We are excited to publish the first release of the ArbitrumDAO Governance Analytics Report, covering key governance metrics and insights for December 2024. This report marks a significant milestone in our efforts to enhance transparency and foster informed decision-making within the ArbitrumDAO community.
TLDR;
Participation Trends: Onchain and offchain participation increased in December 2024 demonstrating improved engagement.
Proposal Outcomes: 13 proposals were voted on 11 approved, 2 rejected (1.User Research: Why Build on Arbitrum? and 2.Designing and Operating the Reporting and Information Function). Four were ARDC V2 elections.
Voting Participation: All proposals had below-average participation compared to their category.
Delegate Spotlight: Amira became eligible for DIP.
Key Takeaway: December showed an improvement in participation; however, the number of voters per proposal remains below the category average.
A) Voting Participation Trend
Participation Rate: Average voting power cast per proposal / votable supply
In December 2024, ArbitrumDAO observed a notable increase in governance participation rates across both onchain and offchain. This report outlines the key trends in participation metrics and voting power, along with potential contributing factors.
Onchain: Participation grew significantly by 15.02 percentage points, increasing from 46.49% in November to 61.51% in December.
Offchain: Participation increased by 5.81 percentage points, rising from 42.8% in November to 48.61% in December.
Unique Voters: The number of voter who vote within the month
Onchain Voters:
Unique onchain voters increased by 300, from 5,865 in November to 6,236 in December, reflecting stronger participation in onchain proposals.
Offchain Voters:
Unique offchain unique voters decreased by 700, from 7,155 in November to 6,455 in December, though still higher than September and October 2024 levels.
Voting Power: Average voting power of proposal participation
OnChain Voting Power:
Average voting power increased by +27.5%, from 154 million to 196.4 million.
OffChain Voting Power:
A smaller increase was observed, with average voting power rising by +11.3%, from 141 million to 156.8 million.
New Voter: New voter who cast first vote in December
In December, there were 626 new onchain voters , compared to just 92 new offchain voters . Onchain participation saw a slight increase , rising from 528 new voters in November to 626 new voters in December. In contrast, offchain participation experienced a significant decrease , dropping from 437 new voters in November to 92 new voters in December.
Potential Contributing Factors
The increase in December participation and voting power likely stems from active ArbitrumDAO delegates returning after Devcon 2024 and engaging with governance proposals before the December 20th deadline. Following this deadline, Arbitrum observed a holiday break from December 20th to January 6th, which may have encouraged users to finalize their votes and discussions beforehand, contributing to the surge in participation.
B) Voter Dynamic
Existing Voters
An examination of the changes in voting power among existing delegates reveals significant shifts among 43 delegates.
Increases: 8 delegates increased their voting power, accounting for an addition 1.45M of ARB tokens in total notable example includes:
- Amira has experienced a remarkable increase in ARB tokens from 10 to 50,289, Amira now has sufficient voting power to meet the minimum requirements for participation in the Delegate Incentive Program
Decreases: 35 delegates saw a decrease in voting power totaling a reduction of -7.9M ARB Tokens., including 6 losing all their ARB tokens, signaling significant disengagement or divestment from ArbitrumDAO.
New potential voters
In December, one new potential voters were introduced:
- POAP.eth (Patricio Worthalter) : This address had not previously participated in governance and gained 534.38K ARB in voting power delegated from a single address.
B) Voter Dynamic (cont.)
Delegate Status Shifts:
Active (delegates who maintain over 65% voting participation both onchain and offchain within the past 90 days): The number of active delegates in ArbitrumDAO increased slightly in December 2024, rising to 85 from 75 in the previous month. This growth of 10 active delegates is a positive indicator of the health and engagement of the ArbitrumDAO community.
Inactive (delegates who maintain less than 65% voting participation either onchain or offchain within the past 90 days): The number of inactive delegates decreased in December 2024 to 129, down from 130 in Novenber 2024. reflecting a reduction of 1 inactive delegates.
Ghost Delegates (delegates who, despite receiving delegation, have not exercised their voting power): The number of ghost delegates, those who have never voted, decreased from 799 in November 2024 to 786 in December 2024.
Implications of Changes in Delegate Status: The delegate status shifts in ArbitrumDAO in December 2024 show a positive trend, with an increase in active delegates and a decrease in inactive and ghost delegates. These changes reflect higher engagement and a more effective delegate pool. To maintain this momentum, it is essential to continue strategies that foster high participation, ensuring robust governance and effective decision-making within the DAO.
C) Proposal Outcome
This section provides an analysis of the outcomes and levels of contentiousness of proposals within ArbitrumDAO’s governance during December 2024, with particular attention to the voting behaviors of the top 20 voters by voting power. A total of 13 proposals were reviewed during this period, comprising six in the grants category, five in governance, one in treasury, and one in operations.
Onchain Proposals
Category: Treasury
Overview: The proposal establishes two token tracks: Treasury Management, which allocates 10M ARB to on-chain yield strategies and converts 15M ARB to stable/cash-like assets for a DAO “checking account,” and Growth Management, which dedicates 7,500 ETH exclusively to yield-earning ETH or ETH-pegged investments, with all spending subject to DAO approval.
Voter Participation: 5,600 voters participated higher than the treasury category average of 5,200.
Voting Power Cast: A total of 193.4M ARB was cast, which is higher than the category average of 164.8M ARB.
Level of Contentiousness: The proposal saw nearly unanimous support with minimal opposition.
Top 20 Voters: Among the top 20 voters, only 3 of them voted abstain while the remaining 17 voted in favor.
2.Arbitrum Hackathon Builder Continuation Program
Category: Grants
Overview: This proposal aims to request $213,780 in funding from the Arbitrum DAO to co-fund a program for investing and supporting teams from the Arbitrum CollabTech Hackathon. This proposal states that RnDAO would “roughly” match Arbitrum DAO’s funding, totaling a budget of $416,530 for the program.
Voter Participation: 5,800 voters participated lower than the grants category average of 11,600.
Voting Power Cast: A total of 199.3M ARB was cast, which is higher than the category average of 162.1M ARB.
Level of Contentiousness: The proposal saw nearly unanimous support with minimal opposition.
Top 20 Voters: Among the top 20 voters, 6 of them voted against while the remaining 14 voted in favor.
Offchain Proposals
1. [Non-consitutional] User Research: Why build on Arbitrum?
Category: Grants
Overview: The proposal requests $20,000 to research builder needs, identify Arbitrum’s strengths and areas for improvement, and suggest growth strategies. The study will involve interviews with builders and competitors, producing a report to enhance support programs and attract new builders.
Voter Participation: 5,100 voters participated, below the category average for Grants of 14,600 voters
Voting Power casted: 130.4M ARB tokens were cast, which is below the category average of 145.7M ARB
Level of contentiousness: The proposal saw nearly unanimous support with minimal opposition.
Top 20 voters: Out of 20 votes, 5 supported the proposal, with 3 in favor of expanding research to Optimism and Solana, while L2BEAT and Bob-Rossi preferred focusing just on Arbitrum to understand builders who stayed, suggesting a future round to explore why others left. The 15 votes against, including Blockworks Advisory, raised concerns about redundant spending, unclear KPIs, a rushed process, and felt the research would be better handled by the ARDC
2.[NON-CONSTITUTIONAL] Arbitrum Onboarding V2: A Governance Bootcamp
Category: Grants
Overview: The proposal requests $178,138 in ARB to fund the 6-month Onboarding Program (V2), a refined version of the 3-month pilot. It serves as a Governance Bootcamp to recruit and train new DAO contributors, led by the Onboarding Working Group.
Voter Participation: 4,200 voters participated,which is below the category average for Grants of 14,600 voters
Voting Power casted: But interestingly, the voting power cast was 165.5M, which is higher than the average of 145.7M. This may be attributed to coinflipcanada, who participated in this vote with 12.3M voting power and voted in favor of the proposal.
Level of contentiousness: The proposal received near unanimous support with minimal opposition.
Top 20 voters: Among the top 20 voters, 12 voted For, 2 abstained, and 6 voted Against. L2BEAT, Griff, and MaxLomu opposed the proposal, citing poor timing, limited opportunities for contributors, and concerns about effectiveness and compensation structure, suggesting a focus on onboarding Arbitrum protocols into governance instead. Blockworks Advisory supported the proposal as a cost-effective way to attract talent, recommending improved KPIs, milestone reporting, and exploring co-op opportunities in future iterations.
3.Designing and operating the reporting and information function
Category: Grants
Overview: This proposal seeks $262,260 to fund a 12-month Reporting and Information function, including 4 months of backpay. It aims to enhance transparency, track initiative performance, support growth, and explore community integration and research on information dissemination and tool incorporation.
Voter Participation: 5,000 voters participated, below the category average for Grants of 14,600 voters
Voting Power casted: 124.8M ARB token were cast, which is below the category average of 145.7M ARB.
Level of contentiousness: The proposal received near-unanimous opposition with minimal support.
Top 20 voters: 17 voters of the Top 20 voted against while only 3 voters voted abstain. L2BEAT, Cornell Blockchain, and SeedLatam voted against the proposal, citing excessive costs, rushed changes, and unclear compensation. While they support the idea of a reporting function, they recommend reducing the budget and refining the scope.
4. Arbitrum D.A.O. Domain Allocator Offerings) Grant Program - Season 3
Category: Grants
**Overview: **This proposal requests $7,477,800 million in ARB to fund season three of the Arbitrum Domain Allocator Offerings (D.A.O) Grant Program for a year for the following existing domains: Protocols, Education/Community and Events, Dev Tooling, and Gaming. In addition to the four domains, the proposal suggests adding a fifth domain, Orbit. Adding a fifth domain will increase the total program cost to $7,278,000
Voter Participation: 4,200 voters participated, below the category average for Grants of 14,600 voters
Voting Power casted: A total of 165.5M ARB votes were cast, exceeding the average of 145.7M ARB. This increase might be attributed to coinflipcanada’s participation in this vote.
Level of contentiousness: The proposal saw nearly unanimous support with minimal opposition.
Top 20 voters: Out of the 18 votes for Renew, 5 included all domains. However, L2BEAT, ranked 1 among the top 20 voters, voted for Renew with only 4 domains, likely to avoid overextending resources, maintain manageable oversight, and ensure adequate attention and support for each domain. Meanwhile, Entropy voted to abstain.
5.ARDC (V2) Supervisory Council Election
Category: Governance [Election]
Overview: This proposal aims to elect candidates for the Communications and Operations Role on the Arbitrum Research and Development Collective (ARDC) V2. Notably, this election also introduced a brand-new role for ARDC.
Voter Participation: 4,000 voters participated well below the governance category average of 24,400, and the lowest turnout among ARDC elections.
Voting Power Cast: A total of 168.9M ARB was cast, which is higher than the category average of 145.1M ARB.
Level of Contentiousness: The vote was highly contentious.
Top 20 Voters: Most of the top 20 voters cast contentious votes, with Frisson who was also a candidate being the only one to abstain.
6. ARDC (V2) Research Election
Category: Governance [Election**]**
Overview: This proposal aims to elect a Researcher to the Arbitrum Research and Development Collective.
Voter Participation: 4,100 voters participated well below the governance category average of 24,400 and significantly less than the 17,000 who took part in the ARDC Research Member V1 election.
Voting Power Cast: A total of 172.7M ARB votes were cast, marking the highest voting power in this cycle. However, it still falls short of the 229.7M ARB cast in the previous election.
Level of Contentiousness: This election was more competitive, featuring six candidates rather than just two in the previous cycle. While Blockworks and Delphi emerged victorious before, delegate preferences shifted this time, with Llama Research & Castle Capital and Blockworks Advisory becoming the frontrunners. In the end, Llama Research & Castle Capital won by a 14.07% margin.
Top 20 Voters: Among the top 20 voters, the results were closely split. Llama Research & Castle Capital, Blockworks Advisory, Messari, and The Block Research attracted the highest votes. Although many delegates divided their votes, a few went all-in for specific candidates for instance, blockworksres.eth voted for itself, bobrossi.eth for Messari, and Cornellbc.eth for Blockworks Advisory. Notably, coinflipcanada.eth (12.3M voting power), Eventhorizonarbitrum.eth (7M voting power), and Maxlomu (4.3M voting power) allocated the majority of their votes to Llama Research & Castle Capital.
Category: Governance [Election]
Overview: This proposal aims to elect the Risk Member of the Arbitrum Research and Development Collective as a program to deliver continuous and specialized assistance to the ArbitrumDAO.
Voter Participation: 4,200 voters participated below the category average of 24,400 for governance and significantly less than the ARDC Risk Member V1 election, which saw 22,000 participants.
Voting Power Cast: A total of 165.5M ARB was cast, which is higher than the category average of 145.1M ARB but still lower than the previous 176.4M ARB cast for the ARDC Risk Member V1 election.
Level of Contentiousness: The proposal saw nearly unanimous support for Nethermind, with minimal opposition.
Top 20 Voters: Among the top 20 voters, most cast their votes entirely for Nethermind. Only a few broke from the majority: Gauntlet and GFX Labs voted to abstain, while Frisson and SEED Gov both voted 100% for Vending Machine.
8. ARDC (V2) Security Election
Category: Governance [Election]
Overview: This proposal sought to elect the Security Member of the Arbitrum Research and Development Collective (ARDC) to provide continuous, specialized assistance to the ArbitrumDAO.
Voter Participation: 4,300 voters participated fewer than both the governance category average of 24,400 and the previous ARDC Security V1 turnout.
Voting Power Cast: A total of 166.3M ARB was cast, which is higher than the category average of 145.1M ARB yet lower than the 216.6M ARB cast in ARDC Security V1.
Level of Contentiousness: The election proved highly contentious among the top three candidates.
Top 20 Voters: Voting was very diverse among the top 20, with only a few voters supporting a single candidate 100%.
9.Unifying Arbitrum’s Mission, Vision, Purpose (MVP)
Category: Governance
Overview: Entropy Advisors proposes a three-phase approach for the Arbitrum DAO: define a clear mission/vision/purpose, set 12- and 24-month strategic focus areas, and align finances and budgets accordingly.
Voter Participation: 4,200 voters were participated below the category average of 24,400 for governance
Voting Power Cast: 147.4M ARB were casted which is higher than the category average of 145.1M ARB.
Level of Contentiosness: The proposal saw nearly unanimous support with minimal opposition.
Top 20 voters: All of the top 20 voters supported this proposal.
10.Partner with ETH Bucharest 2025
Category: Grants
Overview: This proposal aims to request $69,300 to invite Arbitrum DAO to sponsor ETH Bucharest 2025. The partnership would showcase Arbitrum’s Layer 2 ecosystem and Stylus technology through an exhibition booth, a 1-hour main-stage speaking slot, and a pre-hackathon workshop.
Voter Participation: 3,800 voter participated below the category average for Grants of 14,600 voters
Voting Power Cast: 156.3M ARB tokens were cast, which is higher the category average of 146.1M ARB
Level of Contentiosness: The vote was highly contentious, the only 8% different between voting FOR, without POAP, and voting abstain.
Top 20 voters: Among the top 20 voters, 6 abstained, 5 voted against, and 9 voted in favor but without POAP. Interestingly, none of the top 20 chose the “FOR with POAP” option.
11. OpCo – A DAO-adjacent Entity for Strategy Execution
Category: Operations
Overview: This proposal requests 22 million ARB to cover operating costs for the first 30 months of the Operating Company (OpCo). OpCo is envisioned as an entity the Arbitrum DAO can leverage for more structured approaches to complex initiatives.
Voter Participation: 4,200 voters participated below the operations category average of 22,200.
Voting Power Cast: A total of 156.2M ARB was cast, which is higher than the category average of 146.1M ARB.
Level of Contentiousness: The proposal saw nearly unanimous support with minimal opposition.
Top 20 Voters: Among the top 20 voters, only one voted against, three chose to abstain, and sixteen voted in support.
The outcomes of Arbitrum’s proposals in Devember revealed engagement challenges, with voter participation consistently below category averages.only Treasury manament V1.2 has higher than the averae, Most proposals saw strong support with minimal opposition, though some, like the User Research: Why Build on Arbitrum? and Designing and Operating the Reporting and Information Function, faced overwhelming disapproval, reflecting community priorities and expectations. These results highlight the need for increased voter engagement and enhanced transparency to strengthen community trust and ensure more inclusive decision-making within the DAO.
D) Shift in Voting Power Distribution
Votable Supply Changes: In December 2024, the votable supply of ARB tokens decreased from 326.64 million from November 2024 to 318.127 million in December
Voting Power Distribution: In December 2024, the top 11-50 voters held 48.52% of the voting power, slightly decreased from November by -2.37%, while the top 1-10 voters decreased their share by -1.96%, showing a dropped in their influence. Meanwhile, the top 51-200, 201-500 and 501-1000 voters also experienced decreases of -3.92%, -6.12% and -8.33%, respectively, indicating reduced participation from smaller voters. This shift highlights the importance of encouraging broader engagement to ensure a balanced governance structure.
Top 1-10 Voter:
November 2024 Voting Power: 122.2 million ARB tokens.
December 2024 Voting Power: 119.8 million ARB tokens.
Change in Voting Power: An decrease of 2.4 million ARB tokens (-1.96%)
Share of Total Voting Power( December 2024): 39.28% showing a substantial portion of the total voting power.
Top 11-50 Voter:
November 2024 Voting Power: 151.6M million ARB tokens.
December 2024 Voting Power: 148 million ARB tokens.
Change in Voting Power: An decrease of 3.6 million ARB tokens (-2.37%)
Share of Total Voting Power( December 2024): 48.52% holding a significant portion of the total voting power
Top 51-200 Voter:
November 2024 Voting Power: 30.6 million ARB tokens.
December 2024 Voting Power: 29.4 million ARB tokens.
Change in Voting Power: An decrease of 1.2 million ARB tokens (-3.92%)
Share of Total Voting Power( December 2024): 9.63% indicating some influence within the governance framework.
Top 201-500 Voter:
November 2024 Voting Power: 4.9M million ARB tokens.
December 2024 Voting Power: 4.6 million ARB tokens.
Change in Voting Power: An decrease of 0.3 million ARB tokens (-6.12%)
Share of Total Voting Power( December 2024): 1.51% which is significant relative to their earlier position.
Top 501-1000 Voter:
November 2024 Voting Power: 3.6 million ARB tokens.
December 2024 Voting Power: 3.3 million ARB tokens.
Change in Voting Power: An decrease of 0.3 million ARB tokens (-8.33%)
Share of Total Voting Power( December 2024): 1.06% the smallest group.
For a detailed breakdown and insights, you can view the full report here: Curia Arbitrum Governance Analytics Report #2: Dec 2024