Arbitrum DAO at Devcon Recap
Entropy was fortunate enough to send @MattOnChain and Brick to Bangkok for DevCon. Naturally, we participated in as much Arbitrum DAO-related discourse as possible and thought it would be valuable to give the broader community a recap on some of the activities that we took part in, which will likely guide our upcoming deliverables to a notable degree. The day prior to the conference starting, Entropy hosted “Arbitrum Delegate Day,” an event inviting all delegates with over 2.5M VP into a room together to discuss some of the most important topics for the next quarter and year.
Delegate Day
Entropy kicked off discussions on the Mission, Vision, Purpose initiative and the DAO’s strategic objectives for the next 1-2 years.
Preliminary consensus was reached that the DAO’s purpose is not to scale Ethereum in a silo, but rather to scale chains that meet our ideals and what we believe Ethereum stands for. To us, at its core, this surrounds security and accessibility. The MVP will be updated to reflect the feedback in the coming days.
On the subject of strategic objectives, we presented 5 high-level goals with some surrounding ideas for how to achieve them. The SOS’ purpose is to define the key objectives (preliminarily, the text underlined in the below slide) and associate key results which are tangible goals that once reached, signal that a certain key objective has been achieved. The following will need significant iteration, feedback, and work before reaching the standard required but we wanted to give a starting point for discussion.
Much of the proceeding conversation surrounded how to tap into emerging markets, which “voices” the ecosystem is currently lacking, and how to better support builders in the ecosystem with tools and resources. The topic of builder resources was an important and extensive one, where we discussed what’s currently missing that would allow less friction for non-crypto natives to use Arbitrum. Effectively, can we create a one-stop-shop offering all the resources any builder might need. Another key takeaway from this discussion was that it would be beneficial to ensure that actors in the DAO have the opportunity and incentive to talk about the initiatives they are a part of, e.g., the STEP winners talking about the program on panels to broaden the initiative’s impact. Another key takeaway was that many stakeholders and delegates have begun thinking about Arbitrum DAO more like a business.
Next up, Taka, the head of marketing at the Arbitrum Foundation, gave a presentation on his confidential work-in-progress strategy for Arbitrum Marketing in 2025 with subsequent discussions on how the DAO can aid the Foundation’s marketing team in their work. This was an amazing and productive discussion, and without diving into too many (still confidential) details, Arbitrum service providers are starting to enact a plan to help move marketing to a magnitude higher level of sophistication.
@djinn from the GCP then gave a presentation updating the delegates on the current status of the fund and it’s safe to say from our perspective it is in a very good place. That said, we believe that one crucial missing piece is onboarding a member with substantial VC experience before the GCP is ready to hit the ground running in making deals (keep this in mind if you know any potential candidates.) A notable point of this conversation surrounded how much work the council has done thus far and we want to make sure to shout them out on doing so with objectively low compensation. A significant aspect surrounded how the GCP should be updating the DAO in the future, given everyone strongly believes the community should be read into its happenings.
Finally, after a long day, we had a brief discussion on execution in the DAO and using OpCo. Basically, how can the DAO make sure it is putting the right people in the right places to execute the objectives the DAO defines? After ~8 hours of high-impact discussion, many were understandably low on energy, but the conversation was fruitful nonetheless. Most delegates want OpCo set up with haste so Entropy will be dedicating increased resources to this initiative. Another point was that OpCo should have a lot of autonomy and agency to operate on its own with its oversight layer, which is feedback that we have taken into account and differs a bit from its current state. Finally, we spoke about what types of people OpCo will need in order to fill current gaps in the ecosystem.
ArbiVerse
The Arbitrum Foundation created an AMAZING event to showcase Arbitrum. A beautiful outdoor venue with Arbitrum branding everywhere and of course food, drinks, and merch. The event featured a main conference area with booths set up for ecosystem participants, and Arbitrum DAO was given its own space to help onboard new contributors and discuss DAO happenings. This is an unprecedented booth to have at an event and it was amazing to see how many people came up asking about the DAO. Technical workshops took place throughout the day in a separate room.
During the event, Disruption Joe hosted a meetup for Orbit builders. It was very informative and interesting to hear the perspectives of different parties building Orbit chains and there was a lot to learn about when it comes to support that would be helpful for these builders. Even just making sure that Orbit builders are connected with each other and aware of what was being built was an extremely valuable activity.
Talks and Exploratory Meetings
Throughout the conference, Ed, Steven, and Pat represented Arbitrum to an unmatched degree. One highlight for us was getting to hear Steven speak on a panel with Vitalik, Jesse from Base, and Ben from Optimism. Arbitrum also had a dominant presence in many of the discussions around interoperability: a highlighted theme throughout the entire conference.
Entropy took tens of meetings with potential partners for the DAO. This includes large and small crucial infrastructure providers, lending markets, marketing firms, and many more. It’s safe to say that we have our work cut out for us in the coming months and it was an extremely productive trip with lots of new ideas to explore.