[DIP v1.6] Delegate Incentive Program Results (May 2025)

[SEEDGov]

DonOfDAOs

Hey ! Thanks for your feedback.

@DonOfDAOs

1. I was the only person to notice or respond to this builder and provided in-depth feedback. I went further to meet them on call, to which they explicitly acknowledged I was the only member of the community to take the time to try and help them build here: [RFC] Signals Protocol
2. again, I was the only community member to point this builder in the right direction: [RFC] Protocol Participation Request: DAO Liquidity Injection via Smart Contracts into Paribus on Arbitrum - #3 by DonOfDAOs
3. Similarly, I was the first community member to address these builders after nearly a week with no response: [CONSTITUTIONAL] Register $BORING in the Arbitrum generic-custom gateway - #2 by DonOfDAOs
4. I was one of the first to provide detailed feedback and questioning to help evolve this proposal: [Non-Constitutional] Invest in Builders & Ignite ARB Demand with q/acc - #10 by DonOfDAOs
5. I opened discussion on broader privacy standards for the DAO here: Proposal: enable the new TogetherCrew functionality: Free* summarizer and Q&A for delegates telegram chat - #33 by DonOfDAOs
6. Contributed to the Quorum discussions here: [Constitutional] AIP: Constitutional Quorum Threshold Reduction - #27 by DonOfDAOs

And this is among several other general communications. Certainly, 0 points must be a mistake as I also don’t see any delegate feedback in the Notion.

First of all, we apologize for the issue with your report. There was an issue during the migration from the private Notion to the public one, which resulted in your report being excluded from the public version. This has already been resolved.

1. Regarding the first comment, you are right in noting that you were the only one to comment on that thread. However, it is difficult to assess its impact on the DAO. The fact that it received no other responses is an indicator that the topic is a lower priority for most delegates.

2. In this case, we respectfully disagree. The builder was requesting that the DAO deposit treasury funds into their protocol. They specifically stated the following:

   @Nikola_Paribus

   Why We’re Reaching Out

   We are not requesting a grant or direct token allocation.

   Instead, we propose that the DAO:

   • Use idle treasury assets (e.g., $ARB, $ETH, $USDT, $BTC)
   • Deposit them directly into Paribus’s live lending pools via smart contracts
   • Maintain full on-chain custody and control at all times

   This makes it clear that directing the proposal to the DRIP program — which is intended to provide incentives to protocols — is not the appropriate path.

3. We want to emphasize that the program does not reward being the “first” to comment just for the sake of it. There has to be a combination of factors. One can be the first to comment, but if the comment doesn’t add value, that alone is not sufficient. That said, we fail to see how asking a builder to engage in the DAO’s day-to-day governance relates to the goal of having their token listed on the bridge. It seems more like we are adding unnecessary friction for builders rather than making things easier. We invite you to review this comment made by Jose from StableLabs, which actually takes the opposite view.

   We also recommend revisiting the thread and the builder’s response in detail.

4. Regarding this comment, we did not see how it contributed to improving the proposal. In fact, the proposer rejected the second suggestion as it would have increased the cost of the proposal.

5. We appreciate you opening that discussion, but there was no real follow-up on the topic. In particular, the thread titled Proposal: enable the new TogetherCrew functionality: Free* summarizer and Q&A for delegates telegram chat is not a discussion we’ve encouraged since the Telegram chat is not owned or governed by the DAO.

6. Once again, while some suggestions were made, they have not led to any specific outcomes.

@DonOfDAOs

The next section shows I didn’t vote on the Stylus proposal which had a snapshot of Feb 19th, 119 days ago and well beyond the 90 day window.

I see the following:

@SEEDGov

Note that proposals are always considered in the month in which they are finalized.

How does it make any sense to count the end of the voting window for participation when one cannot for the full length of that time if they were not delegated to before the snapshot? Effectively, they are being docked for a proposal which began weeks prior to the 90 window for which they may not have even had voting power to use even if they wanted to participate. The start should be the beginning of the period.

This criterion has been in place since the beginning of the program. Proposals are counted based on the month in which they are finalized. This applies to all three voting parameters (PR90, SV, and TV). In the case of “Request to Increase the Stylus Sprint Committee’s Budget,” the proposal concluded in March 2025, which is why it is included in the PR90 calculation. This approach ensures consistency across the framework and is particularly reasonable given that the majority of votes are typically cast during the final week of the voting period.

@SEEDGov

As approved in the Tally proposal, the Presence in Discussion parameter acts as a multiplier that measures the presence and participation of delegates throughout the month.

For May, 8 proposals were considered:

1. [RFC] Proposal to Adjust the Voting Power of the Arbitrum Community Pool & Ratifying the Agentic Governance Pivot
2. [Constitutional] AIP: Constitutional Quorum Threshold Reduction
3. [Non-Constitutional] Invest in Builders & Ignite ARB Demand with q/acc
4. Wind Down the MSS + Transfer Payment Responsibilities to the Arbitrum Foundation
5. Agentic Governance Initiative [AGI]
6. DeFi Renaissance Incentive Program (DRIP)
7. A Vision for the Future of Arbitrum
8. SOS Discussions

@DonOfDAOs

1. here: [RFC] Proposal to Adjust the Voting Power of the Arbitrum Community Pool & Ratifying the Agentic Governance Pivot - #7 by DonOfDAOs
2. here: [Constitutional] AIP: Constitutional Quorum Threshold Reduction - #27 by DonOfDAOs
3. here: [Non-Constitutional] Invest in Builders & Ignite ARB Demand with q/acc - #10 by DonOfDAOs
4. N/A
5. Avoided Conflict of Interest
6. here: DeFi Renaissance Incentive Program (DRIP) - #11 by DonOfDAOs
7. N/A
8. here: [SOS Submission] Gabriel – Strategic Objectives - #3 by DonOfDAOs

For the purposes of this parameter, only comments that are deemed valid are taken into account—simply commenting on those threads does not necessarily increase your multiplier.

Overall, our final response is that we do not consider the combination of your contributions (voting power provided to the DAO through voting activity + forum engagement) to be sufficient to warrant compensation.

paulofonseca

We would like to begin by noting that we had a productive meeting with Paulo, during which we were able to reach several points of agreement:

• First, we had an in-depth discussion regarding the comment made in the DAO Grants Program thread. In this context, SEEDGov clarified to the delegate that our intention is to maintain a healthy and constructive discussion environment and that it is important to follow due diligence processes before raising concerns in a public setting. This aligns with SEEDGov’s mandate as Program Manager to help improve and professionalize delegates within the Arbitrum DAO.
  Paulo acknowledged that he could have exhausted the existing channels to clarify his concerns before bringing the matter to the forum, and also recognized that the way he had raised the issue was not ideal. He showed clear reflection on the situation and committed to improving in these aspects. Although Paulo expressed that he does not fully agree with our approach—specifically regarding the use of the scoring under the DF parameter—We explained our point of view on this, and we stand by this decision.
• The comment made on L2Beat has been marked as invalid, enabling the delegate to qualify for Tier 3. From our perspective, this was the most debatable judgment within the assessment, and we thank @krst for sharing his point of view.
  We want to emphasize that this decision by the Program Manager is a gesture of goodwill in recognition of Paulo’s willingness to find a peaceful resolution to the situation, as well as the self-awareness he demonstrated in reflecting on his previous approach.

We thank Paulo once again for his openness to dialogue, and we are pleased to have found a middle ground. Paulo is a prominent delegate and contributor, and discouraging his participation is not in anyone’s interest.

With that said, we would like to clarify a few points:

@paulofonseca

In fact, I’ve participated in both biweekly Open Governance Calls, even asking questions (as it’s typical of me) on both May 6th and May 20th.

Here is my face in the May 6th recording at 6 minutes 15 seconds asking a question.

And here is my avatar in the May 20th recording at 20 minutes 40 seconds also asking a question.

So, my bonus points should be updated accordingly.

Thank you!

You’re right — in this case, we missed it because you joined the May 6th call under a different nickname/ENS. We’ve now made the corresponding update.

@paulofonseca

I would receive over $4,000 USD in compensation this month, which makes a significant difference for me personally, since I live off of this DIP compensation ever since I’m working full-time for Arbitrum DAO, both as a delegate and by building arbitrum.proposals.app.

On this point, we want to make it clear that no delegate is guaranteed to receive compensation throughout the program. Everything depends on the contributions they make to the DAO.

@paulofonseca

This behavior by SeedGov as the Program Manager effectively censors speech, something they are not entrusted by the community to do, as only forum admins can currently do so by removing forum comments that violate community guidelines and the delegate code of conduct, therefore being a clear overreach of their power and over stepping of their mandate. And even worse, in this case, this behavior is censoring speech of a controversial or contrarian nature, which is the kind of speech we’ve learned to understand is necessary for DAOs if they want to become the most resilient and capture-resistant forms of organization.

We want to clarify that our intention has never been to censor anyone. In fact, as one of the most vocal delegates in opposition to certain stakeholders in this community, Paulo has qualified for incentives in all 7 months of this iteration, on more than one occasion in the highest Tier.

Paulo is also the only delegate in the history of the DIP to receive 45 Bonus Points for a single initiative.

These precedents demonstrate that SEEDGov has never assessed delegates based on their views or opinions. In fact, your comment in the thread A Vision for the Future of Arbitrum received the highest score in May, despite being a strongly critical response to the proposal made by the Arbitrum Foundation.

EventHorizonDAO

Although some members of our team have already discussed this privately with the Event Horizon team, we would like to publicly reinforce what we have expressed in our feedback report:

We appreciate the effort Event Horizon has made to improve the rationales shared with the DAO. Compared to those submitted a few months ago, the current rationales provide significantly more clarity and detail regarding the protocol’s decision-making process. However, we have not yet seen these rationales have a positive impact on the community, nor have they delivered insights that meaningfully influenced or added significant value to the broader ecosystem. For that reason, in our view, the delegation does not deserve to qualify for compensation this month.

That said, as this is the first month in which the delegation has begun incorporating user-generated feedback through the Agents, we recognize there is room for improvement, and we believe this approach has the potential to be rewarded by the program in the future. We want to emphasize that this should not be discouraging—on the contrary, we encourage you to continue along this path.

Zeptimus / Oni

In both cases, we do not believe that the overall contributions were sufficient to warrant compensation for this month.

To briefly explain each case:

• In Oni’s case, we kindly ask you not to take it personally, but we believe that the three disputed comments contain generic suggestions that did not have any tangible impact on the final outcome of the discussions.
• In Zeptimus’ case, we acknowledge a greater effort compared to previous months to engage with ongoing discussions. However, effort ≠ value. While the delegate has indeed made efforts to add value to the conversations, this value has been rather limited when we assess the actual impact on the outcomes of those discussions.

cp0x

Regarding the first dispute, there is one main point:

• We do not believe it is appropriate to compare the scoring with other delegates of a different nature. In this case, Camelot is a delegation with 10 million VP, whose opinion can clearly have a greater impact on the community.

Regarding the second dispute:

1. We consider that the justification provided for this comment is not sufficiently strong to warrant a change in our decision. In particular, we note that you are repeating a suggestion made on multiple previous occasions, and the impact mentioned is not supported (only 4.6% voted against on Snapshot, and there is no evidence that the delegate influenced the 8.7 million votes against).
2. This comment dates back to April.
3. We believe the proposer’s response speaks for itself. The suggestion that this initiative might overlap with the AVI (which, let us remember, only reached the research phase and is not operational today) is incorrect. Furthermore, the remainder of the comment does not appear to have contributed to improving the proposal or enriching the discussion.
4. We do not understand the grounds for the dispute here, as Bonus Points were awarded for this contribution.
5. We do not believe this comment adds new information. Nova’s metrics are publicly available through various platforms, and ultimately this is a straightforward decision with no controversy.

Ignas

The mentioned comment was made during the month of June and will therefore be evaluated accordingly in the June results.

jameskbh

We would like to begin by saying that this case was extensively discussed internally within the team. We consider that during the month of May you were on the borderline between qualifying or not qualifying (that is, the line separating both outcomes is very thin). We want to provide you with feedback on your well-justified dispute:

• First of all, we understand everything you raised in that comment. It is clear that the DAO currently does not have a framework to allocate a budget to each strategic objective, although it is worth mentioning that this had already been acknowledged by Entropy in the original proposal:

@Entropy

Once a set of objectives and related key results has been approved, Entropy will strive to build a budgeting framework where each high-level objective is allocated a certain amount of capital on a yearly basis, with interested contributors having the ability to request a share of this capital through a standardized structure. It’s important to note that contributors will still maintain the ability to post standalone proposals outside of this structure and are not forced to tie their initiative to the MVP/SOS/budget framework. Having said that, as the established objectives should be regarded as one of the DAO’s highest priorities, contributors should expect more friction when it comes to passing a proposal that doesn’t reasonably demonstrate that it fits within the established short- to medium-term objectives. In other words, while the freedom to make proposals that fall outside the SOS will not cease to exist, we expect that the DAO will discourage it via the creation of a social contract among delegates.

• Also, we consider your concerns about the execution of the objectives to be valid and relevant. After further discussion regarding the assessment of this comment, we have determined that a slight increase in its scoring is appropriate.

Having said this, we kindly remind you that, since you were on the borderline between being compensated or not, it will be necessary for you to increase your efforts in order to qualify in the coming months.

EzR3aL

I believe that most of us (if not all) agree with your analysis of the issue. The challenge we face here is that, beyond that analysis, there are no novel conclusions, suggestions, or other actionable steps to address it. The scoring we provide is intended to reflect that the analysis was accurate and that it had some impact on certain delegates who agreed with it.

In this regard, we have adjusted the scoring related to impact to reflect this; however, we want to make it clear that this contribution alone does not constitute sufficient grounds to qualify for incentives this month.

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With this, we consider all disputes resolved for this month, and from this point forward, we will not be accepting further disputes regarding this month’s results.

We will soon update the framework and this report to reflect the changes made.

Additionally, we would like to mention that this month’s payments may be delayed due to the migration of the DIP MSS to a Multisig controlled by the Arbitrum Foundation. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.

Best regards, and thank you all for your feedback!