PANews reported on January 8 that according to CoinDesk, Ethereum Layer2 network Arbitrum has awarded the largest developer grant in its history to South Korea's Lotte Group. Lotte Group is a multi-billion dollar conglomerate with businesses in shopping malls, media and entertainment. The grant is provided by the Arbitrum Foundation to support Lotte's metaverse gaming platform Caliverse and consolidate Arbitrum's position as its main blockchain infrastructure provider.
Offchain Labs shared the news at the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. A representative for the company declined to disclose the specific amount of the grant “at this stage.” The grant was technically awarded by the nonprofit Arbitrum Foundation, which periodically issues grants in the form of ARB tokens to help advance the Arbitrum ecosystem.
Lotte showed its interest in the metaverse as early as 2022 and reached a strategic cooperation with Arbitrum last year. Caliverse is Lotte's testing ground for exploring artificial intelligence, virtual reality and encryption technology, where users can experience a variety of media content such as virtual shopping and concerts. Currently, Caliverse has cooperated with 7-Eleven, Tomorrowland Music Festival, and fashion brands such as Givenchy and MCM.
