The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @krst and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We are voting AGAINST the proposal, although we would like to stress out that we appreciate the work and effort that has gone into this and we hope that something good will come out of it eventually.
One of our concerns is that as things are structured, there’s too much dilution of responsibility. There are three entities involved, each being responsible for its own program. However, there is a lack of clarity as to who will be overseeing, and will be accountable for, the outcome of the proposal as a whole.
Right now we do not see a benefit of combining the separate entities and their programs into one proposal. While the different programs are indeed complementary and have coherency, there is no formal reason that binds them together, apart from the proposal itself.
This proposal is evidently a venture initiative aimed at building a startup ecosystem. Currently, Arbitrum DAO appears to be the primary source of funding, but the potential upside will, in fact, go to investors following this program and not the DAO. We believe a more equitable approach should be adopted. Instead of providing grants, we should consider making investments, or we should require investors who will be benefiting from investing in these projects to contribute to the funding of this program. This is an area that still needs to be explored and discussed.
We are also concerned about the many variables in this proposal, to which we are expected to commit for an entire year, despite the highly experimental nature of the project. The current structure of the project does not provide for contingencies if the initial milestones do not have the expected impact. If the first phases do not meet our expectations, do we continue with the subsequent phases even if it makes little sense to do so? How will we even gauge that impact in the first place?
Lastly, we echo the sentiments of other delegates who have pointed out that the overall operational costs of this project appear to be very high.
That being said, we do see value in this proposal and acknowledge the considerable amount of work that has been invested into it. We appreciate the authors for their efforts, and we look forward to seeing them continue to refine and improve their proposal based on the feedback they have received so far.