Continued Funding for the Arbitrum Foundation

Proposals
13

TL;DR

  1. The lines between AAEs are blurry in this proposal. As an outsider, it’s difficult to understand who is responsible for what, how budget should be attributed, and whether the intended efficiency gains of the AAE structure are being realized.

  2. Being a cost center is fine and expected, but a request this size would benefit from explicit goals and KPIs that show how the AF specifically adds value to Arbitrum over the next 12 months.

gm, thank you AF for submitting the proposal.

I want to start by saying that I believe the Foundation’s work has been a net positive for the Arbitrum ecosystem. Arbitrum has retained a leadership position across several important areas in a highly competitive landscape, and the AF clearly deserves credit for part of that.

Given the size of the request, I’d like to raise a few things: not as criticism of the work done, but in the spirit of improving accountability and capital allocation across the DAO.

Around a year ago, a more coordinated and centralized approach to the DAO was introduced (A Vision for the Future of Arbitrum), with the goals of 1) improving capital efficiency and 2) accountability.

I’m not convinced we have fully achieved those goals.

The proposal highlights several important achievements for Arbitrum, including RWA growth, Timeboost, treasury initiatives, technical upgrades, and ecosystem expansion. These are all valuable, but from the outside it is not always clear which entity is responsible for what, and how the DAO should evaluate performance across the different AAEs.

This matters because several AAEs will come to the DAO for funding over time. Without clearer separation of responsibilities, it becomes difficult to know whether we are becoming more efficient, or actually funding overlapping work across multiple entities.

I second this. Could maybe @opco prepare a DAO budget and overview for the year, divided by the various funded entities?

Also, The DAO and the AF should be more explicit about what success looks like over the next 12 months.

It’s completely reasonable for the Foundation to operate as a cost centerbut that doesn’t remove the case for explicit targets. For a request this size (2x the yearly DAO revenues), it’d help to see:

  • What the Foundation expects to achieve over the next year
  • Which KPIs should be attributed directly to the AF

Final note: I do not say this to dismiss the work done so far. Again, the AF is central for Arbitrum today and I have no doubt this proposal will pass.

My hope is for a healthier and more sustainable Arbitrum ecosystem over the long term. Clear accountability, ownership, and KPIs across all AAEs.

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