Last Updated: March 28, 2026
We're excited to announce that Ostium has been awarded a grant from the Arbitrum Foundation, one of the leading Ethereum Layer 2s. This support will accelerate our development efforts and help bring the diversity of traditional market assets to the blockchain ecosystem in the form of leveraged perpetuals, combining the transparency and security of DeFi with the diverse asset selection of traditional trading platforms.
The Arbitrum Foundation grant will accelerate several key initiatives:
- Incentivized trading contests and their reward pools
- New product launches and feature updates
- Improved core infrastructure
Grant impact (Updated March 2026)
Area
Outcome
Trading incentive programs
Multiple mainnet trading contests with USDC prize pools, driving early user acquisition and volume growth.
Product development
V2 platform relaunch (March 2025) with true market spreads and industry-leading fees, dynamic spreads feature for lower-liquidity assets (November 2025), and OLP vault overhaul with auto-withdrawals (June 2025).
Asset expansion
From ~15 tradable assets at time of grant to 50+ markets, including single-name equities (NVDA, TSLA, MSFT, COIN), global indices (FTSE, DAX, Nikkei), and new FX pairs.
Cumulative volume
Platform trading volume has grown from ~$5 billion at time of grant to over $33 billion — a 6x+ increase.
Unlike traditional FX trading platforms, Ostium's blockchain-based architecture ensures that no one can restrict individual trading activity, limit withdrawals, or control user assets. All platform metrics – from fees and volumes to user numbers and liquidity – are fully transparent and publicly verifiable.
This grant represents a milestone in our mission to bridge TradFi and DeFi, offering traders a truly permissionless and transparent alternative to centralized platforms. For more information about Ostium, visit our documentation or join our Discord community.