ADPC Update Thread (Phase I)

Hello, everyone! We’re excited to share with the community the Arbitrum DAO Procurement Committee (ADPC) reporting updates from our first 2 months of operation.

The first 2 months have seen strong progress, with the publication of the Subsidy Fund proposal and the creation of the Means Test. We are also in the process of setting up the procurement framework RFP to whitelist security service providers for the DAO, which will be published by May 1.

This thread will be used to update the Arbitrum DAO about the progress made by the Arbitrum DAO Procurement Committee (ADPC). The post will cover 3 sections:

I. ADCP’s mandate and the work done towards fulfilling the mandate;
II. Timeline and Open Items;
IIi. Transparency, i.e., links to the ADPC’s meeting minutes, public Notion page, and bi-weekly call recordings.

I. ADPC’s Mandate & Progress

As ratified by this Tally vote, the ADPC was created on February 8 2024, with an initial mandate of 6 months, extending until August 8 2024.

We will break down the progress we have made for each of the ADPC’s mandate points:

:one: The primary mandate of the ArbitrumDAO Procurement Committee (ADPC) is to oversee and facilitate the recently ratified procurement framework for security-oriented service providers within the Arbitrum Ecosystem, as per the following reference: Snapshot. In this capacity, the ADPC bears the responsibility of diligently executing the steps essential to implement the aforementioned procurement framework in a manner characterized by transparency and efficiency.

  • The ADPC is currently in the process of setting up the procurement framework RFP to whitelist security service providers for the DAO.
  • The RFP includes a Framework Agreement which outlines detailed considerations around general provisions of the framework, administration of the framework, financial provisions, personnel, information management, risk management, IP rights, termination and dispute, delivery, security, and reporting. The RFP also includes an Order Form and Contract Details for all applicants.
  • The first draft of the RFP has been created and is currently being vetted and reviewed internally by the ADPC.
  • The aim is for the ADPC to publish the RFP by May 1, with applications needing to be submitted 4 weeks after the RFP being published and a subsequent review period consisting of 4 weeks, which will be a rolling process where the ADPC will approve applicants through the course of this period. We aim to have the service providers white-listed by the end of June.

:two: The ADPC will be tasked with researching & drafting a proposal to the ArbitrumDAO to set up a subsidy-fund for security-oriented services that will be used to subsidize the costs for security-services for smaller projects within the Arbitrum Ecosystem.

As you can see, the Subsidy Fund proposal has been drafted and shared with the DAO. The proposal is up for vote on Snapshot. We have also created Grant Application T&Cs for any applicants which you can find here. Applications for subsidies will only start getting accepted after service providers are white-listed.

:three: The ADPC will be tasked with researching & implementing a framework that will establish a set of qualitative & quantitative metrics that will be utilized so as to assess a project’s eligibility for the ‘Subsidy Fund’ referred to in point [b] above. This ‘Means Test’ (as referred to in traditional administrative practices), will be bundled in with the proposal that will set up the subsidy fund referred to in [b]. The Means Test will be used to assess whether a project is eligible for security service-fee subsidies. Initially, this methodology will only be applied to security-oriented services. However, this does not preclude the application of this same concept to other verticals within the ArbitrumDAO.

The Means Test is included as part of the Subsidy Fund proposal and you can find it in the same forum post.

:four: The ADPC will be tasked with establishing procurement frameworks for a myriad of verticals/service-types that the ArbitrumDAO could need in the foreseeable future. This proactive approach towards procurement will naturally aid in ensuring that projects within the Arbitrum Ecosystem have immediate access to high-quality whitelisted service providers when the need arises. In this regard, all procurement frameworks developed by the ADPC will need to be ratified through a Snapshot vote by the ArbitrumDAO.

Given our focus on establishing the procurement framework for security service providers and creating the Subsidy Fund, we have not worked on establishing any other procurement frameworks yet. However, we are in conversations with BlockScience to take the findings of their report to develop Expert Service Provider Networks for Arbitrum forward and identify the best process for outlining the next procurement frameworks for the DAO to create. As these conversations become more advanced, we will provide further updates on this thread.

:five: The ADPC will be tasked with creating & communicating guidance notes & circulars that will substantiate & provide additional detail in relation to any procurement framework that is ratified by the ArbitrumDAO from time to time. The aim of these guidance notes & circulars is to provide prospective applicants going through the procurement process with the necessary information that would enable them to satisfactorily complete the steps of the corresponding procurement framework.

We are currently in the process of creating guidance notes and circulars alongside the RFP and will publish these in due course.

II. Timeline and Open Items

Timeline

  • Publish RFP on the forum by May 1.
  • Application period between May 1 and May 29.
  • Whitelisting and evaluation period between May 29 and June 26.

Open Items

  • Obtain feedback from the community on the set-up of a separate committee as mentioned by @pedrob and @coinflip in the response to the Subsidy Fund post.
  • Ratify the Subsidy Fund proposal on Snapshot and then Tally.
  • Publish the RFP on the forum and begin the vendor white-listing process.

III. Transparency

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Hi all, this is a short update on the ADPC’s open items and progress.

Publication of RFP Documents

The RFP currently has two key dependencies that we are waiting on confirming before publication. Firstly, the security expert who we are currently onboarding, DeDaub, as we have mentioned in this post, is currently drafting the technical and business requirements for the RFP. We have put up a Snapshot vote for the approval to use part of the ADPC’s operational buffer to compensate DeDaub.

Secondly, the Arbitrum Foundation is currently reviewing the RFP from a legal perspective and we are awaiting their feedback.

Once DeDaub has finalised the requirements and the Arbitrum Foundation has completed its legal review and we have incorporated their feedback, we will be ready to publish the RFP.

Committee Structure

We are currently working on creating the structure and processes for the independent committee for selection of subsidy recipients and will provide further details soon.

Hi all, this is a short update on the ADPC’s open items and progress.

Committee Structure

We have published the Committee Structure here and look forward to the community’s feedback on it.

Publication of RFP Documents

In terms of next steps, we haven’t published the RFP documents yet and everything is almost in place to do so. We’re just waiting to incorporate feedback from the Arbitrum Foundation legal team and are in discussions with them to do so at the moment. We have obtained the technical requirements from DeDaub and the only remaining component is the refinement of the RFP documents in alignment with the Foundation.

We’re hopeful that we will be able to publish the documents ASAP and will provide guidance on the application process at the time of publishing.

Link to the ADPC Bi-Weekly Call Recording on 16 May 2024:

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Hi all, as an update, the Snapshot proposal to set up a Sub-Committee for the Security Services Subsidy fund is now up for voting here.

Also, find below the link to the ADPC Bi-Weekly Call Recording on 30 May 2024:

Find below the link to the ADPC Bi-Weekly Call Recording on 13 June 2024:

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Find below the link to the ADPC Bi-Weekly Call Recording on 27 June 2024:

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Cross-posting from Telegram so there’s documentation on the forum.

The $2.6m of ARB for the ADPC’s Subsidy Fund is supposed to be sent to a new multisig with these signers, all of which are fresh and unconnected to a known identity:

0x5b93704c10fc95dF3F2726937eAc3855AadB2935
0x621a4DdD2970AE3A30614AD511aA78CB33CA37e4
0xcc8d2CEac6A1813a928bA50C37e7d4a3F6912bfD
0xfd569BbDE017a3eA02A1dF13a13ab8fbF1bA9587

Can we get some confirmation on who these are and that it is safe to approve the Tally proposal?

Hi @GFXlabs thanks for the question!

These signers are the same as those for the ADPC’s current 3/5 multisig. You can see them here in the original Tally proposal that established the ADPC.

The signers are DisruptionJoe, DK, Limes, KlausBrave, and Dan [Vela].

Can you confirm this one more time? There’s only 4 signers on this multisig. Also, in private we were told this was a Foundation-owned multisig.

Any clarification is appreciated!

Apologies, there was a misunderstanding here.

This is actually the Arbitrum Foundation wallet. The Foundation should be able to confirm this as well!

hey @GFXlabs , Cliff from the Arbitrum Foundation here. I can confirm that this multi-sig is owned by the Foundation, and the Foundation will be responsible for disbursing subsidy funds down the line (assuming the proposal passes).

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Find below the link to the ADPC Bi-Weekly Call Recording on 4 July 2024:

Find below the link to the ADPC Bi-Weekly Call Recording on 25 July 2024:

Hi all, this is a short update on the ADPC’s open items and progress.

RFP Process for the Whitelisting of Security Service Providers

The RFP process to whitelist security service providers was published on 19 June 2024 and closed on 22 July 2024 following a short extension to account for EthCC being in the middle of the schedule for the application process.

We received responses from the following 12 security service providers: Cyfrin, Guardian, Hacken, Hats, Hyacinth, Immunefi, Nethermind, OpenZeppelin, Sherlock, Spearbit, ThreeSigma, and Zellic.

The whitelisting of providers is in progress and the ADPC is currently in the review period. We expect to execute the agreements necessary for enabling engagement in September 2024.

Subsidy Fund for Security Services

The Tally vote to establish the $2.5M fund that will run for 8 weeks passed on 21 July 2024, with 99.53% of votes in favour. The fund will be disbursed once the whitelisting of security service providers is complete, and the ADPC is currently in the early stages of setting up the infrastructure and marketing to effectively administer this fund.

Extension of the ADPC for Phase 2

The ADPC’s term will come to an end on August 20 2024 and as such, we are currently identifying the scope of the ADPC extension. As we have seen significant demand for more procurement processes over the last 6 months and were mainly constrained by our capacity, we are planning out the extension and currently talking with delegates to determine which verticals to prioritize.

After identifying 25+ potential procurement frameworks we could tackle in Phase 2 of the ADPC, we shortlisted 6 procurement frameworks that could have the biggest impact on the Arbitrum ecosystem. We are currently reaching out to high-context delegates, existing projects building on Arbitrum, and new projects looking to or in the process of deploying on Arbitrum for feedback, and have already obtained feedback from the Arbitrum Foundation. Once we obtain this feedback, we will outline our scope and intended procurement frameworks in an extension proposal for Phase 2.

Outcome Report

Lastly, we are in the process of compiling a comprehensive Outcome Report for the first phase of the ADPC, which will cover our achievements and progress in Phase 1 and dive into the challenges we faced and key learnings we made that we will incorporate in Phase 2. The Outcome Report will be published towards the end of the ADPC’s term.

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Thanks for the update, and of course for all of the work the ADPC has put into this! It’s been a pleasure participating in the process.

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Update on RFP Review Process

We have completed the formal review (sanity check) of all the submitted RFP responses and do not require any further information from applicants. We will now move on to an RFP-by-RFP evaluation process.

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Find below the link to the ADPC Bi-Weekly Call Recording on 8 August 2024:

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Update from the ADPC re. Whitelisting of Security Service Providers:

The ADPC, with support from DeDaub, has conducted its review of RFP responses for the whitelisting of security service providers. We are pleased to announce that we have moved 9 of the 12 applicants to the last phase of the whitelisting process. The remaining tasks involve finalising legal agreements and resolving a few outstanding questions. Upon completion, the ADPC will officially announce the whitelisted security service providers.

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Find below the link to the ADPC Bi-Weekly Call Recording on 22 August 2024:

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