The Synapse STIP Proposal included two main budget items: 1.5M ARB allocated to support slippage free bridging, and 500k ARB towards supporting Arbitrum Partners. The aim of the first allocation was to:
“for any Arbitrum user to bridge up to $5M slippage-free. Concentrated liquidity bridging is similar to going from Uni V2 to Uni V3, allowing slippage-free bridging. This will massively improve Arbitrum’s UX, lowering costs for users and incentivizing users to bring their assets in from other chains.”
To achieve this specifically, the SynapseDAO bootstrapped SynapseRFQ. SynapseRFQ turns every bridge transaction into an auction. Users submit their bridge requests, and relayers compete with each other to provide the cheapest possible quote. The relayer with the best quote is selected and immediately gives the users their funds on their desired destination chain. 750k of the 1.5M ARB was allocated to bootstrapping the relayer ecosystem, encouraging more competition, leading to cheaper prices and more asset and chain support for users.
More importantly, SynapseRFQ delivered its promise of delivering zero-slippage bridging in under 15 seconds. Today, SynapseRFQ makes up nearly all Synapse Volume related to Arbitrum, and is cheaper than aggregators on all Arbitrum routes for native USDC.
The wallets in question are owned by the relayers pursuant to the STIP proposal and the Synapse DAO proposal. None of the wallets are owned by Socrates. Socrates did ask these relayers to delegate to him and they agreed. This is not against the STIP regulations the same way the tens of thousands of users who received ARB through bridge rebates can delegate to whoever they please. That said, we agree that it could be seen as a quid pro quo arrangement and although it’s not against the rules, we have asked the relayers to undelegate from Socrates. Additionally, none of the delegated ARB has been used in any way through voting thus far.
Regarding the ARB distribution address that still holds 3.3k ARB, Synapse is happy to return those funds. We haven’t found the appropriate address to send it back to but are happy to do it once that’s made available.
Update:
The 3.3k ARB was returned on 5/14 here: Arbitrum Transaction Hash (Txhash) Details | Arbiscan
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