It’s an exciting day for RWA’s on Arbitrum as the pilot phase of the RWA Innovation Grants program (RWAIG) goes live!
Abstract
The RWAIG is a 2-month initiative, in partnership with Gitcoin, that aims to support the development and integration of RWAs on the Arbitrum network. With a funding allocation of 300k ARB, the program targets three key categories: Building, Research, and Awareness. The program is opening for applications as of June 17th.
What?
The RWAIG aims to offer comprehensive support across the lifecycle of RWA development on Arbitrum and kickstart the RWA vertical on Arbitrum. By partnering with experts from top RWA-focused projects like Chainlink, Securitize, PV01, Libre Capital, Centrifuge, and RWA.xyz, the RWAIG ensures quality and consistency in the development of the Arbitrum RWA ecosystem. Moreover, having a ‘guiding hand’ for projects aiming to deploy will enable tighter integrations between new and existing projects. We’ve designed the program in alignment with existing RWA initiatives on Arbitrum, such as STEP, to facilitate the integration of RWAs onto the network and increase the TVL of top DeFi apps on Arbitrum, like GMX, Aave, and Pendle.
Why?
Through our RWA education sessions and other forum discussions, it’s apparent that RWAs are a critical vertical for Arbitrum to develop. JPMC estimates tokenisation can add $400B in annual revenue for the alts industry and tokenised private credit is only 0.4% of the global market, demonstrating the high growth potential. RWAs currently only constitute 1.1% of Arbitrum’s grants while competitors like Polygon and Avalanche progressing fast.
How?
For this pilot phase, the total size of the fund will be 300k ARB and will be distributed over a 2-month period from 17 June to 16 August, with the review period beginning on 19 June. The program integrates quadratic and direct funding mechanisms in partnership with Gitcoin, with 100k ARB allocated to QF and 200K allocated to direct funding. RWAIG funding targets 3 categories, including suggested deliverables within each:
Building
Deployment of RWAs: [1-3] Number of innovative RWA projects launched or in the process of launching on Arbitrum.
Strengthening Analytics: [1-2] Number of analytics tools or dashboards developed.
Advancing RWA Token Standards
Research
Publish Research Reports: [2-3] Number of research reports published as outcome target, incl. assessment of cost-saving for new RWA projects to deploy on Arbitrum with use of the research.
Awareness
Drive Awareness to Arbitrum as the Home of RWAs: [2-3] Number of awareness content pieces.
We’ll be hosting a X Spaces AMA to share all program details next Wednesday at 15:00 CET. Should you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to reach out.
Finally, we’d like to extend our gratitude to ThankArb for making this program possible. Thank you!
2 questions:
Is there a lens to this on impact at all?
If we want to change the financial system which I believe is why everyone is here, investing in the same assets as TradFi doesn,t change anything does it?
The ReFi sector has many non traditional impactful RWAs.
Is this on the radar at all?
If Arbitrum is to be pitched as the “Home of RWA’s” I would love to know why it should be, what are the proof points of this? What RWA projects are already on the chain or in development? Why is it better than others? Sorry I am new here if these questions are obvious.
The Arbitrum RWA Innovation Grant (RWAIG) Program is heading towards the end of its pilot phase, and we are pleased to present this mid-term report that aims to highlight the progress and learnings under the program.
To date, we have received a total of 37 applications under the program across all funding areas, of which 21 applications progressed to Stage 2 of the application process. Following a rubric review by the Expert Committee, a total of 5 grantees were selected in Batch 1, to whom a total of 198,400 ARB is to be distributed (~66% of a total fund of 300k ARB).
The grantees are across 3 streams: Building - Deployment of RWAs, Building - Strengthening Analytics, and Research, and constitute the following projects:
RWA Research - Helping Builders and Users;
Arbitrum RWA Analytics Dashboard - PYOR;
Mystic Finance;
Jia;
Frictionless Institutional Cash & Deposit Tokens.
We aim to allocate the remaining (~34%) of funds by the end of August, and Batches 2 (6 applicants) and 3 (3 applicants) are currently in review by the Expert Committee.
II. Background and Scope
a. Background of the RWAIG
The RWA Innovation Grants program (RWAIG) is a 2-month initiative, in partnership with Gitcoin, that aims to offer comprehensive support across the lifecycle of RWA development on Arbitrum and kickstart the RWA vertical on the chain.
By partnering with experts from top RWA-focused projects like Chainlink, Securitize, PV01, Libre Capital, Centrifuge, and RWA.xyz, the RWAIG ensures quality and consistency in the development of the Arbitrum RWA ecosystem. Moreover, having a ‘guiding hand’ for projects aiming to deploy will enable tighter integrations between new and existing projects.
The program allocates 300,000 ARB to projects across three categories: Building, Research and Awareness and looks to target more advanced projects that could deploy on Arbitrum in the short to medium term and help kickstart the ecosystem, serving as a positive flywheel for smaller projects.
b. Funding Areas
The RWAIG targeted the following three funding areas:
Building
Deployment of RWAs
Strengthening Analytics
Advancing RWA Token Standards
Research
Awareness
c. Program Structure
Program Date: 17 June - 16 August
Fund Size: 300k ARB
Funding Mechanism
Our original plan was to allocate the total grants fund using both Quadratic Funding (100K ARB) and Direct Funding (200K) ARB. However, we made a switch to use Direct Funding as our singular funding mechanism. Upon discussions with stakeholders within the Thank ARB ecosystem and Arbitrum delegates, we decided to move away from Quadratic Funding.
Given the nuance and nascency of the RWA space, we felt it would be better to allocate all funding through Direct Funding the Expert Committee in this instance to surgically kick-start the vertical on Arbitrum. Leaning on the Expert Committee’s experience and knowledge is a more targeted way of enabling the growth of the RWA space, which requires a keen understanding of traditional finance and legal and regulatory topics in addition to the more crypto-native knowledge that the Arbitrum community possesses. As such, while we believe that QF has a place to play in the continued growth of the RWA space on Arbitrum, we think it is more suited to a time when RWAs are more firmly established in the Arbitrum landscape.
Application Process
The RWAIG program application process followed two phases:
Stage 1: The general Gitcoin application round, open to all RWAIG applicants.
Stage 2: A more focused and in-depth diligence application for selected projects that have passed the review from Stage 1 applications. Stage 2 applications are completed via Airtable.
d. Program Managers & Committees
RWAIG Committee
The RWAIG program is run and operated by a team from Areta and Gitcoin, both deeply involved in Arbitrum and experienced in managing grants:
@Bernard_Areta, Bernard Schmind (Co-Founder & Governance Lead, Areta)
@Sid_Areta, Siddharth Shah (VP of Strategic Governance, Areta)
The RWAIG has partnered with experts from top RWA-focused projects like Chainlink, Securitize, PV01, Libre Capital, Centrifuge, and RWA.xyz. The key function of the Expert Committee is to ensure quality assurance by providing support and input to the RWAIG Committee on the program operation and evaluation criteria design.
We’d like to thank Colin Cunningham (Chainlink), Jonathan Espinosa (Securitize), Sophia Schluger & Manuela Warnier (PV01), Shrey Rastogi (Libre Capital), Eli Cohen (Centrifuge), and Adam Lawrence (RWA.xyz) for lending their time to the RWAIG! It would not have been possible to reach the high quality of the program without their guidance and expertise.
III. Achievements and Progress
a. Operations Overview
So far, a total of 37 applications have been received across all three funding areas, with Building: Deployment of RWAs receiving the most interest from applicants.
Expert Committee Engagement
The RWAIG Committee kicked off our engagement providing the Expert Committee with a comprehensive briefing document that detailed key aspects of the program such as the funding mechanisms, funding areas and KPIs, timelines and the application process. We also scheduled a kick-off call to walk the Expert Committee through the program briefing document.
We established key infrastructure to support the program such as the application questions (Stage 1 and Stage 2), evaluation criteria and review rubric for assessing applications and the RWAIG Hub which serves as the central hub for the public on all relevant details about the program. We created an application flow that outlined all of this to the Expert Committee.
In designing the application questions and the review rubric we sought extensive feedback from the Expert Committee who ratified the final versions of both documents.
Once a project passed from Stage 1 (Gitcoin) to Stage 2 (Airtable), we created overview documents for each applicant for the Expert Committee to review. See an example Overview Document for one of the grantees, ‘RWA Research - Helping Builders and Users’ here.
We created Review Worksheets per project to be reviewed by an Expert Committee member, which included the review rubric for each stream, a column to enter the score in per rating criteria, and space to write a rationale per reviewed project.
Lastly, we sent over the projects to be reviewed by the Expert Committee per batch by creating individual ‘Application Review Overviews’ including 1) the projects to be reviewed by each member, 2) the overview document per project, 3) the review rubric to be used per project, and 4) the review worksheet to be used by the Expert Committee member.
Marketing
We set up marketing infrastructure for the RWAIG program which includes dedicated social accounts across different platforms (X/Twitter, Telegram, Farcaster). Please find more information about our marketing efforts in the dedicated section below.
Transparency & Reporting
We created a central Notion hub for the RWAIG, which included key details about the program, such as the grant application process, evaluation criteria, reporting and tracking updates, program success metrics, and funded grantees.
So far, we have received a total of 37 applications across all funding areas. We received the most number of applications in the funding areas Building: Deployment of RWAs (26) and Awareness (7).
Out of all 37 applications that we received, 21 applications progressed to Stage 2 of the application process.
Following a rubric review by the Expert Committee, a total of five (5) grantees were selected in Batch 1, in which a total of 11 applications were assessed in Stage 2 of the application process.
The Expert Committee is currently in the process of reviewing Batch 2, which consists of 6 applications. Batch 3, the final batch to be sent to the Expert Committee for review, consists of 3 applications selected to move to Stage 2.
c. Milestone Setting & Progress Tracking
The RWAIG team has scheduled meetings with the selected grantees for the purpose of setting project milestones and deliverables. We will also be defining reporting standards and processes for the selected grantees and setting up a regular check-in schedule for the purpose of tracking their progress and ensuring the completion of milestones.
d. Financial Overview
A total grant amount of 198,400 ARB is to be disbursed to the selected grantees, based on their grant requests. As of now, the grants payments are yet to be disbursed to the selected grantees and will commence once the necessary KYC/KYB verifications, execution of contracts and milestone setting is complete. Payments will be made directly by the Thrive Impact Foundation and will be tied to the completion of milestones.
IV. Community Engagement & Marketing
a. Community Engagement
We used several channels to interact, receive feedback, and share resources with the community. We did this through social channels (Forum, Twitter, Farcaster). Notably, we created a Telegram group for the community, where we shared regular RWA/RWAIG related updates. We interacted with the community through the following public events:
Arbitrum RWA Education Sessions: As a way of driving more engagement and creating awareness in the Arbitrum community on the topic of RWAs, we held education sessions with presentations from industry leaders such as Chainlink, Karpartkey, and Gauntlet. We allowed the community to engage these experts through an open-ended Q&A session. Details about the session can be found here.
X/Twitter Spaces AMA: Shortly after the RWAIG program launch, we held an AMA/community call session to provide more information about the RWAIG program and take questions from the community.
b. Marketing Sprints
The RWAIG team ran the following marketing sprints in order to bring more awareness about the RWAIG program to potential grantees:
Marketing Sprint 1: To launch the RWAIG, we ran marketing campaigns with targeted messaging aimed at introducing the program to potential applicants as well as generating general awareness of the program within the ecosystem. We did this through several social channels including Twitter, LinkedIn, Arbitrum Forum, Farcaster, and Telegram. We sought and received marketing support from members of the Expert Committee, leveraging their networks to bring more attention to the program.
Marketing Sprint 2: To drive up the number of grant applications received, we ran a second marketing sprint, placing emphasis on application deadlines and program closure. We did this through our social channels and with marketing support from the Expert Committee.
V. Key Learnings
a. Change in Program Funding Mechanism
As outlined in the ‘Background and Scope’ section above, we received feedback from delegates in the Arbitrum ecosystem to focus our funding mechanism squarely on Direct Funding and for this pilot phase, not focus on Quadratic Funding. Please find our reasoning for doing so in the above section.
b. Notion as a Collaboration Mechanism
For some Expert Committee members, using Notion as the central hub for conducting reviews and accessing all information proved to be challenging. Some links opened as web links, while others opened as new tabs in Notion. There was inconsistent switching between the browser and app, which caused issues.
c. Review Timelines
Due to their busy schedules, it proved to be slightly difficult to effectively coordinate all Expert Committee members to provide reviews in a timely manner. While the Overview Documents and the review process were as streamlined as possible and we got positive feedback from the Expert Committee on our process, we would suggest expanding the committee and timelines next time around for ease of coordination and managing varying schedules.
d. Volume of Applications
For a 2-month program in a relatively nuanced area, receiving 37 grant applications was significant. We would have loved to 1) allocate more funding towards deserving projects, 2) linked funding even more tightly to milestone completion, and 3) helped support these projects in the long-run from an ecosystem support perspective. As such, we think the RWA ecosystem on Arbitrum will benefit from more sustained support over the longer term.
e. Alignment with Existing Arbitrum RWA Initiatives
We received feedback that it was important to highlight (as we did) the complementary nature of the RWAIG with the existing Stable Treasury Endowment Program (STEP) on Arbitrum. We also plan to align the RWAIG under the broader RWA strategy for Arbitrum, which we are taking the lead in defining.
VI. Way Forward
Over the next few weeks, as the RWAIG’s pilot comes to an end, we plan on:
Finalizing the last few grantees to be approved under the program and disbursing the allocation of 300k ARB that the program has;
Setting up milestones, funding plans, and check-ins with approved grantees;
Set up an end-of-program call with the Arbitrum community to showcase the progress on the RWAIG, inclusive of the Expert Committee;
Set up Educational Show & Tell sessions for RWAIG grantees to present their projects to the Arbitrum DAO;
Drafting a plan for the future of the RWAIG and RWAs on Arbitrum in alignment with Arbitrum’s broader strategy on RWAs.
Although the RWAIG program is yet to come to its final conclusion, we have already achieved a lot and are excited about the results of this pilot phase. We are thankful to everyone who has contributed to the success of this program so far. Special mention goes to the Thrive Impact Foundation for funding this initiative, and the Expert Committee for all their input on the program to date.
To find all info: RWAIG Information Hub
