Arbitrum Triple Dip (Delegate Incentive Program)

[paulofonseca]

Arbitrum Triple Dip (Delegate Incentive Program)

Non-Constitutional

Abstract

A new version of the Arbitrum DAO Delegate Incentive Program, that allows to reward both voters and contributors to the Arbitrum DAO in a predictable, easy to understand, objective, and meritocratic way.

This program was designed with the goals of:

• incentivizing voting participation, forum engagement, and organic contributions to our DAO by distributing a fixed amount of rewards in a fair, transparent and decentralized way
• reducing centralized subjectivity and evaluation bias of past delegate incentive programs
• eliminating excessive program admin costs and manual processes
• and producing monthly results and payouts faster and predictably

Every month, each delegate enrolled in the program can get 3 types of rewards, the First Dip (for their voting activity), the Second Dip (for their forum engagement), and the Third Dip (for their organic contributions), hence the tongue in cheek program name Arbitrum Triple Dip.

However, delegates will only get rewards if they qualify for them, according to the following process:

All parameters and amounts inside [square brackets] are just rough examples at this point, that should be decided by the DAO, as part of this collaborative process of designing the next version of the Delegate Incentive Program for Arbitrum DAO. Additionally, all other terms in bold in the diagram above, will be explained below.

Motivation

A healthy Delegate Incentive Program is a requirement in any mature DAO that has actual onchain governance, and Arbitrum DAO is probably at a point where it cannot sustain itself without a program of this sort. The recent issues in achieving quorum on proposals, and the lack of organic, community driven initiatives and proposals since the introduction of the new vision in April, show that Arbitrum DAO clearly needs a program that incentivizes delegates adequately. This program should be designed to incentivize our community to show up, vote, and contribute to the DAO to the best of their abilities, and to attract new and talented members to our community.

Given how the past versions of the program evolved, and the feedback it generated, it is clear that the new delegate incentive program needs to be way more predictable, objective, efficient, and attractive.

I’m now sharing here on the forum this proposal for a new delegate incentive program with the intent to kick-start a public and open discussion and deliberation process about it. The goal is to have a new, more adequate version of the program in effect from November 2025 onwards. More importantly, to have a version of the program that is designed and shaped in the open, by the biggest and most diverse body of stakeholders possible.

EDIT: @Curia joined in on the program design, to contribute with the reward mechanism for the Second Dip and eventualy operationalize a live dashboard with the program results, given their relevant experience in other ecosystems.

Rationale

This version of the Delegate Incentive Program, the Arbitrum Triple Dip, is focused on incentivizing 3 main outcomes:

1. that all offchain and onchain votes have a legitimate level of participation by consistently hitting quorum levels and rewarding voters that have good governance participation records;
2. that all valuable and helpful feedback that delegates write on the forum gets rewarded for their helpfulness and engagement over time;
3. that all manner of valuable organic contributions are rewarded in a fair and legitimate way so that we can attract and keep talented contributors in Arbitrum DAO.

These 3 main outcomes shaped the format, rules, and characteristics of this proposed Delegate Incentive Program and improve on the previous versions of this program, namely DIP 1.5, DIP 1.6, and the currently active DIP 1.7.

It also keeps certain characteristics of the previous versions of the Delegate Incentive Program, like the public Delegate Application Process and adherence to the Community Values in the Arbitrum DAO constitution, the Community Guidelines, and the DAO Code of Conduct.

Specifications

Arbitrum Triple Dip Rules

This version of the Delegate Incentive Program, the Arbitrum Triple Dip, has the following rules, that we welcome all delegate feedback on, as presented in the illustrated process above:

1. If in a given month, any offchain or onchain vote does have meaningful participation, aka, does not have more total casted voting power than the respective non-constitutional or constitutional quorum in effect at the time, nobody gets rewards, that month. (Except for “socially cancelled” onchain proposals)
2. If in a given month, delegates don’t vote on at least [100%] of offchain votes and on at least [100%] onchain votes, they don’t get rewards, that month.
3. If in a given month, delegates don’t have more than [500,000] ARB in average voting power, they don’t qualify for First Dip rewards, that month.
4. First Dip rewards are fixed at [30,000] ARB per month, and fully distributed, proportionally, to the delegates that comply to the criteria 3 and 4 above.
   a. For each delegate, the average of the casted voting power in all offchain and onchain votes in a given month, is used to compute the share of the First Dip rewards they receive. For example, if there are only 2 qualifying delegates, one with the higher voting power average of 9,000,000 ARB, and another one with the lower voting power average of 1,000,000 ARB, the first one receives 90% of the available First Dip amount, and the second one receives 10% of the available First Dip amount.
5. If in a given month, delegates don’t have more than [50,000] ARB in average voting power, they don’t qualify for Second Dip rewards, that month.
6. Each month, delegates should participate on the forum by commenting and ‘Liking’ others’ valuable posts. Contributions are measured by the Peer Recognition Score (PRS), which is designed to reward quality over quantity.
   a. Instead of scoring the comments themselves, the PRS is based entirely on the ‘Likes’ your comments receive from your peers which weights based on your reputation or voting power. At the end of each month, the system will calculate the score by looking at all the ‘Likes’ received, which are then normalized across the different threads in the forum. This means that accumulating a high volume of comments won’t improve your score; the goal is to make contributions that others find valuable enough to ‘Like’. For a full breakdown of the methodology, which is still being refined, please see the draft document here.
7. Second Dip rewards are fixed at [30,000] ARB per month, and fully distributed, proportionally to their Peer Review Score, to the delegates that fulfil criteria 2, 5, and 6 above.
8. If in a given [quarter], delegates don’t have more than [5,000] ARB in average voting power, they don’t qualify for Third Dip rewards, that [quarter].
9. Every [quarter], delegates enrolled in the program should post publicly, in a specific forum thread to be defined, up to [5] of their most impactful contributions each [quarter], so that all enrolled delegates can evaluate the value of each other’s contributions, by casting a valid weighted vote in a shielded offchain vote, like this example contributor evaluation vote, on this snapshot.box sub-space with an allow-list based membership that reflects the enrolled delegates in the program, each [quarter].
   a. A valid casted vote, in this contributor evaluation vote, is one where the allow-listed delegates enrolled in the program don’t vote for themselves. Any delegate that votes for themselves is excluded from Third Dip rewards.
10. Third Dip rewards are fixed at [120,000] ARB per [quarter], and fully distributed, proportionally, to the delegates that fulfil criteria 2, 8, and 9 above.
    a. For each delegate, they will receive a share of the Third Dip rewards, proportional to the voting power that voted for them in the results of the contributor evaluation vote, given that they received more than [10%] of the voting power that the top delegate received. For example, if the highest voted delegate got 10,000,000 ARB voting for them, only delegates that got more than 1,000,000 ARB voting for them will get rewarded a share of the Second Dip rewards.
11. There will need to be a maximum number of delegates rewarded by the program each [quarter], for example [50] delegates, so that the total amount of reward per delegate is still enough to incentivize continuous contribution.
12. All rewards are denominated and paid out in ARB. 1 ARB = 1 ARB.

Arbitrum Triple Dip Parameters

Regarding the specific parameters values, the ones in [square brackets] both in the illustrated process and in the rules above, they are all up for further deliberation. These specific initially suggested values, mostly mimic the August results of the 1.7 version of the currently active Delegate Incentives Program, assuming a $0.50 USD ARB price.

• Minimum Monthly Offchain Vote Participation = [100%]
  • this is a more demanding participation value than in the current DIP 1.7 because if we are going to pay delegates for voting, we should aim for delegates to have a perfect voting record.
  • includes all votes on the arbitrumfoundation.eth Snapshot Space
• Minimum Monthly Onchain Vote Participation = [100%]
  • this is a more demanding participation value than in the current DIP 1.7 because if we are going to pay delegates for voting, we should aim for delegates to have a perfect voting record.
  • includes all onchain votes in the Arbitrum Treasury Governor, all votes on the Arbitrum Core Governor, and all votes on the Security Council Governors
  • excludes all “socially cancelled” onchain votes
• Minimum Voting Power for First Dip Rewards = [500,000] ARB
  • this mimics the current Tier X requirement of DIP 1.7
• Fixed First Dip Monthly Rewards = [30,000] ARB
  • this closely mimics the amount that was paid for Tier X delegates in the August DIP 1.7 results, assuming a $0.50 USD ARB price
• Minimum Voting Power for Second Dip Rewards = [50,000] ARB
  • this mimics the requirement to be eligible for rewards in DIP 1.5/6
• Minimum Peer Recognition Score threshold = [70] points
  • this is to ensure that only the highest quality comments are rewarded
• Fixed Second Dip Monthly Rewards = [30,000] ARB
  • this closely mimics the amount that was paid for Tier X delegates in the August DIP 1.7 results, assuming a $0.50 USD ARB price
• Minimum Voting Power for Third Dip Rewards = [5,000] ARB
  • this is to ensure that we have a bigger pool of contributors competing for these rewards
• Time interval for Third Dip Contributor Evaluation rewards = [quarter]
  • this is to ensure that delegates don’t have to report, review and vote on the contributor evaluation vote too often
• Maximum Reported Contributions per month = [5]
  • so that delegates keep their monthly report of contributions concise, to be respectful of delegates’ attention span, by prioritizing their most impactful contributions
• Minimum Relative Contribution Cutoff = [10%] of the voting power that the top delegate received on the monthly contributor evaluation vote results
  • this is to establish a baseline of minimally valuable contributions, relative to the most valuable contribution each month.
• Fixed Third Dip Monthly Rewards = [120,000] ARB
  • this closely mimics the amount that was paid for Tier 1, 2, and 3 delegates in the August DIP 1.7 results, assuming a $0.50 USD ARB price
• Maximum Number of Delegates Rewarded per month for First and Second Dip rewards = [50]
  • this mimics the maximum amount of delegates to be rewarded on DIP 1.5/6/7

Retrospective comparison with DIP 1.7 results

(coming soon)

Timeline of the Arbitrum Triple Dip Process

Every month, delegates that have applied to the Arbitrum Triple Dip in that same month, and comply with the rules and parameters above, will be eligible for First Dip and Second Dip rewards.

Every [quarter], delegates that have applied to the Arbitrum Triple Dip in that period, and comply with the rules and parameters above, will be eligible for Third Dip rewards.

During this cycle, delegates can vote, comment, and contribute as they normally would, and then after that cycle ends, they should:

• update their report with their top [5] most impactful contributions, between the 1ˢᵗ and the 5ᵗʰ of the following month, after the [quarter] ends.
• vote, with a valid vote, in the contributor evalution vote in the specified snapshot space, between the 7ᵗʰ and the 14ᵗʰ of every month.

Then, the Arbitrum Foundation and/or OpCo should process the payments in accordance to the rules and execute the First Dip and Second Dip payouts within 5 days, between the 1ˢᵗ and the 5ᵗʰ of every month, and execute the Third Dip payouts within 6 days, between the 14ᵗʰ and the 20ᵗʰ of the month after the [quarter] ending.

Process for delegates to apply to the Arbitrum Triple Dip

Any delegate that wishes to be rewarded would need to apply to the Arbitrum Double Dip by posting their application to the forum, in a dedicated thread, similar to how it was done for version 1.5 on onwards of the DIP. All applications from DIP 1.5, 1.6 and 1.7 will be grandfathered in the Arbitrum Double Dip.

Process for suspending or banning delegates from the Arbitrum Triple Dip

Only the Arbitrum Foundation or the OpCo can decide to suspend for 1 or more months, or ban a delegate from the Arbitrum Triple Dip. Affected delegates can appeal and revert the decision with an offchain vote that achieves a favorable vote of more than 3% of votable ARB tokens.

Process for changing the above Rules and Parameters

Any delegate can initiate a proposal here in the forum, and the respective offchain vote to change any of the rules and parameters in the Arbitrum Triple Dip. Any change could never be done retroactively, and would only be considered a valid change if it achieves a favorable vote of more than 3% of votable ARB tokens.

Steps to Implement

It depends on how the community receives this proposal. If this design for a Delegate Incentive Program is well received, we need to collaboratively define how to best implement this program in coordination with the relevant AAEs, namely the Arbitrum Foundation and OpCo.

The only operational thing that would be needed is to include the future Snapshot space for the contributor evaluation vote, as a sub-space of the arbitrumfoundation.eth Snapshot space, so that it could inherit the Snapshot PRO benefits of our current subscription that are needed to correctly realize the contributor evaluaton vote, every [quarter].

Timeline

This proposal aims for this version of the Delegate Incentive Program, the Arbitrum Triple Dip, to be in effect, from the month of November 2025 onwards.

To achieve that we should, in this order:

1. agree on the rules of the next version of the Delegate Incentive Program
   a. forum discussion, deliberation, and incorporation of delegate feedback until October 16ᵗʰ
   b. temperature check offchain vote to determine if the DAO wishes to invest in a Delegate Incentive Program with this design, from October 16th to October 23rd
2. agree on the specific parameters of the next version of the Delegate Incentive Program
   a. temperature check offchain vote to ratify the program and to determine the specific total budget available for the first experimental 2 quarters of the program, with an offchain vote that needs to achieve the non-constitutional quorum from October 23rd to October 30th

Overall Cost

Depends on the reward amounts that are chosen in the final offchain temperature check vote. Will update this section of the proposal accordingly, as soon as there is consensus in the first temperature check vote and before the second, binding, offchain vote that needs to achieve the non-constitutional quorum to pass.

Assuming the preliminary parameters defined above, that were picked to mimic the spending of the last month of August under the DIP 1.7 version, this version of the Delegate Incentive Program would distribute 1,200,000 ARB per year at $0.50 USD per ARB, with virtually 0 admin costs, assuming the OpCo and/or the Arbitrum Foundation would take care of the minimal admin required, which they are already doing for the DIP 1.7 version.

Assuming this proposal passes, we will use the still available DIP 1.5/6/7 budget and multisig controlled by the Arbitrum Foundation.

[paulofonseca]

this proposal was submitted on this forum at around 22:00 UTC on October 2nd, 2025

and it was approved by the forum moderators roughly 13 hours later

[paulofonseca]

We can all try out an example of a monthly contributor evaluation vote, here:
https://snapshot.box/#/s:arbitrumdoubledip.eth/proposal/0x5744ce013531ba5856d91c927e9a4814dfc774f0f09c09396cbd4e8586a66e1b

[TempeTechie]

In general, I think this proposal follows the idea that most of us agree on and was already implemented in the latest DIP: separating incentives for voting from incentives for contributions.

Implementing voting rewards is relatively easy since it relies on clear, objective requirements.

However, properly rewarding contributions is a much tougher challenge. There are so many different types of contributions people can make, and everyone values them differently.

The approach suggested in your proposal is one possible way to evaluate contributions, and it could be a solid starting point. What I’m worried about is that it could be gamed after some time. That’s why I prefer keeping some flexibility within the DIP, so the evaluation criteria can be adjusted if they start being gamed (or if they lead to unwanted outcomes or disruptions within the community).

The $0 admin costs… I’m highly skeptical of this. The process would still require quite a bit of administrative work beyond what OpCo is supposed to handle, e.g. posting evaluation votes, preparing payout calculations, onboarding new delegates/contributors, doing BD to attract large VP delegates to First Dip, monitoring how well the system works and whether it’s being gamed, etc (I very likely left out some important tasks that a lot of us are not even aware of). This is far from being a $0 admin costs thing.

Personally, I’d rather have a dedicated DIP program manager, who not only does administration work, but also monitors the program and adjusts it to prevent unwanted outcomes or even manipulation.

[JoJo]

Thank you for your proposal.

First, the initial part about voting.
It makes total sense, and it makes also sense in having points/compensation/valuation based on the amount of VP owned. In the end, L2beat/Wintermute/Gauntlet will always have a bigger impact compared to 1 million and below delegates for obvious reasons.
This matches qualitative the idea of the current DIP. Quantative wise, I think is definitely more aggressive than what we currently have. I am not necessarily saying this is good or bad, but this will definitely discourage lower VP delegates from participation. The current weight system seems more balanced but maybe there is ground for this one as well.

@paulofonseca

• Every month, delegates enrolled in the program should post publicly, in a specific forum thread to be defined, up to [5] of their most impactful contributions each month, so that all enrolled delegates can evaluate the value of each other’s contributions, by casting a valid weighted vote in a shielded offchain vote, like this example contributor evaluation vote, on this snapshot.box sub-space with an allow-list based membership that reflects the enrolled delegates in the program, each month.
• A valid casted vote, in this monthly contributor evaluation vote, is one where the allow-listed delegates enrolled in the program don’t vote for themselves. Any delegate that votes for themselves is excluded from Second Dip rewards.

This is something I think doesn’t make sense at a lot of levels.

1. Every delegate will have to post 5 of their most impactful contributions → what can be defined as “contribution”? It’s a fairly subjective thing. I create a new proposal? objectively a contribution. I help a boot at an Arbitrum event? same. I do create a guide on how to connect rabby to a custom rpc in arbitrum? Maybe. What happens then for example if gmx creates a new pool that adds 50M of tvl to arbitrum? Is that a contribution that should be rewarded in the DIP program to the GMX delegate? And what about a manager of a DAO program that does an improvement to that very program, does it fall into contributions?
   this is a very random list just to show how it will be extremely easy for delegates to start posting random things just to get visibility. Regardless of the judgment from other delegates, it will indeed create spamming activity. This also brings me to the second point, more important
2. if i understood correctly, all delegates will have to vote, every month, on the contribution of another 10, 20, 30 people, by reading their thread and evaluating their “contributions”, and vote accordingly. This will be, to be blunt, something that just won’t happen. Governance is already cumbersome for most delegates, especially the ones that have a vested interest in the chain (think about builders and protocols) but not the DAO. DIP program has also moved, i would say succesfully and with support looking at the last vote like 1.7, toward something that is in general a less active model of governance. This point would be a big step backward, and thinking that protocols that have a business to manage have the time what I do write as Jojo every month is unrealistic.
3. there is the fundamental mistake of comingling a contribution program to a voting program. What we have seen this year, with bonus points for activities, was a secondary effect of the DAO not having a way to reward contributors. Obviously this came with a lot of flaws, starting from subjectivity up to inability to reward delegates that are not enrolled in the program as well. Trying to have a second year with the mix of the two roles will just limit ourself and make everything more confusing

@paulofonseca

assuming the OpCo and/or the Arbitrum Foundation would take care of the minimal admin required, which they are already doing for the DIP 1.7 version.

This is another assumption that might just not be true. There is a huge amount of work behind a program as broad as the DIP. Even just managing communications, both broadcast and unicast, takes a lot of time. Managing issues such as changing addresses, new kyb/c, fringe cases, verification of addresses, is something that happens more often than note.
The effort and time to run this thing will be there, is definitely non zero, and a program manager is imho needed.

[paulofonseca]

@TempeTechie

this proposal follows the idea that most of us agree on and was already implemented in the latest DIP: separating incentives for voting from incentives for contributions.

Yes. the difference is that the incentives for voting, in this Double Dip model, are proportional to the voting power of each delegate, and the delegate with the most voting power enrolled in the program, receives the biggest share of First Dip rewards. Comparing to DIP 1.7, a delegate with 552,100 ARB like @TodayInDeFi would receive way less in this model than in DIP 1.7 ($65.34 USD vs $1,000 USD equivalent which is the Tier X minimum), and a delegate with 15,610,000 ARB like L2BEAT (@krst) would receive more in this model than in DIP 1.7 (1,847.43 USD vs $1,500 USD equivalent which is the Tier X maximum). You can check the comparable amounts for August here.

This was designed so that delegates with less voting power that would still qualify for voting incentives would look for opportunities to also contribute to the DAO, and get Second Dip rewards as well.
Right now, in DIP 1.7, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that delegates with just barely more than 500,000 ARB immediately get $1,000 USD a month just for voting. And by the way, I’m arguing and proposing this Double Dip model against myself here, because I think is just better for the DAO. Otherwise I could just vote (2 or 3 times a month) with the +700,000 ARB delegated to me and collect more than $1,000 USD a month.

I’m also thinking of adding another rule for delegates to be able to receive First Dip rewards, which is that they need to cast [100%] of their votes with a reason for every offchain and onchain vote.

@TempeTechie

it could be gamed after some time. That’s why I prefer keeping some flexibility within the DIP, so the evaluation criteria can be adjusted if they start being gamed (or if they lead to unwanted outcomes or disruptions within the community)

Any delegate can monitor if the system is being gamed, just like we’ve been doing for the past few months, since the data is available to us all. For example, with the last DIP 1.7 results, delegates complained about the results, and even though disputes were outlawed, the results still changed based on those outlawed disputes. For those that followed the reaction to the latest August DIP 1.7 results in the telegram chat, they know that delegates are paying attention to how the other delegates are behaving and how they are being rewarded. In this Double Dip system, anybody would be able to propose a rule or parameter change at any time, via an offchain vote (but the change can’t be retroactively applied, which has been a problem in DIP).

@TempeTechie

posting evaluation votes, preparing payout calculations, onboarding new delegates/contributors, doing BD to attract large VP delegates to First Dip, monitoring how well the system works and whether it’s being gamed, etc

I think these are all examples of value add contributions that any delegate could do, and submit them every month as their contributions to qualify for Second Dip rewards. These things could even be done by @SEEDGov to be honest.

[paulofonseca]

@JoJo

Quantative wise, I think is definitely more aggressive than what we currently have. I am not necessarily saying this is good or bad, but this will definitely discourage lower VP delegates from participation.

Yeah, the Double Dip method I’m proposing is more aggressive in the sense that in the DIP 1.7, the Tier X rewards only vary between $1,000 USD for those that have 500,000 ARB in voting power and $1,500 USD for those that have many more times that voting power. The idea is that if we are going to pay delegates to just vote, mostly to be able to achieve quorum on out proposals, the value of that contribution is just the casted voting power of each delegate. So a delegate that has 10x more voting power than the next, should get 10x the rewards for voting. That seems fair to me.

@JoJo

what can be defined as “contribution”?

Everything that has been awarded previously in DIP, as Delegate Feedback (good value add comments in this forum) and Bonus Points (outstanding contributions that have ranged from twitter threads, to podcasts, to organizing events, to proposing something without asking for self-payment, etc).

Of course that delegates would frame every kind of contribution in this setup, but it would need to be a contribution for which the delegate has not been paid directly, or financially benefited, at all, of course. So when posting their up to [5] monthly contributions in the forum, delegates need to prove that they haven’t been compensated for those contributions yet. And they can’t repeat contributions from one month to the next.

This is basically the same thing @SEEDGov does every month to make sure they don’t reward people with Bonus Points for things they’ve already been paid to do. But in Double Dip, all delegates should do that due diligence when they vote to evaluate the contributions every month.

@JoJo

This will be, to be blunt, something that just won’t happen.

If delegates don’t vote in the monthly contributor vote, they don’t get Second Dip rewards, and that’s ok. Big delegates, with big delegations, would basically earn the same, under this Double Dip model, just for voting, from First Dip rewards. The delegates that don’t have enough voting power to qualify for juicy First Dip rewards, would be the ones that would voluntarily contribute and compete for Second Dip rewards, and therefore would take the time to review everybody’s contributions and vote on the monthly contributors evaluation vote.

@JoJo

there is the fundamental mistake of comingling a contribution program to a voting program. What we have seen this year, with bonus points for activities, was a secondary effect of the DAO not having a way to reward contributors. Obviously this came with a lot of flaws, starting from subjectivity up to inability to reward delegates that are not enrolled in the program as well. Trying to have a second year with the mix of the two roles will just limit ourself and make everything more confusing

I see this differently. I see only one role, the one of delegates, aka, those that have ARB tokens delegated to their wallet and can vote on proposals. I like this definition because it is an onchain definition that everybody can track at any time. Then those delegates can decide to contribute to the DAO in several ways, and the DAO should have a program that rewards all types of different contributions that the community finds valuable. Now the trick is how do we determine what is valuable, of course. Up until now, SEEDGov has been determining what is a valuable contribution, but has been doing so with much contention, to say the least.

This Double Dip design proposes to enshrine a specific type of contribution, voting, with a specific type of reward mechanism that pays more to those that have more voting power casted. That’s the goal of the rewards in the First Dip.

Then, the Second Dip, rewards every other type of contribution, and the way it determines the value of any other type of contribution is by having the whole body of delegates enrolled in the program participate in a monthly contributor evaluation vote, which is a much more decentralized and crowdsourced way to accomplish the same thing, without contention, and that allows to have the monthly results sooner and therefore pay delegates faster.

@JoJo

Even just managing communications, both broadcast and unicast, takes a lot of time.

There would be no need to do this. Any delegate can propose to change a rule or parameter at any time via an offchain vote, and that proposal would be all the communication needed.

@JoJo

Managing issues such as changing addresses, new kyb/c, fringe cases, verification of addresses, is something that happens more often than not

This specific type of work would have to be done mostly by the AF/OpCo either way.
We could however setup a simple app for delegates to apply to the program, update their data, and track their rewards. I even believe this features could be something Karma could add to their current Delegate Compensation Dashboard.

[Tane]

First of all, we would like to thank @paulofonseca for taking the initiative to rethink and redesign the Delegate Incentive Program. The current DIP framework has certainly improved over time, but as this proposal highlights, there are still structural challenges worth addressing.

We recognize that there is no such thing as a perfect evaluation system, but at this point, the most evident and structural challenges appear to be the lack of trust and acceptance toward evaluation results, and the growing cost and complexity of the evaluation process itself.

To address these, we believe the fundamental approaches are to rotate or decentralize evaluators, and to redesign the evaluation criteria to be as objective and simple as possible. In particular, in the current situation, much of the loss of trust and legitimacy in the evaluation process seems to stem from the excessive complexity of the existing incentive program.

This proposal primarily focuses on the issue of who evaluates whom, rather than the method or criteria of evaluation itself, as we understand. However, we believe there is also a clear need for a separate discussion on the evaluation methodology and underlying criteria.

Regarding Paulo’s current proposal, we see merit in the direction, but also share the concern that full peer-to-peer evaluation across all participants may become burdensome. One possible middle ground could be that each DIP participant evaluates three to five other participants, while each participant receives evaluations from around three to five different teams. This structure could lead to more standardized outcomes while keeping the process manageable. Extreme outliers in scoring could be mitigated by adjusting the weight of evaluations from those who consistently give overly generous or harsh scores.

Even with such adjustments, the process would likely remain somewhat heavy, but we view this as a constructive way to make this model more practical and appealing.

Alternatively, a completely different approach would be to adopt a committee-based system for evaluators. For example, a 10-member committee could be established initially, and after about three months, delegates could evaluate the evaluators themselves and narrow the group down to three trusted members. This model would not require frequent turnover but could enhance accountability and confidence in the evaluation process.

[TempeTechie]

@paulofonseca

• First Dip rewards are fixed at [30,000] ARB per month, and fully distributed, proportionally, to the delegates that comply to the criteria 3 and 4 above.
• For each delegate, the average of the casted voting power in all offchain and onchain votes in a given month, is used to compute the share of the First Dip rewards they receive. For example, if there are only 2 qualifying delegates, one with the higher voting power average of 9,000,000 ARB, and another one with the lower voting power average of 1,000,000 ARB, the first one receives 90% of the available First Dip amount, and the second one receives 10% of the available First Dip amount.

I think we shouldn’t go with full distribution. Instead we should have reward caps (for how much a single delegate can get). The reason is purely game theory: if you don’t have a reward cap, it can become a zero-sum game with an incentive to prevent competition from being eligible.

@paulofonseca

If in a given month, any offchain or onchain vote does have meaningful participation,

Did you mean “does not have”?

[paulofonseca]

@TempeTechie

Did you mean “does not have”?

yes! good catch! just edited. thank you!

@TempeTechie

if you don’t have a reward cap, it can become a zero-sum game with an incentive to prevent competition from being eligible.

I’m not sure I understand what you mean here. Are you talking for the First Dip rewards only? or for both First and Second Dip rewards?

In both, delegates cannot prevent other delegates from participating as this is a permissionless system both for voting and receiving First Dip rewards, and for contributing and competing for receiving Second Dip rewards.

[Curia]

Thank you for this thoughtful proposal. We strongly support the direction of creating a more objective incentive program, which addresses several key challenges with the current model. The goal of moving towards a peer-driven system is one we fully align with.

That said, there’s one aspect that we believe could be refined further. Our primary feedback centers on the mechanics of the "Second Dip”. While we support the peer-voting model over centralized committees, a key challenge will be the “apples-to-oranges” comparison of diverse, self-reported contributions (e.g., forum delegate feedback vs. research reports vs. leading initiatives). This ambiguity could reintroduce the subjectivity the program aims to reduce.

We believe the system’s objectivity could be significantly improved by creating distinct evaluation tracks for different types of contributions. We propose considering a split of the “Second Dip” into two specialized pools:

• High-Impact Projects (Contributions): For discrete, significant work like authoring proposals, leading working groups, or other extraordinary contributions which would use the proposed self-reporting and peer-voting model.
• Quality Forum Contributions (Delegate Feedback): A dedicated pool to properly and scalably incentivize the deep research, nuanced feedback, and constructive debate that are vital to the DAO’s health.

To complement this approach, we’ve been working on a data-driven evaluation system, the forum Peer Recognition Score (PRS), which aim to introduces a peer-weighted way to measure contribution quality without relying on centralized evaluators. We believe this kind of mechanism could strengthen the second layer of the program by rewarding genuine impact in a transparent, community-validated way. We think that by adopting a specialized, dual-track structure like this would allow the peer vote to focus solely on comparing major contribution that is distinct to delegate feedbacks on the forum, making the entire evaluation more focused and objective.

We’re sharing this as a constructive addition to the discussion. This is an early-stage idea, and we would value hearing how others think about this approach. Our hope is to help shape an incentive program that effectively balances fairness, objectivity, and genuine participation.

[karpatkey]

Overall, we believe the proposed Double Dip program effectively identifies the key areas that need improvement in a new version of the initiative — primarily the subjectivity of the scoring system and the removal of a single evaluation framework for two distinct participant types.

We agree that the current scoring setup relies too heavily on the subjectivity of the program manager — a factor that definitely needs reconsideration.
One potential concern, though, is that contributors might “secretly partner” to secure rewards (e.g., delegate A and B consistently voting for each other regardless of actual performance). While this seems like an edge case and probably not a major issue in practice, it’s worth keeping in mind as part of the broader tradeoff between decentralisation and system integrity.
Additionally, we recognise @JoJo raised a valid point on the delegate workload that would be introduced by this system.

all delegates will have to vote, every month, on the contribution of another 10, 20, 30 people, by reading their thread and evaluating their “contributions”, and vote accordingly. This will be, to be blunt, something that just won’t happen.

We agree with the idea of separating voting delegates and contributors. Both bring real value to the DAO, but their work is fundamentally different, so it makes sense that they should be evaluated differently. This is a core improvement we appreciate seeing in the Double Dip proposal.

Huge thanks to @paulofonseca for putting in the work and bringing forward an alternative approach to delegate incentives — it’s great to see thoughtful experimentation here. As we understand it, @SEEDGov and the AF are also working on a new version of the DIP.

Having multiple approaches on the table helps highlight the tradeoffs and makes it easier for the community to evaluate which direction might be the best fit. We’ll hold off on deeper feedback until DIP v2 is published, so we can assess both proposals side by side and weigh the tradeoffs more concretely.

[pedrob]

Hi Paulo,

Thank you very much for the proposal. Taking the time to think through and suggest solutions to some of the toughest problems we face as a DAO takes courage and a lot of effort, which is truly appreciated.

I believe your proposal correctly identifies one of the main lessons we’ve learned from the DIP in its various iterations: the diversity of stakeholders involved in governance, and the need for a program that recognizes their different needs and motivations in order to ensure both the DAOs security and meaningful participation.

In that regard, I think it’s important to note that @SEEDGov , in its role as Program Manager with extensive experience tackling this challenge, together with the Arbitrum Foundation, have recently been working on a program that seeks to address this same issue and will soon be published for the DAO feedback.

On the other hand, a few points to consider.

I think that the proposed model doesn’t actually reduce subjectivity or make the process more objective, but rather transfers that subjectivity from a Program Manager to an undefined and variable collective. Therefore, it’s debatable whether that collective would be any more predictable than a Program Manager, since that predictability would depend on its stability over time.

In that regard, our governance model has recently shifted away from placing the operational burden on delegates, moving instead toward full-time teams with context and long-term vision. The double dip model you’re proposing would represent a step backward in that shift, as it would place a heavy operational load on delegates, something we should aim to avoid.

For that reason, I also don’t believe there would be a real reduction in operational costs. Those costs would simply be transferred to the participants in the program, namely the delegates. Also, I don’t think reducing administrative costs should be a goal in itself.

I find it very valuable that you’ve highlighted the importance of recognizing the influence of delegates with higher VP, while also seeking a way to acknowledge the contributions of those who, despite holding less VP, bring meaningful value to the DAO.

Given that you’re planning to move this proposal to a vote this Thursday, I’d suggest waiting until the proposal being prepared by SEED and the AF is published on the forum. That way, we can have a broader discussion about the trade-offs between both approaches and reach a vote that reflects a stronger overall consensus on the path forward.

Note: This comment reflects my opinion.

[cp0x]

First of all, I want to thank you for such a detailed and fresh approach to rewarding delegates – it’s important not to stand still and to keep proposing new systems.

Why this matters: a lot of teams and individuals are now dedicating full time to delegation (cp0x included), and like in any job, there needs to be some stability and a sense that the work you’re doing is meaningful and will be rewarded.

What I like:

1. 100% voting
   I see no reason not to log in once a week and vote – there aren’t so many votes that it could be easily skipped.
2. Splitting rewards into two types – though SeedGov also arrived at a similar conclusion in their latest update.
3. Independence from any single party
   The most important benefit – there’s no single point of influence, unlike in the current program

Some questions we’ve already discussed with Paulo – but for the new version, I also have the following:

1. Could we consider some automation in how funds are distributed between the two pools?
   The system should adapt so that there isn’t too much imbalance – for example, if we have 30 delegates with more than 500k ARB, each receiving 1k ARB, and 2 delegates receiving 35k ARB each for contributions. Ideally, the total should be distributed in proportion to the number of recipients.
2. I feel the program lacks clear goals:
   We should be striving toward something. Yes, the system is more balanced, but what for? To be frank, the main metric should be voting – that’s what Arbitrum needs. The second should be the quality of decision-making. And here we need delegates who actively discuss, influence decisions, propose innovations and improvements. For each of these two key points, we should set clear goals.
3. A fairly heavy workload will fall on all delegates, since they will be required to review dozens of reports and objectively give their assessments, while they themselves may not receive anything for this work.
   Therefore, it’s necessary to establish at least a minimum payout for every delegate who meets the core requirements, to cover the basic effort of analyzing all reports.
4. How do we deal with cartels?
   If even just two delegates with 1M votes always vote for each other, they will receive not only the first part of the DIP rewards, but also the second – even if they don’t actually contribute.
5. A question about the 500k threshold:
   Why specifically 500k, and not 450k or 799k? It might be worth raising this figure, since the 500k threshold seems to have come out of nowhere from the previous DIP
   It seems to me that this category should not include too many delegates – only those who are large enough to have influence but do not want to spend their time on discussions.
   In essence, the formula now being proposed is: if you receive delegations of 500k ARB, you’ll get about 1,200 ARB per month (based on August’s calculations) – roughly 3% annual yield.
   This won’t attract any new participants – the percentage is too small – but it will reduce the activity of delegates holding between 500k and 1M.
   I see only downsides in lowering this threshold

[paulofonseca]

@pedrob

transfers that subjectivity from a Program Manager to an undefined and variable collective.

wouldn’t you say, this is just another way of saying that, this proposed model decentralizes the process? because that is the goal of the whole design, yes.
Also, I’m not sure what you mean by this collective being undefined, because the rules of membership are very clear, so we would know exactly what defines the membership of this collective.

@pedrob

it’s debatable whether that collective would be any more predictable than a Program Manager, since that predictability would depend on its stability over time.

I would say that currently, the issues are not really about predictability of the Program Manager’s decisions, but more about inherent human bias and perceived or actual unfairness. That’s why there were so many disputes of the monthly results, at least until they were outlawed in DIP 1.7.

The proposed Double Dip process would have less bias since the evaluation would be decentralized among the diverse set of participating delegates, and more fair in the sense that the decision-making is decentralized, since it follows the will of the delegates with the most voting power, which is the most legitimate decision-making tool we have in this, or any, DAO really.

@pedrob

our governance model has recently shifted away from placing the operational burden on delegates, moving instead toward full-time teams with context and long-term vision. The double dip model you’re proposing would represent a step backward in that shift, as it would place a heavy operational load on delegates, something we should aim to avoid.

Well, do you think a program to incentivize delegates for the ad-hoc contributions they do for the DAO, should even exist, then?
Because if so, the operational load of managing a program that rewards delegates for their subjective contributions will always exist as well. So its operationality needs to be managed either on a centralized way like it does on DIP 1.7, to the tune of $27,5k USD a month, or in a decentralized way like I’m proposing here, where all the interested parties in receiving funds would have to participate on reporting their own contributions, evaluating other delegates contributions, and voting on the weighted shielded offchain vote, every month.

@pedrob

Those costs would simply be transferred to the participants in the program, namely the delegates. Also, I don’t think reducing administrative costs should be a goal in itself.

This is correct, yes.

But then a fairer question would be, what would the DAO prefer?

Delegates getting around $50k a month between themselves for their contributions that are decided by a Program Manager that gets $20k a month and a service provider that gets $7.5k a month for the dashboard where everybody can see those results in detail…

VS.

The delegates putting in the work of reporting their contributions and evaluating each other every month to distribute $77.5k USD a month?

@pedrob

Given that you’re planning to move this proposal to a vote this Thursday, I’d suggest waiting until the proposal being prepared by SEED and the AF is published on the forum. That way, we can have a broader discussion about the trade-offs between both approaches and reach a vote that reflects a stronger overall consensus on the path forward.

Yeah, I agree. Let’s wait a little bit more for the other proposal to show up. Even though, whatever proposal gets approved, in the fastest timeline possible, we are already late in this process unfortunately, since ideally delegates should know, before the beginning of November, what is the framework that they are going to be evaluated on, and if there’s even one at all, with the confidence of an onchain vote.
Postponing the offchain vote for another week, means that the soonest the onchain vote could get approved is November 13th, or 15th if the late quorum extension is needed.

I edited the proposal according to this new timeline.

[paulofonseca]

I like this idea a lot!

In fact, I initially started looking into new ways of evaluating delegate contributions exactly from this perspective.

Forum comments that have received a like from a delegate with high voting power, are more valuable than others.

In fact, @SEEDGov has used this same heuristic before to reward this, now infamous, comment of mine.

As it can be seen here in the SEEDGov Notion notes for the month of May.

So yeah, I like this idea a lot and I think we should follow this.
I assume the current Curia dashboard will evolve to show this kind of info, most likely here, correct?

In regard to the algorithm to calculate the Peer Recognition Score, I think we can also try to mitigate some potential for gaming the results by analyzing habitual liking patterns where the same delegates always like the same people. Also, there is a challenge of correctly mapping several forum accounts that belong to the same organization and excluding self-likes where for example @Sinkas almost always like comments from @krst and that shouldn’t count for this score.

But, in general, I like this a lot, and we should meet to talk better about this. Sorry that I haven’t responded to your DM yet.

Let’s make this not just a Double Dip, but a Triple Dip =)

[paulofonseca]

@karpatkey

One potential concern, though, is that contributors might “secretly partner” to secure rewards (e.g., delegate A and B consistently voting for each other regardless of actual performance). While this seems like an edge case and probably not a major issue in practice, it’s worth keeping in mind as part of the broader tradeoff between decentralisation and system integrity.

@cp0x

How do we deal with cartels?
If even just two delegates with 1M votes always vote for each other, they will receive not only the first part of the DIP rewards, but also the second – even if they don’t actually contribute.

Yes, this is a risk. But I don’t think this would work for more than 1 month, because the other delegates would probably notice that behavior, call it out, and then punish those delegates in the following months by not voting for them in the Second Dip monthly contribution evaluation vote.

Also, the way the rewards of the Second Dip are distributed, ensures that the delegate that is voted the highest, not just gets the highest reward, but also raises the bar for all the other contributions that would be rewarded, since only contributions that were at least 10% as valuable as the most valuable contribution get rewarded in the end.

That’s the role of the Minimum Relative Contribution Cutoff = [10%].

@paulofonseca

Minimum Relative Contribution Cutoff = [10%] of the voting power that the top delegate received on the monthly contributor evaluation vote results

• this is to establish a baseline of minimally valuable contributions, relative to the most valuable contribution each month.

If we increase this parameter to 20% for example, way less delegates get rewarded, but the ones that do, they get rewarded a higher amount.

[paulofonseca]

@cp0x

Could we consider some automation in how funds are distributed between the two pools?
The system should adapt so that there isn’t too much imbalance – for example, if we have 30 delegates with more than 500k ARB, each receiving 1k ARB, and 2 delegates receiving 35k ARB each for contributions. Ideally, the total should be distributed in proportion to the number of recipients.

I understand the concern regarding imbalance of payout, but you are comparing different things. The value of voting, and the value of contributing. That’s why I designed this system with 2 very different mechanisms so that we don’t conflate the value between the 2.

I think the DAO should decide how much money, per month, wants to pay for voting (I suggested the 30,000 ARB) and how much money, per month, wants to pay for contributions (I suggested the 70,000 ARB).

I welcome other suggestions for these amounts and for a different ratio between these amounts for First Dip and Second Dip.

@cp0x

I feel the program lacks clear goals:
We should be striving toward something. Yes, the system is more balanced, but what for? To be frank, the main metric should be voting – that’s what Arbitrum needs. The second should be the quality of decision-making. And here we need delegates who actively discuss, influence decisions, propose innovations and improvements. For each of these two key points, we should set clear goals.

I agree that we should have clear goals as a DAO, but that is a bigger problem than the DIP. It’s something we’ve been trying to solve with the SOS initiative, but unfortunately there hasn’t been much progress on that front.

I think the bigger question we should ask is, should we have a Delegate Incentive Program, of any shape or format, even when we don’t have defined and set goals as a DAO?
I would argue that since the current status quo is that we have a DIP but don’t have clear goals as a DAO, the answer to that question currently is… yes.

@cp0x

A fairly heavy workload will fall on all delegates, since they will be required to review dozens of reports and objectively give their assessments, while they themselves may not receive anything for this work.
Therefore, it’s necessary to establish at least a minimum payout for every delegate who meets the core requirements, to cover the basic effort of analyzing all reports.

I would argue that this would not be that much work to be honest. It would be the equivalent amount of work as to review a semi complicated DAO proposal before voting. Most delegates are expected to conduct proper due diligence before voting either way, this would be the same case.

I don’t think we should have a minimum guaranteed payout, but I think that maybe, we will need to have a maximum amount of people that would get paid from Second Dip rewards, so that each individual payout is worth the delegate’s time and effort.

Either way, given that the current status quo is that the number of delegates being rewarded by the DIP has been steadily decreasing over time, we should firstly be concerned with onboarding as many new delegates as we can, and secondly, in restricting the number of delegates being paid when the individual rewards will start getting too small to share with everybody. Or just increase the total amount of budget for Second Dip.

@cp0x

A question about the 500k threshold:
Why specifically 500k, and not 450k or 799k? It might be worth raising this figure, since the 500k threshold seems to have come out of nowhere from the previous DIP
It seems to me that this category should not include too many delegates – only those who are large enough to have influence but do not want to spend their time on discussions.
In essence, the formula now being proposed is: if you receive delegations of 500k ARB, you’ll get about 1,200 ARB per month (based on August’s calculations) – roughly 3% annual yield.
This won’t attract any new participants – the percentage is too small – but it will reduce the activity of delegates holding between 500k and 1M.
I see only downsides in lowering this threshold

I don’t have a strong opinion about how much this parameter should be. I used 500,000 ARB to facilitate the direct comparison of distribution of rewards with the August results following the DIP 1.7 rules.

I want to highlight, as I commented above, that the First Dip rewards are proportional to the casted voting power of each delegate, meaning that if a delegate with 1,000,000 ARB gets $100 USD in First Dip rewards, a delegate with 10,000,000 ARB would get $1,000 USD that same month.

The reward amount would vary given how many delegates qualify for each month for First Dip rewards. To the extreme where if only 1 delegate with 500,000 ARB has 100% voting participation that month, that delegate would get all the 30,000 ARB for First Dip rewards.

[Curia]

Hey @paulofonseca, thank you for the thoughtful and very supportive reply! We’re glad the concept resonates with you, and the SEEDGov example is a good validation of this approach in practice.

You’ve pinpointed a couple of critical points on potential gaming vectors: habitual liking and mapping same-team accounts. We’ve been considering these issues carefully and have a couple of ideas on how to mitigate them. For example, we’re exploring concepts like a “mutual-like dampener” for habitual patterns, as well as a way to handle likes within a delegate team or between co-authors on the same proposal. This would require the kind of team mapping we implemented for Scroll DAO’s GCR program (before the recent gov slowdown), so we’re confident these are solvable challenges.

Regarding your question about our dashboard, should this become an official program, our current thinking is to give the Peer Recognition Score its own dedicated tab, rather than adding it to “Content performance.” The PRS is a distinct, composite score measuring peer-validated influence, and giving it its own space would make it clearer and more impactful for delegates to track. We are also exploring the potential for a Discourse plugin to surface this data directly on the forum.

Happy to dive deeper into the specifics of these mechanics with you and the community as this develops. Really appreciate your engagement.

[TodayInDeFi]

Thanks for putting forward such a detailed and forward-looking framework for the Delegate Incentive Program. The ADD proposal clearly moves the conversation in a positive direction — separating voting performance from qualitative contributions and aiming for a more decentralized, peer-driven model.

I see a lot of merit in ADD, especially in its effort to build a fair and transparent process for evaluating delegate contributions. At the same time, I think the current DIP has done a commendable job of defining what counts as a contribution — setting clear expectations and encouraging healthy participation across the ecosystem.

Where the current DIP can improve is in how those contributions are evaluated — and that’s exactly where ADD introduces valuable ideas worth building on. That said, I do have a few concerns and would appreciate more clarity around certain aspects of the proposed structure.

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Concerns on Peer Review Quality

Under the proposed peer review model for the second dip, requiring delegates to review every other delegate’s monthly contributions may not be realistic.

Most active delegates are already busy with proposal reviews, voting, and governance calls. Adding another layer of time-intensive reviews could quickly lead to fatigue and, ultimately, lower-quality participation.

There’s also a potential for bias or reciprocal voting, especially within a small and familiar delegate circle. Since evaluating contributions is inherently subjective, these dynamics would be hard to identify and completely prevent.

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Concerns on Evaluation Expertise

Delegates come from a wide range of backgrounds — research, governance, community engagement, defi — and not everyone has the expertise to fairly evaluate every type of contribution.

That diversity is a strength of the DAO, but it also means that full peer evaluation across all contribution types could be inconsistent or unfair, especially when comparing very different kinds of work.

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Suggestion: A Working-Group Model

Instead of relying entirely on peer evaluation or assigning a single entity to manage the program, it might be worth exploring a middle-ground approach — forming a small working group of elected stakeholders.

This group could review and score contribution reports using predefined rubrics, while still leaving space for delegates to provide light peer input — for example, nominating standout contributions or offering feedback.

The idea is similar to the current Domain Allocator (formerly Questbook) structure, where a few members each cover different verticals.

Each member would focus on identifying contributions within their area and lead discussions on evaluating them.

For contributions that don’t clearly fit into a specific domain, the group as a whole could assess them collectively to ensure fairness.

Such a setup would:

• Keep the process decentralized yet accountable,

• Reduce the workload for individual delegates,

• Leverage domain expertise for more consistent and fair evaluations, and

• Minimize risks of bias or vote-trading.

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Potential Costs and Implementation

One open question for this model is whether it would introduce additional costs to the DAO.

It’s worth discussing how to handle this efficiently — whether these costs could be covered within the existing DIP budget, or if a small separate allocation would make sense.