Arbitrum (@arbitrum): Ecosystem Spotlight: January Highlights

Ecosystem Spotlight: January Highlights Variational Shows Product Market Fit Success Despite current market conditions, general adoption for the Arbitrum ecosystem remains on an upward trajectory. Variational achieved $136B total volume traded, $1B+ in open interest, 28K+ weekly users and $2M in bi-weekly revenue. Deep liquidity, predictable costs, smooth fees and fast confirmations are key foundations for perps like Variational to get product market fit and we're thrilled to see them having success on Arbitrum since launch. Fiat24 Transaction Growth is Booming On another note, Fiat24, an onchain payments platform has recently experienced a massive period of growth, with transactional activity increasing by 1,286% YoY. To put it into perspective, Fiat24 currently processes approximately 1.75M monthly transactions, up from an already impressive 126K. This goes to show that onchain payments are an extremely important, and in-demand sector of the industry that is continuing to grow in the face of a quiet market. Bleap Successfully Closes $6M Funding Round Returning to the realm of onchain payments, Bleap, the highly anticipated payments platform, successfully raised $6M to fund the development of their app. This funding will go towards building and scaling their app to users all around the world, offering competitive features that rival even the best payments platforms out there. Bleap will focus specifically on stablecoin payments, using a much more decentralized protocol architecture than what users would typically experience with traditional centralized systems. Bleap will also feature their own payment card, offering competitive rewards such as 2% cashback on every purchase, and up to an 8% annual equivalent rate (AER). Monerium Facilitating Regulatory Compliant Movement of Euros on Arbitrum Onchain payments are one thing, but bridging the gap between fiat and stablecoins is another matter entirely. Monerium is a project that enables the movement of Euros between regular bank accounts and Arbitrum wallets in the form of a stablecoin called EURe. Additionally, EURe is a productive stable asset, because it can be used to participate in various DeFi strategies throughout the Arbitrum ecosystem, which often house more impressive yields than what a person would typically earn by merely holding Euros in a regular bank account. Monerium offers users a seamless payments experience, providing a fast service that does not involve exchanging accounts, and also removes a number of unnecessary intermediary steps that would otherwise lead to increased friction and a lesser experience. Sky sees Parabolic Market Growth on Arbitrum The Sky protocol is seeing immense growth within the Arbitrum ecosystem, with the sUSDS stablecoin experiencing an impressive growth spurt of 240%, bringing the total market cap of the stablecoin to just north of $350M. For those who do not know, USDS is the stablecoin that powers the Sky ecosystem, providing new and innovative ways for the user to have a better, more rewarding onchain experience.