Key facts: The exact amount is 225 million ARB, Arbitrum's native token. The proposal was presented by the Arbitrum Foundation in March 2024. Arbitrum DAO, the Decentralized Autonomous Organization in charge of the governance of this Ethereum rollup, announced that it will allocate a budget of 225 million ARB, the native token of this network, for the development of the Gaming Catalyst Program (GCP). This is a program that seeks to promote the adoption of Arbitrum by providing support and resources to all programmers interested in using this network as a basis for their new creations. The initiative, which was presented in March of this year, had more than 75% of the votes in favor. Based on the current ARB token price in the market, The amount allocated for the GCP is equivalent to about USD 220 million. This budget will be distributed over the next three years for expenses related to supporting the development and publishing of games on Arbitrum, as well as improvements to the network infrastructure. Subsidies to developers are capped at ARB 500,000 per project. Teams that want to opt for them must apply by filling out a form. Its approval will be in the hands of a 5-member council that will vote for each proposal, while a legal entity for the GCP is formed.
The role of video games in the expansion of the cryptocurrency ecosystem
According to a report by Crypto.com, the size of the market for video games related to blockchain and cryptocurrencies exceeded USD 3 billion. However, This figure is expected to reach USD 90 billion by 2030.. The recent movements of the Arbitrum team reveal that they want to star in the gamer scene in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. In fact, another proof of this was an airdrop organized by Offchain Labs, creators of the Arbitrum network, and Xai, a third layer Ethereum network on Arbitrum. BitcoinDynamic reported in January of this year that Xai distributed the equivalent of about USD 70 million in the XAI token. Xai Games is a Web3 gaming platform that features games like Final Form, a deck-building card game with auto-battle elements, and LAMO, a world with fighting characters.