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Onchain Labs — Accelerating the App Layer of Arbitrum

In collaboration with The Arbitrum Foundation, we are excited to announce Onchain Labs, a new program aimed at accelerating innovative onchain experiences on Arbitrum.

Offchain Labs (OCL) revolutionized Ethereum in 2021 by launching Arbitrum One, one of the first optimistic rollups. Since then, we’ve consistently pushed innovation boundaries—launching an AnyTrust chain, creating Orbit for permissionless chain deployment, enabling development in familiar languages like Rust, strategically acquiring Prysm in 2022 to advance the Ethereum ecosystem, and growing the Tandem partner studio and venture capital arm.

Our ongoing work focuses on scaling throughput with an alternative client, enhancing Arbitrum with ZK integration, and improving the Ethereum experience through our Universal Intents Engine. These contributions have positioned Arbitrum as one of the most performant ecosystems in the space — and we’re just getting started.

As others play catch up, we now have a unique opportunity to empower the Arbitrum application layer.

As original builders of the chain and active users of Arbitrum applications, we have both a deep technical understanding of how to fully harness Arbitrum’s technology and crucial insights into what users truly want. We’ve generated plenty of ideas for game-changing apps — similar to how we continue to push boundaries on the infra level — but recognize we can’t build all of these ourselves. Through Onchain Labs, we’re dedicating resources to support developers looking to rapidly expand the application layer by ideating with them from the ground floor to bring the best user experiences to Arbitrum. As we do with many Arbitrum teams, we’ll provide certain product, IT, and GTM support to these early-stage projects, collaborating closely to help their applications thrive on Arbitrum.

Arbitrum boasts both the best technology and the best talent. With Offchain Labs’ support, we’re confident we’ll see industry-leading applications that are uniquely possible on Arbitrum. We’re excited to roll up our sleeves and work alongside the community to make this happen.

But building infrastructure and applications is only one part of the puzzle. Alignment is equally important. We’ve seen how extractive ecosystems create zero-sum games, where only a few profit at the expense of others. This stands in stark contrast to the core ethos of crypto.

As an industry, we can — and must — do better.

Onchain Labs will only support projects that commit to fair and equitable launches. This is essential for fostering community alignment. There’s no reason why all participants in an ecosystem can’t succeed together.

Projects supported by Onchain Labs will be experimental and volatile. We encourage all participants to do their own research (DYOR) before purchasing any tokens affiliated with Onchain Labs projects or interacting with them. Our role will be focused strictly on product and go-to-market advice. Tandem may or may not purchase associated tokens in public markets.

The first Onchain Labs project will soon emerge from stealth. If you’re a talented team interested in receiving Onchain Labs’ support, fill out this form, and we’ll be in touch.

See you in the trenches 🫡