At 13:43 UTC on October 15, 2026, the Arbitrum Foundation opened its Stablecoin Growth Program to protocols with at least $1M in stablecoin balances. The program asks accepted teams to make $USDG their primary stablecoin on Arbitrum One. Its headline award is a 2M $ARB pool for the first 10 participants to reach a 30-day average balance of $10M in $USDG.
The award is only one part of the program. Arbitrum says accepted teams may receive performance-based incentives as their $USDG activity grows. The support package may also include marketing resources, partner introductions, integration help, direct access to the ecosystem team, and potential access to the DeFi Renaissance Incentive Program.
How the award works
Each of the first 10 qualifying teams may receive up to 200,000 $ARB. The program terms cap each award at a maximum USD value of $200,000. A team must be accepted into the program, execute an agreement with the Foundation, and submit evidence that the Foundation accepts. The qualifying balance is a 30-day average of $10 million in $USDG on the participant’s product or project.
The terms give the Foundation reasonable efforts to pay within 21 days after all onboarding requirements are satisfied. Each participant can receive the balance grant once. The 2M $ARB pool remains available until 23:59 UTC on December 31, 2027, although the Foundation reserves the right to modify, replace, or cancel it under circumstances outside its control.
The process has separate application and award gates. Meeting the $1M entry threshold permits a protocol to apply, but the Foundation still decides whether to accept it. Acceptance then leads to onboarding and an agreement. Only a participant with an executed agreement can submit evidence for the balance grant. The Foundation must accept that evidence before an award is due. A team that records the required 30-day average without completing those steps has not met the published grant conditions.
The one-payout rule also changes how a team may approach the target. Crossing the threshold qualifies a participant for one balance grant rather than a recurring payment for maintaining the same balance. The performance-based incentives are a different component and depend on growth terms in the private agreement. The public offer therefore combines a fixed competition for 10 balance grants with a separate incentive schedule that applicants cannot calculate from the announcement alone.
The additional performance-based incentives are less specific in the public documents. The terms say the later agreement will contain the $USDG holding requirements, the calculation method, and the consequences of non-performance. Accepted teams are expected to reinvest those incentives into growing $USDG adoption on their product. Operators therefore know the balance grant thresholds before applying, but they will not know the full economics of the separate performance incentives until they receive the agreement.
Who can apply
The program covers decentralized exchanges, lending and borrowing markets, yield or vault products, and payment or settlement protocols. The Foundation can approve other categories in writing. A protocol must be live on Arbitrum One or intended for deployment there, and its smart contracts must have been audited by a reputable third party.
Applicants must maintain at least $1M in stablecoin balances when they apply and a monthly minimum of $1M throughout the program. They must support $USDG on Arbitrum One and designate it as their primary supported stablecoin. The announcement describes the target more broadly as stablecoin-centric protocols that use $USDG as their preferred stablecoin, collateral, or on-ramp asset.
Acceptance is discretionary. It does not guarantee funding or an agreement. Successful applicants must complete onboarding, including KYC and AML checks. Protocols already receiving an incentive, grant, or similar arrangement from ArbitrumDAO, the Foundation, the $USDG issuer, or a partner program are ineligible unless they disclose the arrangement and obtain written approval.
The final agreement may impose product and token exclusivity. The published terms say this can include deploying the protocol exclusively on Arbitrum, future product exclusivity, and token deployment exclusivity. That condition matters for multichain teams. The program offers liquidity support, but participation may constrain where a team launches later versions or tokens. The exact obligation will depend on the agreement sent after acceptance.
The starting point for USDG
DefiLlama’s stablecoin API recorded $33.6 million of $USDG circulating on Arbitrum on October 17. Its Arbitrum series recorded $3.82 billion of dollar-pegged assets on the chain on the same date. The program’s $10M product-level target is therefore material relative to the $USDG already recorded on Arbitrum, while $USDG remains one asset within a much larger stablecoin market on the network.
USDG is fully backed and redeemable one-to-one for US dollars, according to the Global Dollar Network. Paxos Digital Singapore issues it under supervision of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Paxos Issuance Europe also issues it under FIN-FSA supervision and in compliance with MiCA.
For a lending market or automated market maker, the practical commitment is more than listing another asset. The protocol must make $USDG primary, maintain its own $1M stablecoin minimum, and build enough sustained use to average $10 million in $USDG for 30 days if it wants the balance grant. For a payments product, the same rules apply even if $USDG enters through an on-ramp rather than a liquidity pool.
Applications are open through the Foundation’s form, with no closing date stated for general participation. The dated deadline applies to the balance grant pool. The next fixed milestone is 23:59 UTC on December 31, 2027, unless the 10 qualifying slots are filled first or the Foundation changes the pool. The unresolved variable for applicants is the private agreement, particularly its performance formula and any exclusivity requirement.
