Title – Proposal: Establishing “Arbitrum Balkan” – A Regional Ecosystem & Policy Initiative
Constitutional / Non‑Constitutional – Non‑Constitutional (this AIP proposes a community program and funding; it does not alter governance rules or constitutional provisions).
Abstract –
This proposal requests funding and formal endorsement to launch Arbitrum Balkan, a comprehensive 12–24‑month initiative to position Arbitrum as the leading layer‑2 ecosystem across Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania and Greece. Through targeted policy engagement, university partnerships, developer programs and ecosystem grants, the program will increase adoption of the Arbitrum technology stack, onboard hundreds of new developers and create a pipeline of projects built on Arbitrum.
Motivation –
The Balkan region and Greece represent a high‑growth, under‑served market for layer‑2 development. Regulatory landscapes are evolving; some countries are aligning with the EU’s Markets in Crypto‑Assets (MiCA) regulationkinstellar.com, while others are piloting digital currencies and building fintech sandboxesen.vijesti.me. Talent density is rising, with strong universities and affordable operating costs. Competitors such as Solana and Binance Angels have begun to expand into the region, and there is an opportunity for Arbitrum to establish a first‑mover advantage. By proactively engaging regulators, supporting builders, and fostering community through education and grants, Arbitrum can secure market share and demonstrate real‑world applications of its technology.
Rationale –
Arbitrum’s mission is to scale Ethereum securely and foster a thriving ecosystem of builders, users and institutions. Establishing a regional program aligns with these goals by:
Expanding the user and developer base through accessible, low‑cost infrastructure and community education.
Demonstrating compliance and regulatory leadership, particularly in jurisdictions adopting MiCAkinstellar.com and exploring CBDCsledgerinsights.com.
Showcasing Arbitrum’s technical edge (e.g., Stylus for Rust, AnyTrust for data availability) in emerging markets where competitors have not yet secured dominance.
Building long‑term partnerships with universities, governments and enterprises to drive public‑sector use cases (identity, land registries, tokenisation).
Key Terms –
Arbitrum Balkan (AB): A regional program encompassing community, policy and development initiatives under a single budget and leadership structure.
Builders League: A cohort‑based builder program with bounties, mentorship and demo days.
Stylus Rust Track: Training and hackathons focused on Arbitrum’s Rust‑based smart contract environment (Stylus).
RWA & Compliance Lab: Workshops and pilot projects for real‑world asset tokenisation and compliance tooling.
TDI (Talent Density Index): A metric developed in the accompanying report to assess developer talent relative to population, GDP and English proficiency.
Specifications –
Platforms:
Arbitrum One & Nova: For public dApp deployment, hackathons and builder programs.
AnyTrust Chain: For use cases requiring low-cost data availability (e.g., public registries, micropayments).
DevRel Infrastructure: Regional Discord server, GitHub repositories and education portal (localized content in local languages).
Grant Management: On-chain grant disbursement via Arbitrum multisig with transparent tracking.
Technologies and Tools:
Stylus: Rust development environment enabling high‑performance smart contracts.
Orbit chains: For potential region‑specific subnets or institutional pilots.
Governance: Use of existing Arbitrum governance tooling (Snapshot, Tally) for community decisions on funding allocation.
Compliance: KYC/KYB providers integrated via plug‑ins, ensuring AML/CTF compliance where required.
Steps to Implement –
Establish Arbitrum Balkan Entity (Month 0–2):
Incorporate a not‑for‑profit entity under a friendly jurisdiction (e.g., Croatia or Serbia) to manage funds, hire local staff and liaise with governments.
Recruit a Regional Lead, Policy Lead, University Lead, Developer Relations Lead and Grants Operations Manager.
Policy & Government Engagement (Month 1–12):
Sign MOUs with at least two ministries or regulators. For example, align with Croatia’s MiCA implementation timeline (MiCA licences required by July 2026)kinstellar.com and support regulatory sandboxes in Montenegroen.vijesti.me.
Organise policy workshops and white‑papers; propose sandboxes for tokenisation, payments and identity.
University & Talent Program (Month 1–24):
Partner with top universities (University of Zagreb, University of Belgrade, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, etc.) to integrate Arbitrum into curricula and host hackathons.
Launch the Stylus Rust Track: produce tutorials, sponsor capstone projects and host a Rust‑only hackathon series.
Builders League & Grants (Month 3–24):
Initiate monthly bounty rounds (USD 5k–20k equivalent in ARB) focused on key verticals: ZK, DePIN, gaming, payments and public data.
Provide mentorship through Arbitrum community experts and local coaches.
Host quarterly demo days, awarding top projects with follow‑on grants or accelerator spots.
RWA & Compliance Lab (Month 3–18):
Conduct legal workshops with local law firms to clarify tokenisation, KYC and data protection requirements.
Fund proof‑of‑concept pilots: e.g., land registry on Arbitrum Nova, factoring platforms, or notary services.
Public Data & Indexing Initiative (Month 6–24):
Grant program for building Dune/IDX dashboards that track program KPIs, government statistics and public metrics.
Open‑source code and encourage contributions.
Jobs & Apprenticeships Board (Month 4–24):
Curate a regional jobs platform connecting Arbitrum projects with local talent.
Partner with existing job portals where possible and track hires.
Community Events & Marketing (Month 2–24):
Host at least two flagship hackathons (one in the Balkans, one in Greece), monthly meetups and university tours.
Launch localisation campaign: translate core documentation into Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, Albanian and Greek.
Timeline –
Start Date: Upon approval and funding release.
Milestones:
Month 2: Entity incorporation completed; regional team hired.
Month 6: First policy MOU signed; first university partnership launched; inaugural hackathon completed.
Month 12: At least 100 active builders onboarded; two regulatory sandboxes initiated; Builders League cycle three.
Month 18: First public‑sector pilot on Arbitrum Nova; TDI improved by 20% across region.
Month 24: Arbitrum Balkan self‑sustaining; evaluation for renewal or expansion.
Overall Cost –
The estimated 12‑month budget (base case) is USD 2.5 million equivalent in ARB, allocated as follows:
Core Team & Operations: USD 600k (salaries, entity formation, legal).
Thanks for you proposal - it’s very important to spread Arbitrum aroun the world
1. Why was the Balkan region chosen specifically?
Considering the linguistic and cultural diversity across these countries, has the team considered focusing on a more unified linguistic or economic region to simplify coordination and communication?
2. What makes these countries distinct from the rest of Europe?
It would be helpful to understand what makes this region particularly promising or different compared to other parts of Europe. What unique factors or opportunities justify this regional focus?
3. Will there be clear KPIs to evaluate the program?
To better assess the effectiveness of the initiative, it would be valuable to define measurable KPIs. These could help determine:
– whether the program goals were met,
– if the experiment was successful,
– and whether it should be continued or scaled.
4. Isn’t the proposed budget quite high for an experimental phase?
For a pilot initiative, the budget may seem a bit ambitious. Has the team considered starting with a narrower scope — for example, focusing first on developer engagement and university partnerships? This could reduce regulatory risk and allow for clearer impact evaluation
Gm @0xRecruiter! I congratulate you for this initiative, although I have to admit that it needs a bit more refinement.
As representative of ETH Bucharest (Romania) I tend to agree with the above comments of @paulofonseca and @galt42 that Romania and Bulgaria should also be included in this proposal.
I am happy to help you refine and brainstorm further on how we can make this a worth while proposal that will enusure actual value is created for @Arbitrum and local ecosystems of builders.
As a short reminder, ETH Bucharest has already partnered with @Arbitrum for both ETH Bucharest 2024 and 2025 editions. We also have organized the first IRL workshop and hackathon for Stylus. These being said, we already have a continuous partnership with Arbitrum that we, of course, would like to push forward.
We also have an MOU with FABIZ (Faculty of Business Administration) from the ASE University, and very close contacts with the National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA Bucharest. Thus, we are in pole position and will be happy to include Arbitrum in the future educational developments.
I have a couple of questions first:
Who is behind this proposal? Is it just you or do you already have idenfitied collaborators in each of the countries mentioned (Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania and Greece)? If so, would be great to add them to the proposal.
My personal view is that some of these countries will require a bootstrapping of the local communities. I might be wrong, but haven’t hear of much going on in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mountenegro and Albania. Again - I might be wrong, but an overview of the local Web3 ecosystem will help understand the starting point in these countries.
Please let me know if you are open to expand your team for this proposal with local representatives in order to make sure that this program is constructed in a way that will make sense for all stakeholders.
It is clear that a lot of research was done regarding the topic already.
I have a few questions:
Can you provide some context and numbers regarding this topic for the DAO to address the market opportunity here?
Can you provide some numbers from other European Countries, like Portugal, to make a comparison? Right now, it is not possible to say if those numbers are high or low.
Is this meant to try out a replicable template for other regions? Or is this mostly due to individual facts and circumstances around the developer ecosystem in these countries?
@raam mentioned the Arbitrum Open House concept at today’s GRC call. The first Open House is taking place in India. Maybe one of the future ones could be in the Balkans region?
This is a well-considered and interesting proposal. We agree that region-specific growth initiatives are currently underutilised within Arbitrum’s broader expansion strategy, and it’s encouraging to see this level of strategic thinking. Competing L2s like Base and Unichain are already making moves in this direction, so this localised effort could be valuable.
That said, based on the recent SOS discussions and workshops, there appears to be a growing consensus that Offchain Labs and the Arbitrum Foundation best handle growth and distribution. In line with this, we prefer these AAEs to evaluate and lead on regional ecosystem initiatives like this one, ensuring alignment with the broader network strategy.
We want to thank @0xRecruiter for the proposal and express our excitement about the possibility of targeting the Balkan region.
Regarding the proposed approach, we believe that it has more overhead than benefits.
Firstly, the AF and OCL have executed hyper-local programs without establishing local entities such as the Ambassador Program that cost-effectively scaled to 11 markets without having any local entity and we have driven year to date 400k engagements that drove 600M earned reach with 300+ active ambassadors. There is a 'Intro to the Arbitrum Foundation’s Ambassador Program’ governance call being hosted by the AF’s Ambassador Program team Monday (see recording), where they will share more about the program’s strategy and objectives, and answer any questions from the DAO. This could also help inspire ideas applicable to the Balkan region.
Secondly, university hackathons, builder grants, creation of job and apprentice boards, etc., can all be funded through existing DAO grant programs.
Thirdly, we would encourage the proposal author to narrow the discussion and illustrate what existing resource Arbitrum could leverage for the proposed purpose. For example, in addition to the blockchain meet-ups, innovation labs, and proposed hackathons/programs mentioned in the proposal; are there any existing blockchain university clubs in the region that we could target? What are some notable projects and teams in the region?
We want to thank @0xRecruiter for putting forward this proposal and to express our interest in the potential of targeting the Balkan region. It’s clear that the region offers unique opportunities for growth, policy engagement, and developer activation.
That said, we believe the current proposed approach may carry more operational overhead than necessary, seconding the Foundation’s points. The “core” teams have already executed hyper-local programs without the need for local entity formation.
Overall, see many of the proposed initiatives—university hackathons, builder grants, job and apprentice boards—falling well within the remit of existing DAO grant programs. Rather than starting from scratch, we think narrowing the proposal’s scope and identifying concrete existing resources within Arbitrum that could be leveraged.
For ex, to highlight some above comments and opinions, maybe working with existing blockchain university clubs or established teams already active in the region that could be tapped into immediately?
I like the idea of a regional ecosystem initiative, and the intent behind “Arbitrum Balkan” seems directionally right. However, there are areas that could be better tightened for scope and execution. If y’all are able to reframe this as a lean pilot that proves cost-per-retained-builder and integrates cleanly with existing Arbitrum rails, it could become a replicable template for other regions rather than a one-off program.
First, region definition and inclusion need clarity. The current “Balkan” label is a bit blurry right now: Romania and Bulgaria are the obvious pressure points. Either include them with a country-by-country plan and credible local partners, or rename to reflect the actual footprint. A phased rollout that prioritizes geographies where you already have traction, and then adds others once builder KPIs are met, would be way better.
Second, avoid creating a new legal entity in phase 1 and try to not duplicate what already exists. Map each activity to established rails: the Ambassador program for community activation, DAO/Questbook for micro-grants and bounties, and OCL DevRel for canonical content. Let’s ensure the initiative fills gaps rather than a rebuild of existing infrastructure. The Ambassador program has already shown you can reach a lot of people without spending big, as long as the execution is solid.
Third, right-size the budget and tranche it. A six-month pilot in a smaller $ budget range should unlock in clear stages: kickoff with localized Stylus materials; measurable reach and completions in a Stylus/Rust track; testnet deployments and a pipeline of teams; and finally, an Open-House–style event co-run with the Foundation and a public unit-economics post-mortem. Tying each tranche to specific deliverables will make it easier to evaluate impact.
If you revise along these lines, I’d be more than willing to support this proposal.
Thanks for putting this together. I’d love to get a clearer sense of what region-specific initiatives Arbitrum is already running today, and how this proposal would complement them. As others have noted, I’m a bit wary of duplicate efforts.
That said, I do think regional initiatives can be a powerful way to grow both the developer ecosystem and local mindshare. A good example is Solana’s Superteam, which started as a small India-first experiment with no treasury, just a gated Discord where contributors funneled small grants and bounties to local builders. Over time, that narrow scope evolved into a global talent platform that has now routed millions to contributors. It shows how grassroots groups can complement a foundation’s efforts by converting local talent and sustaining energy in ways a central team often can’t.
Where I’d be cautious is scope and overhead. A narrower, more targeted starting point feels more compelling – something like a university partnership or a few local meetups/hackathons, similar to how Superteam started small before scaling. If that gains organic traction, it would create a stronger case for a broader rollout and funding, ideally with a structure that can be replicated across other regions.
