I will ABSTAIN from [NON-CONSTITUTIONAL] Arbitrum Audit Program:
As a builder in the space myself who had to complete security compliance and benefitted from support from DAO initiatives, I can strongly emphasize A. the importance of proper security auditing B. the significance of supporting early ventures in making it happen. The capacity of a new protocol or project to internally fund all security requirements is not a mark of its potential value to the ecosystem. Many projects simply don’t have the funds to establish compliance and are left unable to proceed forward. Without supporting these ventures, Arbitrum as an ecosystem would likely lose a tremendous amount of potential value.
That said, I am unsure why the conversion of ARB to USDC has to occur immediately and place downward pressure on the value of the ARB token (unless there is an OTC process I am missing). I imagine it may be to keep the total number of potentially supported projects at the rounded 100. However, candidly, 100 seems excessive to begin with, so in the event of downside price action, I’m not sure fewer than 100 would be a tragedy. And, given price action is bi-directional and markets are fairly compressed at present, we may actually see an expansion in token value and room for even more than 100 projects. Ultimately, I believe periodic (ideally OTC) swaps would be preferable. For this reason, I will ABSTAIN from this proposal. Should the community support it broadly, I would happily see it pass. However, should it not pass and need revision the above would be my suggestion.