Castle Labs Launches $50k Grant Program for Builders on Arbitrum

Fortress Labs, a analysis agency led by analysts Chilla and CryptoNdee, has launched a grant program providing as much as $50,000 per mission to help progressive builders out there. Arbitration blockchain, aimed toward stimulating new concepts and long-term improvement throughout the ecosystem.

The initiative, which has been operational for eight months and nonetheless has 4 months to go earlier than the deadline, goals to fund early-stage startups that prioritize originality and alignment with Arbitrum’s targets. This transfer comes as Arbitrum continues to show sturdy progress in transaction volumes and person engagement, strengthening the community’s place as a hub for decentralized functions.

Program particulars and aims

The grant program, administered by Fortress Labs on behalf of the Arbitrum DAO, focuses on “new protocols and concepts” and supplies monetary help to groups constructing sustainable tasks based on Arbitrum, though multi-chain approaches are acceptable if Arbitrum performs a outstanding function.

With a complete of 240 functions acquired thus far, this system has authorised lower than 10 %, reflecting a rigorous choice course of that emphasizes high quality over amount. Candidates can apply for funding of as much as $50,000 to assist cowl improvement prices for prototypes, milestones and preliminary launches.

Fortress Labs has outlined clear standards for analysis, beginning with innovation as a core requirement. Initiatives ought to introduce new primitives or distinctive options relatively than replicating current functions from different chains. Authorized beneficiaries embrace Cyclo Finance, which explores new monetary mechanisms; Maldouy, which bridges off-chain use circumstances with on-chain infrastructure; and Alloc8, working on the intersection of decentralized finance (DeFi) and synthetic intelligence (AI). These examples illustrate how this system values ​​originality throughout industries together with DeFi, client apps, and AI, whereas remaining open to different verticals so long as they bring about one thing new to the desk.

Past innovation, ecosystem alignment is important, that means tasks should combine properly with current Arbitrum instruments and contribute to the community’s imaginative and prescient of supporting DeFi builders, AI initiatives, and functions that drive broader adoption.

The analysis additionally assesses workforce high quality, favoring clear teams which can be open to know-your-customer (KYC) processes and in a position to execute them even when they don’t have in depth crypto expertise. Feasibility comes into play via well-defined milestones and key efficiency indicators (KPIs) which can be trackable and practical, in order that the grant results in tangible progress with out over-promising.

Lastly, influence and sustainability are balanced, favoring experiments that may scale, entice customers, and profit the neighborhood in the long run. Fortress Labs encourages functions that discover how the mission stays viable after funding ends, and avoids short-term tasks that fail. This structured method helps filter out low-effort submissions, comparable to these generated by AI with out substantive workforce involvement, which was a typical drawback within the evaluation course of.

Arbitrum’s latest momentum

The grant program comes amid notable progress for Arbitrum, which has solidified its place because the main Layer-2 scaling resolution for Ethereum. On the finish of October, the community reached a milestone of two billion on-chain transactions, underscoring its scalability and person attraction.

The variety of each day energetic wallets is within the a whole lot of 1000’s, with latest 24-hour intervals seeing greater than 2.6 million transactions. Arbitrum additionally grew to become the primary Layer-2 to surpass $400 billion in cumulative swap quantity on the Uniswap protocol, per info from Dune dashboards, a benchmark that displays its dominance in decentralized alternate (DEX) enterprise.

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All Time Protocol quantity on arbitrageum

Different measures present an additional image of progress. Lately, Arbitrum’s Whole Worth Locked (TVL) ecosystem has stabilized at a excessive stage, supporting DEX quantity of over $1.1 billion. By the second quarter of 2025, the community had facilitated greater than $27.5 billion in bridge property, representing 17.3 million transfers and 4 million customers. These figures are tracked via platforms comparable to DefiLlama And Arbiscanpresent that Arbitrum outperforms friends in areas comparable to perpetual futures quantity and on-chain income, making it a lovely base for brand spanking new tasks.

Utility course of and subsequent steps

developer groups ought to evaluation Fortress Labs’ pointers and guarantee their proposals spotlight innovation, workforce strengths, achievable targets, and potential influence. You may register by way of the hyperlinkthe place candidates describe their mission imaginative and prescient and milestones and the way these align with Arbitrum. Fortress Labs advises towards generic or AI-powered pitches, preferring genuine concepts from devoted groups.

As soon as authorised, beneficiaries will obtain funding in installments linked to milestones, with ongoing help to trace progress. This setup not solely helps particular person tasks, but additionally contributes to Arbitrum’s broader aim: fostering a vibrant, experimental neighborhood. Builders contemplating multichain methods ought to emphasize Arbitrum’s function, maybe benefiting from its low-cost transactions or integration with the Ethereum mainnet.

Sources:

• _{Saying $50,000 Arbitrum DAO Grant (Chilla https://x.com/chilla_ct/standing/1983207757256777916}
• _{Arbitrum One Every day Transaction Chart (Arbiscan): https://arbiscan.io/chart/tx}
• _{Arbitrum chain TVL and statistics (DefiLlama): https://defillama.com/chain/arbitrum}
• _{All Time Protocol quantity on Arbitrum (Dune Analytics): https://dune.com/queries/3582330/6032713}