Hello Arbitrum DAO,
As October wraps up, we’re excited to share what we’ve accomplished this month. Building on our mid-month updates, we’ve continued to push forward across the following key areas. Here’s a recap of what we’ve achieved this month and the impact it brings to our long-term vision.
Update 5 Tl;dr
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Conducted market consultation interviews and reviewed deals
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Engaged with delegates for feedback on Snapshot draft and direction
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Progressed in thesis and strategy development
Further Details
Market Consultations
We conducted 16 market consultations this month, engaging with fund managers, ventures, and builders. Through these efforts, we analyzed market maker needs from builder feedback. We’ve also assessed multiple deals to evaluate their context, investment terms, and structures, with one selected for a trial. Above are some of the investment cases we’ve explored, with the name of the organization removed to maintain anonymity. This list is evolving and continues to grow.
We represented at ETH Sofia, engaging with ~10 projects for market consultations and have expanded the longlist of entities of interest for research or as potential investment targets. As a reminder, we welcome your feedback! Don’t hesitate to share your ideas for the long or short list—each one helps us refine our direction. If you believe something should be added/removed or someone from the longlist should be moved up to the shortlist, we’d love to hear your input.
Delegates Feedback on Direction
We shared a Snapshot draft for review, inviting delegate feedback, and will continue refining it over the coming month. Additionally, we hosted a DAO update session to ensure alignment and inform everyone of current progress. Through these feedback mechanisms, we continue to refine the outlines for our deliverables to ensure alignment. Here is an over overview of the deliverables (slide 6), as a reminder.
Thesis Development & Strategic Initiatives
We made progress on the thesis by prioritizing key deals and adopting a bottom-up approach. We started exploring liquid funds with private LPs as a strategy for Arbitrum to drive TVL and worked on several potential deals (eg on-chain commodities derivatives deal case). We also began analysing what should go into different RFPs (eg accelerators).
Goals for November
- Complete market consultations and compile key insights into a published report for review, reflecting input from a total of 15+ VCs and 30+ builders.
- Continue analyzing deal opportunities and deepen understanding of specific deal structures to refine the investment thesis.
- Iterate on strategic recommendations based on delegate and stakeholder feedback, focusing on governance and treasury considerations as necessary.
- Develop and refine the preliminary budget and operational plan, with the thesis document and community engagement report targeted for December.
- Actively coordinate Snapshot temperature checks and engage delegates on the next proposal, aiming to reach consensus and potentially put it to a vote based on delegate sentiment.
Blockers or risks
Directional and Governance Feedback
Directional and Governance Feedback: To help refine our approach, we would appreciate feedback as we balance the strategic goals of the Arbitrum Ventures Catalyst Investment Vehicle (AV). From the DAO’s perspective, AV should remain clear, aligned with DAO goals, support key initiatives, and maintain a consistent narrative over time. At the same time, it should present itself externally as a straight-forward, high-agency investment fund appealing to top market participants.
This leads to governance considerations, including the need for a long-term management team under expert oversight, subject to DAO elections, established with a single Tally vote providing 5-6 years of funding for an evergreen mandate. DAO involvement beyond this would be limited, with elected roles or snapshot votes for specific decisions. Given the complexity of our objectives, we welcome feedback to help balance our strategic direction.
For example, some considerations for governance and structure related to Arbitrum Ventures organisation include:
- POV of fund counterparties (investees, 3rd party LPs) - Simple and straightforward fund
- POV of DAO - Integrated with key and emerging initiatives and clarity of DAO management
- POV of the crypto market - Clear value add to the DAOs balance sheet and accruing value in the token, rather than diluting it
- POV of non crypto market - Long-term vision and first principles thinking around real market issues
- Treasury - Size considerations in USD equivalent and in terms of % of the treasury
What type of organization could support this, while aligning with existing DAO structures and prioritizing strategic rather than purely financial investments?
Asks for Delegates
It would be helpful to discuss our direction, as explained in the Blockers and Risks. Please reach out if this is of interest to you. Additionally, connecting in Bangkok will be valuable even if the considerations mentioned above are not your main focus.
Other valuable ways to support include:
- Suggest new entries for the consultation longlist - if you see anything that has not been shortlisted and think it should be, please let us know.
- Let us know of any investment opportunities that should be analyzed. The discussions can be confidential.
- Feedback on portfolio construction 4 (slides 9-13 and 16-31)