AGV - 2026 Council Elections

DAO Programs & Initiatives Arbitrum Gaming Ventures (AGV)
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Following the AGV council reconfirmation votes for Tim Chang and John Kennedy, both of which were approved for the 2026 AGV Council, the Election for the three remaining members of the 2026 AGV Council will run from Thursday, November 27th, until Thursday, December 4th.

Calls were held earlier on Monday, 24th, and Tuesday, 25th of November for applicants to introduce themselves and advocate for their selection. Both recordings can be found below.

Please also review the “Candidates Eligible for the Snapshot Voting Stage” section at the end of this post for a list of candidates included in the Snapshot vote, as well as the 2026 AGV Council Elections: Application thread for more information on the candidates, and the complete Timeline and Process Overview for elections.

Snapshot voting will be under a shielded weighted voting system, according to the DAO’s procedures, allowing delegates to allocate their voting power among candidates as they see fit.

We also remind delegates of the policy regarding purchasing votes on vote-buying platforms. If purchased votes are the reason a candidate qualifies for a Council seat, the DAO can affirm or reject that outcome through a reconfirmation vote.

In order to maintain a well-rounded Council and avoid role overlap, no more than two individuals with the same Core Competency will be accepted onto the AGV Council:

  • Venture Capital Leader
  • Business Development / Growth Leader
  • Governance & Policy Leader
  • Strategy / Operations Leader
  • Game Development / Go-To-Market Leader

If three (3) members of the same Core Competency receive the highest votes (including the two reconfirmed seats), the candidate with the lowest votes would not be elected, and the seat would pass to the candidate with the next-highest votes from a different Core Competency.

All elected council members must be able to pass a KYC and conflicts of interest screening in order to be eligible as a member of the 2026 AGV Council. Additionally, OpCo will conduct a reference check for all electees to verify the expertise and experience stated in their CVs before making the final decision on electee qualification. If a candidate fails to pass this qualification stage, their seat would pass to the candidate with the next-highest votes, as long as that would not introduce a member with a third matching Core Competency; otherwise, it would pass down to the next-highest votes until a fully eligible council is formed.

Contributors who disclose a conflict of interest are not expected to alter their voting in any way. Self-voting is not currently banned outright for the reasons stated in previous DAO-wide discussions and based on sentiment gathered from a subsequent temperature check.

For more information, refer to the DAO’s procedures.

Candidates Eligible for the Snapshot Voting Stage

The following applicants will be included in the Snapshot vote for AGV 2026 Council elections:

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Griff Green - Delegate Communication Thread
2026 AGV Council Elections: Timeline and Process Overview
Tekr0x.eth - Delegate Communication Thread
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The AGV elections for the 2026 Council are live!

Snapshot: https://snapshot.box/#/s:arbitrumfoundation.eth/proposal/0x12bad84219d04c54cd72231ad8fe883499e85c14762919a06aaa7a251d64b8da

Delegates and participating candidates who seek to abstain from the vote can do so by voting in a neutral manner, i.e, splitting the voting power equally across all candidates to effectively abstain.

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voting 100% for Chris Cameron on this offchain vote because they have always upheld the highest standard in DAO governance, due diligence, and financial rigor.

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Paulo Fonseca Delegate Communication Thread
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After consideration, the @SEEDgov delegation decided to split our votes equally between the following four candidates:

  • JoJo

  • David Bolger

  • Coinflipcanada

  • Greg Canessa

We would like to begin by noting that, from our perspective and based on our conversations with members of the AGV, one of the biggest pain points throughout this period has been the DAO–AGV relationship. This is why half of our votes are directed toward individuals who have consistently demonstrated a strong understanding of the communication dynamics required when interacting with delegates in a DAO.

To be clear, we are not blaming anyone for what happened in the past. We are all navigating structures that are completely new, and in the case of AGV, we are even talking about a structure that is unprecedented in the ecosystem.

The important thing is that the dynamic already seems to be changing, not only thanks to Castle’s participation, but also thanks to contributors such as @Tekr0x.eth who has shown that there are effective ways to keep the DAO informed and engaged with what is happening within the AGV.

From our point of view, although we are not assigning votes, we hope that Tekr0x will go on to play a full-time role within the AGV, as his participation has been very positive for the ecosystem and his contributions have greatly helped raise awareness of the AGV’s work.

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DAOplomats split our vote equally between Tekr0x, Chris Cameron, and David Bolger.

They have demonstrated time and again why they are very good fits in their areas of core competencies, so we believe they would be positive additions to the AGV council.

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The following reflects the views of GMX’s Governance Committee, and is based on the combined research, evaluation, consensus, and ideation.

We will split our vote equally between the candidates mentioned below

Greg: We are supporting Greg for his unmatched depth in gaming, platform strategy, and organizational design, backed by 30+ years of end-to-end expertise in game platform architecture, ecosystem design, and service-layer infrastructure across Xbox Live Arcade, Battle.net, Activision, Google, and Apple. His direct work on scaling multiplayer networks, digital distribution pipelines, live-ops frameworks, and cloud-gaming systems gives him uniquely technical insight into how AGV should interface with large-scale gaming organizations and platform partners.

David: Supporting David for ecosystem experience at Offchain Labs, built through 500+ gaming and consumer engagements and his daily work with 80+ active projects. He brings blend of technical and commercial expertise spanning L2 onboarding flows, chain deployment, developer tooling, contract architecture, and production-grade scaling for live game environments while serving as a critical bridge across AAEs to keep builders supported and processes tightly aligned with AGV’s operational needs.

Coinflip: Coinflip for his consistent, high-quality governance work across Arbitrum initiatives and his ability to bring structure, transparency, and accountability to AGV.

Jojo - Jojo has a proven track-record in the DAO he will be a great addition to the current set-up.

COI Disclosure
Please note, as members of the GMX Governance Committee, some of us our Core Contributors to the GMX DAO, and as such work closely with Coinflip. This collaboration is a normal part of GMX’s DAO operations and does not influence our evaluation here. The support expressed is based solely on his past contributions, the value he brings to the council, and his demonstrated impact on AGV.

Furthermore, one of our committee members, Atomist, represents Castle Labs in their service of AGV as DAO Relations Partner. Atomist abstains from internal votes relating to AGV

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and… no disclosure of any conflict of interest here?

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As members of the Governance Committee, some of us work closely with Coinflip on the GMX front. This collaboration is a normal part of GMX’s DAO operations and does not influence our evaluation here. The support expressed is based solely on his past contributions, the value he brings to the council, and his demonstrated impact on AGV.

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and…
@coinflip is

and…
the current GMX ARB delegation of 8M ARB, came from the previous Coinflip ARB delegation, did it not?

and please remember that:

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Hey @paulofonseca, we have added our COI Disclosure

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I don’t typically publicly share my voting reasoning, but felt appropriate here.

I’ve distributed my votes equally between David Bolger, Greg Canessa, and Jojo. While I’m very much hoping to continue representing the DAO in this capacity, I didn’t feel comfortable using significant voting power to vote for a single candidate or for myself, even though it’s permitted. Others may and that’s there choice.

The voting structure has limitations. We want diverse oversight skills for these programs, but we can’t predict the final composition. Given these constraints, I’ve placed my votes with the candidates outside of myself I’m most confident will Effectively represent and advocate for both the DAO and program success.

coin

#Arbitrum Everywhere

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JoJo Delegate Communication Thread
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In addition to supporting the reconformation of both John Kennedy and Tim Chang last week, Entropy split its vote for the remaining three AGV Council seats in the following manner:

  • 50% for David Bolger
  • 20% for Greg Canessa
  • 20% for Chris Cameron (PaperImperium)
  • 5% for Coinflip
  • 5% for JoJo

Overall, we believed it was prudent to have a level of continuity and proven expertise on the council, which influenced our decision to support the reconfirmations as well as Greg and David in this election. We are not necessarily against the hybrid approach that the AGV took, as it is important to have a well-rounded council, but it would have been helpful to have more rationale for why John and Tim were nominated as the two to be reconfirmed. For future elections, Entropy hopes to see a more diverse set of candidates apply in terms of the core competencies outlined, as this election was largely limited to those with expertise in DAO governance & policy.

As the Head of Gaming and Consumer Partnerships at OCL, we felt it was most important to have David on the AGV council once again to bolster cross-AAE communication and someone with deep insight into the broader Arbitrum partnerships pipeline. Given Greg’s previous experience in the gaming industry and focus on operations, we also felt it was important for him to remain on the council to ensure a diverse set of core competencies. While Entropy viewed both JoJo and Coinflip as more than qualified candidates that we would be happy to see elected, our team decided that introducing a fresh perspective to the AGV council was important. As previously expressed, our team is concerned that the current structure of the AGV council creates the incentive to keep the AGV continuing regardless of performance. Paper brings a unique financial skillset to the council as he is familiar with crypto concepts as well as traditional fund structures. Additionally, Entropy is aligned with his perspective on expanding the mandate of the AGV. After speaking with Paper directly, we trusted that if elected, he would approach the role and relationship with the AGV in a constructive manner despite historically being critical of the entity.

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gm, I voted as following:

50% for Greg Canessa and 30% for David Bolger.
Both offer strong expertise and provide valuable continuity for the program.

20% Jojo: his presence consistently improves the quality of the relationship between the DAO and the program through strong communication and proactive coordination across teams.

Note: Jojo and I work together in the DAO Grant Program, yet the nature of our relationship ensures that my vote is entirely independent. Our collaboration, including joint grant work, had no influence on this decision.

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In​‍​‌‍​‍‌​‍​‌‍​‍‌ my opinion, all of the applicants would do a great job and bring different strengths to the council.

I chose to allocate a little over 50% of my voting power to coinflip because he has been my go to resource for information with the AVG, I trust his ARB alignment and he has all the context needed, so I wanted to double down on him. Really surprised/disappointed he didn’t make it in.

I divided the other ~50 percent of my vote equally among Greg, David, and Tekr0x. Greg has the best experience in gaming and platforms that will be extremely valuable for the AGV. David is Offchain Labs, where he is doing the work on the ground with gaming teams every day, his position makes him a no brainer and Tekr0x is fighting the good fight doing great work on the ground for gaming and governance in Arbitrum, I knew he prob wouldn’t make it but I wanted to vote for the underdog here and show him some love!

Jojo and Paper are way better known in the DAO than Tekr0x, which is the main reason I decided to give my 4th spot to Tekr0x… really all 3 will do a great job, but Tekr0x is way undervalued!

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Griff Green - Delegate Communication Thread
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Hey Paulo, love you man… but if you want to police the forum like this, start in DMs before calling people out in a public forum. It really lowers the vibes to have comments like that, and discourages good faith discussion.

I trust you have positive intent, but I think you could also have a bit more tact.

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Griff Green - Delegate Communication Thread
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I voted 1/3 for David Bolger, 1/3 for Coinflip, and 1/3 for myself.

I do like what the previous council have achieved over time, despite thinking there is more to do. What most in my opinion fail to understand is that what is conceived as a general underperformance of AGV compared to other AAEs is due to 1) being the first entity created by the DAO 2) coming from a period in which we had a different perception on spending 3) tapping into a vertical that is as of today a contrarian bet.
All of the above, the novelty of having a DAO led fund, and other factors, has created a situation for which the curve has been way steeper than other initiatives.
As of today, a lot of lost ground was recouped. A lot more to do, of course; but what was improved is also thanks to the work of previous council, which I generally wanted to support in term of continuity (and this is also why I voted in favour of both John and Tim).
David is the center of this, being part of OCL, of the gaming arm, and now of the consumer arm.
Coinflip has always had a peculiar mix of institutional presence, protocols’ understanding and political expertise for the DAO.
This is the reason why I wanted to support these two.

Beside the election feedback itself, I would also like to take a moment to post a very personal reflection.

As Coinflip stated here everybody can use their voting power as they best see fit, accordingly to the code of conduct. We have had, in this and other elections, people voting for themself only, people voting for themself and others, people voting only for others or people abstaining by voting for all candidates.
All is possible as of today, and is also fine.

That said, there is a consideration to be made for an approach that overarchingly puts the DAO first.
An approach worth chasing, even if it means putting aside the will of yourself as a single, to counterbalance various contextual limitations: technical on voting platform, human due to clustering of candidates in a single category and lack of diversity in others, environmental when the community is polarized on sensible topics and naturally tends to shift this polarization into other discussions that are unrelated but equally if not more important.

Regardless of the specificity of this vote, what we are seeing here is in my opinion an example of this behaviour. At the risk of sounding over the line or even sentimental, being preserving toward the DAO as a delegate, and graceful as a human being, is something that, due to both internal and external factors, as well as overall context, we are losing a bit over time in Arbitrum, and we should collectively strive to regain.

Thanks for this vote and this rationale.

JoJo Delegate Communication Thread
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I’m the first to agree that I could have more tact. I’ve reached out to people before posting stuff like this on the forum many times before, but not on this one, because I felt that it was kinda time-sensitive. The thing is that, if delegates decide to post publicly their vote rationale on a shielded election, before the vote ends, and that vote rationale doesn’t disclose a blatant conflict of interest, which in itself violates a DAO policy, I think it is reasonable to call that out publicly on the forum, even just as a reminder to other delegates. That’s what I was trying to do. This comment of mine generated a discussion on the Telegram chat that I think raised important issues about this policy and its intersection with shielded votes.

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I split my votes 50%/50% between David Bolgar and Coinflip; David who I saw first-hand (former COI disclosure?) demonstrate his capability as an ecosystem leader when we overlapped at Offchain Labs, and Coinflip for their consistent and valuable contributions to both the Arbitrum DAO and the GMX ecosystem.

DZack23.eth Delegate Communications thread
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@paulofonseca I agree!

I think it’s very important to publicly warn when a delegate violates a DAO policy.

Especially when DAO delegates are publicly accused of receiving Voting Power as payment for an “aligned vote.”

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Clearly something strange is going on here, and you seem to have the information needed to clarify the situation. Could you tell us which delegates were “bribed”?

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lol. my tweet is not a public accusation, it’s just a description of how DAO delegation works. tokenholders should delegate only to the delegates that vote in a way that’s aligned to their interests. and tokenholders should undelegate from delegates that don’t vote in a way that’s aligned to their interests. that’s how it should work, and that’s how it’s working on Arbitrum DAO.

also, next time you create an anonymous account in this forum to try to bait me, just… don’t. it wastes everybody’s time and attention.