I have nothing against Pancake, but it doesn’t feel right to see you apply a month after your Arbitrum deployment and ask for 500,000 ARB right off the bat. To be frank, it could easily be interpreted as very opportunistic timing, and doesn’t fit the requirements anyway.
Pancake is a top 15 DeFi protocol, second only to Uniswap in the DEX field. It generates 118m fees per year for an annualized revenue of 29m. I guess you have enough resources to survive for a few months and establish yourself without external help.
I’m sure Pancake can become a full part of the Arbitrum ecosystem if you are really committed to it. The deployment of Trader Joe and their success here has shown that the Arbitrum community is no sectarian, and will warmly welcome protocols from other ecosystems. There is no reason for you to not have a similar trajectory.
I think you should just wait for a few months so you can get a proper track record on the chain. Please remember that this program is a small short-term one, capped to 50m. The many native builders, small(er) protocols, and Arbitrum OGs that have supported the ecosystem for months and years should be the priority for this program.