We voted Against in the Snapshot temperature check.
We understand the concern behind this proposal, since most of the DAO’s costs are in dollars while its revenue comes in ETH and other volatile tokens. That mismatch can be addressed by converting revenue as it arrives, and the ATMC already holds around $66M in money market funds and stablecoins. It does not by itself justify committing an additional 100M ARB to USDG growth, alongside AEP fee conversions and treasury allocations to a single issuer’s stablecoin. We are also not convinced the GDN line is as uncorrelated as described. Supply growth would be driven by ARB-denominated incentives whose dollar value falls when ARB declines, and rewards are paid from the yield on USDG reserves, which moves with interest rates.
The key economics are not disclosed. Delegates are asked to vote without knowing the terms of Arbitrum’s GDN agreement, which entity receives the rewards, or what revenue to expect, while the text notes that the OAT and the AAEs are read in on parameters that cannot be published. Most rewards would be reinvested during a growth phase with no defined end, and the proposal does not specify what share of rewards will reach the treasury management portfolio during that phase or when that share will increase.
The proposal leaves the OAT to establish KPIs rather than specifying them for delegates before the vote, and we think they should be known before funds are approved. When we studied spending at Lido, Aave, Sky and Uniswap in 2023–2025, only 14 of 58 major spending and incentive decisions stated a goal in terms of public metrics, and growth incentives showed mixed results a year later (cp0x study). The DRIP Season 1 data @NikitaOnchain shared above also shows uneven retention, with four of the six lending protocols below their pre-campaign borrowing levels 180 days later. The proposal more than doubles the program’s remaining budget without publishing retention targets or tying the taper to results. Phased deployment tied to milestones and clear treasury exposure limits were also raised earlier in this thread, and we think both should be in place before funds are committed.
The mandate is broad and hard to unwind. The list of ATMC actions, including bilateral deals with protocols, is explicitly open-ended. DRIP expands to POL, liquidity arrangements and deals with integrating teams whose terms are difficult to assess from outside. The remaining separate seasons are also merged into a single USDG-focused season. Conversion covers already accrued AEP fees as well, without quantitative slippage limits or OTC execution requirements disclosed in the proposal. If the program is ended, only uncommitted funds return to the treasury, spent incentives cannot be recovered, and existing positions may need to be unwound.
The plan also concentrates a growing share of treasury value in one issuer’s stablecoin, chosen through a review of issuers that has not been published and without a USDG-specific exposure cap disclosed in the proposal. Finally, four separate decisions are bundled into a single ballot, so delegates cannot express support for individual components through their vote.