Thank you to @Entropy for putting this proposal together. It represents a thoughtful and well-intentioned step forward for the DAO. Broadly, we support the direction outlined, with a few points of emphasis:
- We strongly support the focus on directing incentives toward specific DeFi products and verticals within the Arbitrum ecosystem. This targeted approach appears to be the next logical step in the experiment.
- We strongly support the scientific approach of launching programs in isolation with precise evaluation to understand the effects of incentives on different verticals.
Some areas that we believe would support even greater confidence in the proposal are:
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Previous programs have shown that short-term incentives often struggle to create lasting usage. The evaluation partner and Season Selection Committee must understand DeFi flywheel effects to design programs that thoughtfully taper incentives as organic usage develops. We’d love to hear the Arbitrum Foundation and Offchain Labs support this proposal and speak to the strategies they aim to pursue.
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Who is the directly responsible individual for executing the program? A program of this size managing multiple service providers likely needs a head to ensure alignment across all parties and committee members.
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While a hard stop after three months is likely the cleanest political path, the DAO should consider a situation where it forfeits hard-won adoption without strategies for gradually “weaning” off incentives. The Season Selection Committee must have robust theses for each vertical/product a season pursues.
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Recent events, such as the Foundation’s unilateral and discretionary pause of STEP 2/TMC allocations, have highlighted uncertainties around DAO objectives being efficiently executed once ARB is transferred. It’s unclear what policies led to this decision. This is not an attempt to place blame but rather an admission that there may be unforeseen bureaucratic friction in additional programs placed under similar structures of direct Foundation management.
If there are foreseen policies restrictive to this program, we’d ask that they be communicated pre-emptively. Depending on the nature of the program, the DAO could explore alternative structures, such as establishing non-custodial stewardship with a service provider (regardless of who’s selected), similar to a recently executed liquidity program with Uniswap DAO, where transferred funds were placed directly in a governance owned Aera/Merkl integrated vault.
Ultimately, the DAO is in a frustrating position awaiting the launch of OpCo and the recently proposed Arbitrum Foundation vision. @krst points out many of the same questions we have, although these are not necessarily reasons to avoid the proposal.