Arbitrum and Alchemy Team Up On Grants Promoting Orbit Chain Development

Arbitrum is working with Alchemy to promote development within its Orbit ecosystem.

On Nov. 26, Alchemy, a web3 infrastructure provider, opened applications for a $10 million grant program to teams building chains leveraging the Arbitrum Orbit tech stack.

Recipients of the Alchemy Proactive Ecosystem Grant Fund will receive up to $500,000 worth of credits towards Alchemy rollup-as-a-service infrastructure. Eligible projects include teams launching new Arbitrum Orbit-based rollups or migrating existing chains onto Orbit.

"Launching your own chain can be expensive and time-consuming, but it's crucial for the future of crypto,” said Nikil Viswanathan, the CEO of Alchemy. “This grant program represents our commitment to supporting those who will define the next chapter of Web3.”

Orbit-based L3s proliferate

The news comes as Arbitrum’s Orbit stack has emerged as popular infrastructure for projects launching Layer 3 networks.

Data from L2beat shows that Xai and PlayBlock, two gaming-focused L3s leveraging Orbit, rank as the second and fifth most active chains within the Ethereum ecosystem by daily throughput. Xai processed an average of 84.4 transactions per second (TPS) over the past 24 hours, while PlayBlock hosted 21.3 TPS.

In February, ApeCoin announced that its upcoming Layer 3, ApeChain, would leverage Orbit. ApeChain went live on Oct. 21 and hosted 2.61 TPS over the past 24 hours.

Reya Network, a trading-focused appchain, is the largest Orbit Chain by total value locked with $113.5 million.

In July, Arbitrum's governance passed a proposal to expand Orbit onto non-Ethereum networks, including Bitcoin, BNB Chain, and Cosmos. “Over the past few weeks, the Arbitrum Foundation has received inbound interest from projects that want to deploy their own Orbit chain on other networks,” the proposal said.

Arbitrum One is the largest Ethereum Layer 2 with a network TVL of $17.3 billion.