Across multiple elections, I look a pattern where voting rationale tends to favor well-established, frequently recurring contributors. As a multi-protocol delegate, how do you guard against familiarity bias in your evaluation process and what concrete criteria do you apply when assessing newer or lesser-known contributors who might bring genuinely independent perspectives to Arbitrum’s governance… @AranaDigital
Reliability is of utmost importance when it comes to security in particular. We give higher weight to familiar names that have a proven track record, especially to those we have interfaced with directly. In the present security council election, for example, more of our ARB is allotted to such entities—but a smaller portion is also given to newer/up-and-coming groups. That helps strike a healthy medium.
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April 2026 Security Council Member Election
- We portioned out voting power among 4 different candidates.
- Our allocations were divided into two buckets: major and minor.
- For major, we gave 1.5M to Michael & 1M to Certora—both due to our oberervance of their active involvement in multiple DAOs, including Arbitrum through the Security Council in the past. Certora has a strong, professional track record of reliability in protocol security. And Michael has extensive experience in the space as well, both from working at OpenZeppelin in the past and currently being involved in multiple DAOs from a security + governance standpoint.
- For minors, we portioned 400k each to Blockful and Cyfrin. We are familiar with the Blockful team based on their high-quality work in governance security (via Anticapture, for example)—an area that’s often neglected by many. And Cyfrin for their work in the zkSync ecosystem.
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summary of UADP’s governance stance
Their research-first approach and emphasis on transparency especially pushing back on monopoly risks (Security Enhancement Fund) while supporting fair RFP processes reflects mature delegate thinking. The shift from Snapshot hesitation to on-chain “For” vote on ARDC also shows pragmatic community alignment.
Looking forward to seeing how their metagovernance model evolves across future Arbitrum proposals. @AranaDigital @farfel.eth
Approve Release of Frozen ETH
- Snapshot Vote: For
- We support the release of the frozen ETH to the DeFi United recovery effort. These funds are exploiter proceeds that the Security Council acted swiftly to immobilize, and that decisive intervention is precisely what now puts Arbitrum in a position to meaningfully help users who were harmed through this exploit. The continued freeze carries hefty costs for affected users across multiple markets and chains, including Arbitrum-side Aave participants accruing interest on positions they can’t close. Routing the ETH towards the remediation effort is the clearest path to neutralizing that harm and restoring rsETH’s backing in full.
We nonetheless remain attentive to the legal overhead this proposal carries for voters, like around delegate indemnification, where the current structure routes delegate protection through the Captive Insurance Product rather than direct coverage from Aave Labs. This is leaving delegates structurally less protected than the Foundation and OCL on a vote where the same legal exposure may apply.
Still, on balance, the upside to users is pretty clear, though. So, we remain biased towards swift remediation.
Transfer 6,000 ETH and Idle Stablecoins from the Treasury to the Treasury Management Portfolio
- Onchain Vote: For
- Our stance has not changed since the Snapshot vote—we have voted in favor of this proposal to prioritize capital efficiency, putting the noted ETH and stables to work, as opposed to letting them rest idle.
Constitutional] AIP: Amended Release of Frozen ETH Pursuant to Court Order
- Onchain Vote: For
- Based on our steadfast position described on the Snapshot vote, and in light of the newly introduced information from the court order, we continue to believe that supporting this proposal is a net benefit to DeFi and puts Arbitrum in a positive position.
[Constitutional] AIP: Minimize Arbitrum Nova
- Snapshot Vote: For
- In favor of this proposal because:
- It saves the DAO money, around $1.52 million a year. This plan drops that down to about $89k, saving the DAO $1.43 million annually on a chain people barely use.
- Nova has served its purpose: It was originally built as a test case for cheap data availability. Now that Ethereum has cheap blobs and developers can easily spin up their own custom Arbitrum chains, so Nova just isn’t strategically necessary anymore.
- The data show nobody is really using it.
Continued Funding for the Arbitrum Foundation
- Snapshot Vote: For
- In the overall scheme of supporting various AAEs, we see the Foundation as serving a critical role in growth and strategy. We do hope that there is better forward-guidance and budgeting on the side of treasury management to make sure that large requests such as this do not significantly eat into the DAO’s existing efforts towards expanding the treasury.
Continued Funding for the Arbitrum Foundation
- Onchain Vote: For
- In line with our Snapshot vote, we have voted in favor during the onchain stage.
[Constitutional] AIP: Transition Arbitrum One ordering policy to Priority Gas Auctions (PGA)
- Snapshot Vote: For
- Due to the following reasons, we voted For this proposal:
- Revenue aspect: Instead of a single upfront auction, traders bid on every block. 97% of these new priority fees go straight to the DAO Treasury.
- Customary model: The old Timeboost system was an interesting experiment but did have complexities. This switches to a standard gas bidding format that everyone on Ethereum, Base, and Solana already uses.
- Protects regular users: It includes an “anti-starvation” feature. If you pay low or zero priority fees, your transaction gets a virtual boost behind the scenes so you don’t get stuck or priced out.
Extending DRIP’s Mandate
- Snapshot Vote: For
- Relative to other incentive programs, we have enjoyed how the Entropy team has executed on DRIP, especially in a market environment that is very much non-conducive to incentivized programs. It made sense to go from funding standalone entities to directly subsidizing a specific, high-velocity activity like looping YBAs.
- Despite a broader market downtrend, Arbitrum gained lending market share, resulting in approximately $266M in market penetration.
- Every $1 of ARB scaled Arbitrum’s lending market size by $51, outperforming heavily funded legacy programs (like LTIPP) with a fraction of the budget.
- We like the frame of utilizing incentives as a 0-to-1 accelerant for verified product-market fit rather than subsidizing weak fundamentals.
- Going forward: Future iterations should explore ways for incentivized participants to contribute directly to DAO revenue, such as fee-sharing or performance-based commitments.
[Constitutional] AIP: Automate Timeboost Proceeds Split
- Offchain Vote: For
- This eliminates recurring governance overhead by replacing manual 30-day onchain votes with an automated smart contract fee-router that continuously executes an already-approved revenue allocation. The efficiency is worth voting in favor of.
AGV Wind-Down: Structured Transition & Return of Capital to the DAO Treasury
- Offchain Vote: For
- From the start, we have not had confidence in the AGV, not because of the folks involved but because of the underlying thesis. Such an extensive budget for gaming sounded pretty ridiculous, and this became quite evident as the market turned upside down. Better late than never to reconsolidate the remaining ~150M ARB back to the treasury. We hope that during the winddown transparency is upheld and that the DAO uses this as a general reflection on what types of programs to fund during a bull market. It’s easy to lose sight of practical investments when token prices are rising. These types of exploratory/venture initiatives are good—but only at reasonable size.
Fast Feed: Constitutional AIP
- Offchain Vote: For
- This monetizes latency demand and turns it into income for the protocol. Ultra-fast transaction visibility is valuable to MEV searchers and market makers. Rather than letting off-chain infra providers capture this latency premium through proprietary co-location, the protocol packages it as a paid product, diverting that economic value back to the Treasury (97/3 split). We are in favor.
OAT Elections
- Election Vote: 25% Alex Netto, 12.5% Rika, 12.5% Tom Berry, 25% JoJo, 25% A.J.
- Above is our election split. We divided our votes based on two factors: diversity of skillsets and voice. All of the selected members have a deep understanding of Arbitrum and supplementally brings expertise in either security, governance, research, legal, and/or growth.
[Constitutional] AIP: Ratification of Security Council Election Process Improvements
- Offchain Vote: For
- In September of last year, we voted for the following options: " Increase cohort duration, reduce qualification threshold, allow members to rotate keys." This proposal includes all of these options. The nominee bypass aspect is something that we had been hesitant about, and not including it as part of this proposal aligns our opinion For passing this vote.
Constitutional AIP: ArbOS61 Elara Upgrade
- Onchain Vote: For
- We voted for this proposal at the offchain stage. Removing the dynamic pricing aspect here makes sense. We trust OCL and Entropy’s rationale. Ethereum’s native multidimensional gas design should be observed, then Arb can align around those standards.
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[Constitutional] AIP: Security Council Election Process Improvements
- Onchain Vote: For
- In line with our support during the offchain phase, we supported this proposal in the onchain stage.
Arbitrum Security Program
- OffchainVote: For
- This proposal repurposes existing, unused audit funds into high-leverage defenses (like the bug bounty program) without asking the treasury for new allocations. AI security agents and whatnot also make the motivation of this proposal strong. No concerns there. We view this as an efficiency increase BUT were torn on the scope creep aspects. Since it seems the DAO is just naturally trending towards consolidation, this isn’t out of the ordinary. But we can’t help but mention the ballooning umbrella of the Foundation.