Arbitrum awards largest-ever developer grant to South Korean giant Rakuten to promote Caliverse blockchain integration

PANews reported on January 8 that according to CoinDesk, the Ethereum Layer 2 network Arbitrum has awarded its largest developer grant in history to South Korea’s Lotte Group. Lotte Group is a multi-billion dollar conglomerate with operations in shopping malls, media and entertainment. The funding, provided by the Arbitrum Foundation, is intended to support Rakuten’s Metaverse gaming platform Caliverse and solidify Arbitrum’s position as its primary blockchain infrastructure provider.

Offchain Labs shared the news at the 2025 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. A representative for the company declined to disclose the exact amount of the funding "at this stage." The grant is technically awarded by the non-profit Arbitrum Foundation, which regularly issues grants in the form of ARB tokens to help fuel the growth of the Arbitrum ecosystem.

Rakuten showed interest in the Metaverse as early as 2022 and reached a strategic cooperation with Arbitrum last year. Caliverse is Rakuten's testing ground for exploring artificial intelligence, virtual reality and encryption technologies, where users can experience virtual shopping, concerts and other media content. Currently, Caliverse has cooperated with 7-Eleven, Tomorrowland Music Festival, and fashion brands such as Givenchy and MCM.