NLnet Foundation Celebrates ARES Protocol Mainnet Launch: A Major Milestone Toward Building an Open Virtual World

August 1, 2025

Today, we are thrilled to witness the official mainnet launch of the ARES project, supported by NLnet Foundation. ARES is a decentralized protocol designed to power the infrastructure of virtual worlds. By packaging core capabilities like identity, assets, and spatial standards into an open, on-chain toolchain, ARES lays the technical groundwork for a new generation of composable, ownable, and portable virtual environments.

ARES Goes Live — A Real Leap Toward Decentralized Virtual Spaces

ARES was one of NLnet Foundation's 2024 grant recipients. Since the project's inception, we’ve provided strategic support, technical resources, and over $2 million in funding to help build the protocol, refine its open-source components, and grow its early community.

What sets ARES apart is not only its innovative concept of a "virtual world toolchain," but also its principled, values-driven approach:

A firm stance against closed platform monopolies — advocating for protocols over platforms;

A strong belief in modularity and composability, giving developers full creative freedom;

A deep respect for user ownership and mobility of identity and digital assets.

From identity systems to spatial interaction standards, asset protocols to native chain design, ARES is working to abstract the core elements of virtual worlds into open, reusable building blocks, empowering every developer to construct their own digital "world" within an open network.

Why Did NLnet Choose to Support ARES?

Since our founding in 1997, NLnet Foundation has remained committed to advancing open internet infrastructure, digital sovereignty tools, and the free software ecosystem. We've previously funded transformative projects such as Tor, GNUnet, Jitsi, and Nostr. However, ARES is our first protocol-level investment in the field of virtual space.

We believe:

The internet of the future is not just an information network, but a spatial network.

In that future, closed ecosystems should not dominate. Instead, open protocols must form the foundation of digital civilization.
ARES aims to make "internet spatial sovereignty" a tangible, governable, and transferable reality—something we believe the world urgently needs.

Through ARES, we hope to help shape a decentralized alternative to the platform-centric, corporate-controlled vision of the metaverse. At this early and formative stage of virtual space development, ARES offers a path grounded in public good and open governance.

Looking Ahead: Where Do We Hope ARES Will Go?

Our ambition is not short-term commercial hype, but the long-term sustainability and growth of an open protocol ecosystem.

We envision ARES becoming:

The standard toolkit for virtual world builders — as essential as a developer’s starter pack;

A protocol owned and evolved by the community, not dominated by any single entity;

A technical backbone powering hundreds or even thousands of virtual spaces.

We also hope to see more projects like ARES — not driven by speculation or hype cycles, but by a sincere mission to create network-native public goods that benefit all.

Airdrop Now Live — Inviting All Builders and Explorers

As part of today’s mainnet launch, ARES has officially opened its "Builder Airdrop Program", in collaboration with the community.
A total of $2 million worth of native assets and incentives will be distributed to:

Early users who participated in testing and feedback;

Developers who contributed tools, modules, or code;

Creators who designed virtual assets, scenes, and spatial narratives;

Community members who supported governance, collaboration, and content initiatives.

“The future of virtual worlds doesn’t belong to any single company — it belongs to everyone who chooses to help build it.”