talented builders, and help the builders accelerate their games through the lifecycle stages," Arbitrum Foundation said in its post.

Until now, blockchains popular with gaming projects have included Polygon, Immutable, Avalanche and Solana.

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About Author

RT Watson is a senior reporter at The Block who covers a wide array of topics including U.S.-based companies, blockchain gaming and NFTs. Formerly covered entertainment at The Wall Street Journal, where he wrote about Disney, Netflix, Warner Bros. and the creator economy while focusing primarily on technological disruption across media. Previous to that he covered corporate, economic and political news in Brazil while at Bloomberg. RT has interviewed a diverse cast of characters including CEOs, media moguls, top influencers, politicians, blue-collar workers, drug traffickers and convicted criminals. Holds a master's degree in Digital Sociology.