The Arbitrum Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) has recently increased its stake in the Ethereum layer-2 gaming sector through a large investment. The DAO has agreed to invest 225 million ARB tokens, or approximately $222 million, in the development of the gaming industry over the next three years.
The mission to improve and consolidate the game guilds on Arbitrum, Orbit, and Stylus led to the decision to invest in this venture through the recently established Gaming Catalyst Program (GCP). On June 7, the Arbitrum community officially approved the funding for this project, demonstrating their increased activity in promoting further development in these networks.
The Gaming Community Program (GCP) aims to foster positive changes and advancements within the gaming communities associated with Arbitrum. It benefits both new and old game developers by providing them with monetary incentives, promoting new game ideas, and expanding the user base of the network. A dedicated board of five individuals, representing gaming, venture capital, data analysis, and DAO governance, governs the program. This council oversees the operational budget of the program, which may be at most $25 million. Any extra spending has to go through more steps in the DAO process.
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As stated in the proposal, the GCP Council is a decentralized autonomous organization comprising competent professionals in areas such as gaming, venture capital, grants, web3, and DAO management, among others. This group serves as an expert group of advisors, providing their input to assist the GCP Core Team. Most of the funding will go to recognized game publishers, but new developers can apply for a grant of up to 500,000 ARB. Finally, for developers seeking larger sums of money, they will need to share value by providing either equity or tokens in exchange for the capital.
There is also an increase in network activity on Arbitrum, indicating that more people are starting to engage with the platform in addition to investing in it financially. According to Growthepie, the network’s daily active addresses have increased by 30% in the past month and currently stand at 710,000. This growth not only demonstrates high community engagement, but it also cements Arbitrum in the list of the most successful Ethereum layer-2 solutions, with the TVL exceeding $4 billion, according to DeFiLlama.
However, Arbitrum is experiencing a high level of competition from other networks in the market, especially the Base network, which Coinbase funds. In the recent past, Base has demonstrated massive growth and currently has a total asset value of over $8 billion locked in its platform. This has enabled them to outcompete players like Optimism. Furthermore, Base has the highest TPS among all Ethereum L2 solutions, equivalent to an average of 29 transactions per second.
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This major update for Arbitrum is an active approach towards the gaming sector, which has already demonstrated considerable funding and planning. It is for this reason that, as the network grows and matures, this investment is expected to play a significant role in defining the future of blockchain gaming on Ethereum’s second layer.
