Fund the Stylus Sprint

TLDR of changes made since Snapshot:

• Additional Evaluation Committee Members: SEEDGov and JoJo have agreed to join the evaluation committee.
• Soft Request “Cap”: Language was added to specify a soft request “cap” of 500k ARB (10% of the program budget), which is dependent on the total ARB requested in the program. Applicants requesting greater than 500k ARB may be sent to the DAO directly.
• MSS-controlled multi-sig: Additional clarification has been added that funds will be managed by a MSS controlled multi-sig along with Entropy Advisors acting in an “approver” role to process payments to winning applicants once KYC has been completed.
• Flexibility in Milestone Structure: Language has been revised to allow applicants to propose their own milestone structure.

Abstract

The ArbOS 31 “Bianca” onchain vote on Tally has passed and executed, activating Arbitrum Stylus on Arbitrum One and Nova. To bolster the impact of this upgrade, this proposal presents the one-time “Stylus Sprint” program, aimed at encouraging the early development of Stylus smart contracts and tooling by awarding up to 5,000,000 ARB to teams who build with Stylus. Applications will be open for 8 weeks with a 2 week review period and program length of 1 year. The Sprint will include a mix of open applications where teams are encouraged to be creative in their ideas as well as invitational/RFQs with strategically targeted objectives. The requested funding is intended to cover development costs, including hiring talent, training teams, adopting new tools, infrastructure expenses, and audits at the discretion of the recipient. This campaign’s primary objectives are to engage new and existing Arbitrum protocol teams with this novel technology, showcase use cases only feasible with Stylus, and create foundational Stylus building blocks for widespread use.

Interested teams must apply through a designated application process and grant recipients will be selected by an Evaluation Committee based on specific criteria detailed in this proposal. As the program progresses, participating teams will receive staged funding as they reach predefined and agreed-upon milestones, culminating in the deployment and long-term upkeep of their projects.

Motivation

Today, the Stylus ecosystem is promising but very nascent. At launch, the developer experience will be in its early stages, offering an opportunity for pioneers to shape and refine Stylus as they build with it. Teams building with Stylus today are early adopters of the technology and are pushing the limits of what is possible on the EVM.

The “Stylus Sprint” is strategically designed to accelerate the adoption of Stylus and help drive visibility into Stylus’ transformative potential to the broader crypto community. Launched in conjunction with Bianca passing, this program aims to strengthen the momentum of the upgrade, drawing significant adoption and attention to the technological advancements it introduces.

Stylus represents a pivotal innovation for the entire Ethereum ecosystem, setting Arbitrum apart from other platforms by enabling the use of multiple programming languages for smart contracts. This not only enhances the efficiency and capabilities of Arbitrum applications but also broadens the accessibility of Arbitrum’s ecosystem to a more diverse group of developers. By supporting smart contracts written in languages such as Rust, C, and C++, Stylus expands the scope of possible applications, unlocking untapped use cases for end users and making Arbitrum a more versatile and attractive platform for developers. This capability represents a tangible competitive advantage for Arbitrum, and it is crucial that this differentiator is prominently showcased via its use in high-value developments.

The “Stylus Sprint” will provide financial incentives to encourage the development of high-quality projects. This support aims to attract top-tier developers from within the Arbitrum, EVM, and Rust communities, targeting teams new to Arbitrum that can only realize their ideas with Stylus, existing Arbitrum projects with complex computation for migration, and developers from other WASM ecosystems (e.g., Solana Rust Devs), fostering a diverse range of applications. By demonstrating the practical benefits and performance enhancements Stylus offers, the program seeks to establish a robust portfolio of Stylus-based contracts, helping solidify Arbitrum’s position as a leader in the rollup race. The Sprint will also empower developers to create building blocks for a wide variety of projects building on Arbitrum such as reference contracts, Rust libraries, testing/development frameworks, and SDK contributions. Reference tooling and code are crucial to any development-based ecosystem’s staying power.

The Stylus Sprint aims to create a ripple effect of innovation and adoption, ultimately contributing to a more dynamic and capable Arbitrum ecosystem for developers, users, and token holders.

Rationale and Goals

1. Demonstrate the efficiency of, and untapped possibilities with, Stylus by showing how teams can build never-before-built protocols on Arbitrum and take advantage of Stylus’ efficiency and compute advantages.
2. Support network growth and accelerate the distribution of capital to both EVM and non-EVM protocols that migrate to Stylus to further drive network and ecosystem growth. This includes infrastructure as well as applications.
3. Attract top protocols from other ecosystems drawn by Stylus’ efficiency gains and multi-language support, which in turn will bring their user bases, increasing overall activity and transaction volume on the network.
4. Implement a strategy to distribute grants over extended periods and in alignment with the achievement of key milestones. This approach aims to cultivate enduring relationships with protocols and ensure sustained development and engagement.
5. Position Arbitrum as the most accessible, efficient, and powerful EVM-compatible ecosystem to build in.
6. Provide ample resources, support, and incentives to developers utilizing Stylus, fostering robust projects and vibrant communities. This will drive the long-term growth and success of Arbitrum.

Specifications

Application Process & RFP Details:

As mentioned, the Stylus Sprint program invites teams to submit applications either in the open-applications track or in response to lightweight Request for Proposals (RFPs, listed below) that target specific verticals, published by the Evaluation Committee. The below lists are non-exhaustive and serve as inspiration. Participants in the open track will have ample opportunity for innovation and creativity. All requests for both the open-application track and RFPs must be denominated in ARB.

For the open-application track, non-exhaustive categories may include:

• New developer-focused infrastructure or extensions of existing developer-focused infrastructure to improve the arsenal of tools available to Stylus builders;
• New applications that feature untapped use cases only made possible via Stylus, on Arbitrum One or new app chains using Stylus on Orbit chains;
• External WebAssembly (WASM) application or chain migrations (from ecosystems that use Rust for their smart contracts);
• Existing EVM application migrations from Solidity to Rust (e.g., an app rewriting a portion of their code using Stylus).

For the RFP track, the committee is excited to hear proposals from teams working on developing:

• Tooling to add support for new languages with Stylus to expand the reach and adoption of Stylus among developers. This can include new SDKs, EVM-tooling specific to the new language, and/or reference implementations and libraries for the new language. To get inspired for what languages might be interesting to see support get added for:
• AssemblyScript - a Typescript-based programming language optimized for, and statically compiled down to, WASM. Typescript is a widely used programming language, with 38.5% of all developers claiming to have used or currently use Typescript, compared to 12.6% for Rust according to Statista.
• Move - a resource-oriented, strongly typed programming language that offers built-in support for formal verification of code correctness. Originally developed by Meta for their Libra/Diem stablecoin, this language has gained popularity among emergent L1s like Flow, Aptos, and Sui. Adding Move support to Stylus and by extension the EVM opens the opportunity for Move-based applications to tap into the alr

... please visit link below to view full proposal

https://tally.xyz/gov/arbitrum/proposal/24926593791565028016457688578136747185250074804329950986605484216603582190563