I will do my best to be agnostic as a STIP vet who’s historically taken to dismantling, critiquing, and calling on the DAO to improve upon the program. I will also disclose that now as a part of Boost Studios, I am likely a benefactor of this proposal.
After reflecting…a few (redundant) thoughts:
STIP - Defining Success
The primary friction with this proposal is the fact that delegates will be asked to vote on whether programs were “successful”. As mentioned ad nauseam, because STIP didn’t define applicant success, every analysis conducted on grantee success is inherently subjective and (to no one’s fault) destined to fail in understanding the nuances of any one application.
To Tenzent’s point, it’s difficult to retroactively measure success based on “win conditions” that were never provided up-front. Any extension of the STIP program inherits this critical flaw and, unless amended, will further perpetuate it.
L2 Competition - Competitor’s Defining Success
The proposal also cites L2 competition as a key rationale. While the intent to support the Arbitrum ecosystem immediately is commendable, and arguably critical, I urge delegates to not blindly emulate the actions of other ecosystems, and rather understand both competitor positioning and Arbitrum’s own objectives.
Other Layer 2 and EVM chain ecosystems like Mantle, Blast, and Optimism have defined specific visions for success with a clear focus on optimizing for onchain metrics such as TVL, transaction volume, strategic assets, protocol traction, delegation, and integration/alignment. For example:
- Mantle Journey: Awards retroactive grants based on TVL and Transactions.
- Blast Points: Are awarded for TVL in strategic assets (ETH, WETH, and USDB).
- Blast Gold: Awards integration w/ Blast Points API and subjective-alignment with Blast.
- Optimism RPGF: Is leaning into onchain results as guidance for RPGF following recent controversies.
- Optimism Airdrops: Rewarded onchain actions in governance and creator economies.
Moreover, many new ecosystems have innovated at the chain level, funneling sequencer revenue back into network-aligned behavior, potentially providing more sustainable incentives than short-term token grants. Perpetual incentives grants from the treasury may actually not compete here, and a direct strategy would likely require greater innovation than just extending STIP-style grants.
Objective and Metric Based Grants - Building Programs that Define Success
Upon completion of incentive campaigns, most would want to evaluate the campaign, take a measured understanding of lessons learned, and re-establish their definition of success to inform the next iteration. Ecosystem grants are a bit like airdrops, they tend to reward and direct behavior. You should set the goals you want to see, and reward those who can best achieve them.
Arbitrum’s ecosystem success hinges on a data-driven, strategic approach to incentives. The DAO must design incentive programs that achieve measurable success, and draw from strategies across project-centric, metric-centric, and objective-centric grants.
I understand the sentiment for protocol support, that teams are challenged to appease both venture and liquidity demands in a competitive environment, but I don’t think this style of program is sustainable without greater alignment on metrics and objectives to guide protocol’s toward verifiable, and sustainable growth.
Conclusion
If the DAO proceeds, I’d encourage it to define onchain metrics for important verticals to the DAO (TVL, transaction fees, segmented users, DAUs, strategic assets, etc.) and aim to amend previous errors by setting the stage to reward projects who perform positively. Without a definition of success for STIP projects, there isn’t an obvious path to success for STIP proposals.