DVP-Quorum for ArbitrumDAO

[Arbitrum]

In this report, we study the issue of quorum in ArbitrumDAO’s voting system. Quorum is defined as the minimum participation of voting power required for a proposal to pass. Over time, quorum is steadily growing, to the point where it is increasingly difficult to garner enough votes to pass Constitutional proposals.

The fundamental issue is that the quorum threshold has no relationship with the total delegated voting power (DVP) that is registered to vote, i.e., the baseline unit of participation in the ArbitrumDAO. To overcome this issue, we propose changing how quorum is computed. It should be set as a percentage of the total delegated voting power (DVP). Put simply, quorum should be based on the voting power that is registered to participate in the voting system.

Additionally, a minimum baseline quorum should be implemented to ensure there is always a fixed minimum participation, even if this implies the DAO cannot pass a proposal for a period of time until it reaches the required threshold.

We recommend the following configuration:

• Non-constitutional proposals. Set at 40 - 50% of total delegated voting power and a minimum fixed voting power of 100m ARB.
• Constitutional proposals. Set at 40 - 50% of total delegated voting power and a minimum fixed voting power of 150m ARB.

For example, non-constitutional quorum can be set as 40% of DVP (with 100m ARB as the lower bound) and constitutional quorum can be set as 50% of DVP (with 150M ARB as the lower bound). Note that many values in the 40% to 50% range would work as long as non-constitutional quorum sits towards the lower boundary of this range and constitutional quorum sits towards the upper boundary of this range. We invite further discussion and suggestions on the values. We believe that outside of this range quorum values are either too low that proposals can pass even at undesirable levels of participation or high enough to not solve existing problems.

The above recommendations are based on historical voting patterns and current levels of DVP and activity in the DAO. The average votes per proposal has increased over time while the total delegated voting power has remained consistent. We have witnessed voter turnout increase from 40-55% to 55%-65% over the past year. Assuming the trend continues, then the above configuration should be close to actual participation rates, but still act as a hurdle for voters to overcome.

Voting System and Definitions

The ArbitrumDAO governance is implemented via an on-chain voting system that allows token holders to create and vote on proposals, which are then executed on-chain.

There are two type of proposals:

• Non-constitutional. A proposal that is informational or requests to transfer funds from the treasury.
• Constitutional. A proposal that seeks to upgrade the on-chain smart contracts including the governance system, Arbitrum One or Arbitrum Nova.

A weighted voting system is implemented which offers 1 vote for every 1 token held. If a token holder has K tokens, then the voter has K voting power in the system. There are also important details in the implementation of the smart contracts on whether a token is considered voteable and whether it can be used to vote:

• Voteable token. A token that is not explicitly excluded from voting, but must be delegated before it can be used to vote.
• Excluded token. A token that is explicitly excluded from voting and it cannot be used to vote by default.
• Delegated token. A token that is explicitly registered (“delegated”) to participate in the voting system and it can be used to vote for any proposal.

By default, all tokens are considered a voteable token. If a token holder wants to participate in governance, then they must explicitly register the token for use in the voting system. This registration process is called delegation. The token holder can delegate the tokens for themselves to use or to outsource their voting power to another party (‘a delegate’):

• Delegated voting power. The total voting power registered with a single voter who may or may not be the original holder of the token.

A key component of the voting system is quorum, which is the minimum participation of voting power required before a proposal is considered valid. If a proposal does not achieve the quorum threshold, then it will simply fail and not be processed. The quorum threshold is computed as follows:

• Quorum threshold. A fixed percentage of the total supply of voteable tokens.

Quorum is currently set at 3% for non-constitutional proposals and 4.5% for constitutional proposals. The final ARB value of the quorum threshold will only change if tokens are explicitly excluded from voting which reduces the total supply of voteable tokens. By default, assuming no tokens are excluded, then it will be set as 300m and 450m ARB respectively.

Finally, when it comes to the voting flow, only FOR or ABSTAIN votes count towards reaching quorum. AGAINST votes are not counted. If ‘against’ votes were part of the count, then it may inadvertently help a proposal pass by reaching the quorum threshold.

ArbitrumDAO Quorum Issues

The ArbitrumDAO quorum threshold is increasing every month and it will soon reach a point where quorum will be greater than the total active voting power available, indicating a liveness issue. If this point is reached, then the DAO will be unable to pass any proposal until more token holders delegate their voting power.

There are two fundamental issues that need to be addressed:

• Quorum computation. Quorum is computed based on the total voteable supply which has no relationship to the tokens registered to vote.
• Registered voting power. Total delegated voting power has remained consistent and it is not increasing (or decreasing) over time.

Together, this has led to a scenario where the quorum threshold is increasing, but the total voting power is steady. If this continues, then quorum will be greater than the total voting power and effectively freeze the system.

We explore both issues before presenting a solution that effectively ties the quorum threshold to the total delegated voting power.

Quorum Threshold Increasing Over Time

Figure 1: Quorum threshold is increasing every month.

As presented in Figure 1, we estimate that quorum is increasing at the following rates:

• 36m ARB/year for non-constitutional proposals
• 54m ARB/year for constitutional proposals

With the current settings, the maximum quorum for constitutional proposals will be 300m ARB and for non-constitutionals will be 450m ARB. As we will soon see, the total delegated voting power is around ~320m-360m ARB, which implies that both maximum values for quorum will effectively paralyze the DAO’s ability to pass proposals.

The fundamental reason behind the increase of the quorum threshold is due to the tokens that are unlocked every month from the airdrop. Locked tokens are excluded from voting, but when the tokens are vested (on a monthly basis) and transferred to another wallet, the unlocked tokens enter the supply of voteable tokens even if they are not delegated and used for voting. This impacts the quorum threshold as the total supply of voteable tokens is increasing every month.

Interestingly, as we can see in Figure 1 with the periodic steep drops in voting power, there is an effort by large token holders to exclude tokens from voting and offset the increase from unlocks, but this effort is not necessarily sustainable. We should not rely on altruistic actions by token holders to exclude tokens from voting and instead assume that quorum will steadily increase over time.

Consistent Total Delegated Voting Power

Figure 2: Total delegated voting power has remained relatively stable over time.

As we can see in Figure 2, the total delegated voting power has remained relatively steady over the past two years. This leads to a scenario where the quorum levels are steadily increasing, but the registered voting power is stable. Based on the current voting system’s configuration, we should expect quorum levels to exceed total registered voting power for constitutional proposals.

Figure 3: Voting power distribution has changed over time in the DAO

The steadiness of voting power brings forth the question on whether there are new delegations over time or if it is simply static. Figure 3 highlights how the voting power distribution among delegates has changed over time and that delegation is not static. This implies:

• Delegators are deciding to re-delegate their vote to others,
• New token holders are replacing delegations by old token holders.

We suspect it is a mixture of both. The steadiness can be accredited to the fact that the replacement rate of delegation is constant over time. Put another way, new delegations are just about replacing delegation that are lost due to token transfers or undelegations. An on-chain analysis can confirm this, but it is not essential for the quorum threshold discussions.

Figure 4: Voter apathy is decreasing over time as active voting power is increasing relative to the total delegated voting power.

Finally, as seen in Figure 4, we can see that voter apathy has steadily been decreasing in the DAO as more voting power is available. For example, in the first quarter of 2024 (January to March), we can see that voter participation ranged from [40%, 51%]. One year later within the same quarter, the voting participation increased to a range of [52%, 74%].

There can be a multitude of reasons for the increase in voter participation. For example, there might be allocation of voting power to active delegates, increased pressure on delegates to cast their vote, or the reduction on the number of proposals making the process easier for delegates to participate. Regardless, the current trend is helpful to decide a reasonable quorum threshold based on historical participation levels.

DVP-Quorum Overview

There are three properties that we believe are desirable for any solution to setting a quorum threshold:

• Aligned with voter registration. Quorum threshold should be set relative to the total voting power that is actively registered to participate.

• No active exclusion. Token holders who are not participating in the voting system should not concern themselves with any aspect of the voting protocol including the need to explicitly exclude their tokens from voting.

• Baseline Quorum. quorum should not be allowed to drop below a level that is perceived safe by the community even if it results in freezing the DAO’s ability to pass proposals.

The solution should not change fundamental properties of the existing voting system, such as one token representing one vote or the ability for an external party to easily evaluate whether quorum has been reached. Additionally, during the transition to the new quorum threshold, we should aim to have a continuity of similar values as the current system, to avoid departing from the current level of security.

Changing Quorum Threshold Computation

Our proposed solution is to change how the quorum threshold is computed. It should be dependent on the total delegated voting power and not the total supply of voteable tokens. The new computation should be:

• DVP-Quorum Threshold: A percentage of the total delegated voting power or a minimum fixed voting power, whichever threshold is higher.

With this change, we can also drop the concept of a voteable token as it will no longer have any impact on the voting system. Instead, we can focus on delegated and non-delegated tokens.

Based on the participation levels discussed earlier, we believe a reasonable configuration for the DVP-Quorum threshold is as follows:

• Non-constitutional proposals. Set at 40 - 50% of total delegated voting power and a minimum fixed voting power of 100m ARB.
• Constitutional proposals. Set at 40% - 50% of total delegated voting power and a minimum fixed voting power of 150m ARB.

For example, non-constitutional quorum can be set as 40% of DVP (with 100m ARB as the lower bound) and constitutional quorum can be set as 50% of DVP (with 150M ARB as the lower bound). If we were to go with these values, under the current total delegated voting power of 324M ARB, constitutional quorum will be approximately 162M ARB (as opposed to 209M ARB now) and non-constitutional quorum will be approximately 130M ARB (as opposed to 139M ARB now). Both numbers appear reasonable for bootstrapping the new quorum threshold based on the historical trend on voting power participation.

Additionally, the minimum fixed voting power is approximately the average of what the quorum requirement has been over the past 2 years. The average quorum for non-constitutional proposals was ~104M ARB, constitutional proposals was ~173M ARB and across all proposals was ~126M ARB. If we discount values from 2025 (when constitutional proposals were struggling to meet quorum), we see that the average non-constitutional quorum still hovers around 100M, while the average constitutional quorum goes down to 156M ARB. The lower boundary for quorum is inspired by these values.

Proof of Concept (PoC) Implementation

An untested, unaudited PoC of the token contract upgrade can be found here. A production deployment will include relevant tests and audit before mainnet upgrade.

Token contract upgrade (ARB)

Total DVP can be tracked at the ARB token contract. The contract can be upgraded to keep a running total that is updated on each delegation change and token transfer.

• What is tracked.
  • Total DVP = sum of balances of all accounts with a non-zero delegation at a given block.
• Initialization process.
  • To initialize the running total, an estimate of the total DVP must be provided as part of the upgrade proposal.
  • A followup proposal can correct any error in the initial DVP estimate. This doesn’t change user balances or individual delegate voting power, only the aggregate DVP.
• When it updates.
  • Only updates when tokens move between addresses with different delegates
• Query interface.
  • getTotalDelegation() to obtain the latest value.
  • getTotalDelegationAt(uint256 blockNumber) to obtain historical value at a snapshot block.

Governor contract update

• The DAO governor contracts can be upgraded to use the new total DVP metric: Replace current percentage calculations with DVP-based thresholds
• Use getTotalDelegation() from the token contract for quorum calculation

Known Issues With DVP-Quorum Computation

There are three known issues with the proposed solution:

• Apathetic Delegator Attack. A delegator can now have a larger impact on quorum. Previously, if a delegate revoked the voting exclusion from their tokens (making them voteable), the impact is that quorum will increase by [3%, 4.5%] of the delegate’s total voting power. In the new computation, quorum will increase by [40%, 55%] of the delegate’s total voting power. This leads to a potential attack where large token holders may delegate their tokens and not actively participate in voting with the intention of increasing quorum and freezing the DAO’s ability to pass proposals.

• Quorum Burden Shift. In the new system, quorum is strictly based on tokenholders who are participating in the voting system. If they decide to revoke their delegation, then quorum will eventually reach the minimum baseline. This contrasts with the old system, where quorum relied on a collective of large token holders actively excluding their tokens from voting. The risk of a low quorum shifts from the collective of large token holders to token holders who decided to leave the voting system.

• Baseline Freeze. If the set of active voters falls below the baseline quorum, then the voting system will not be able to process any new proposals. For example, if a constitutional quorum requires a minimum of 150m ARB, then there must be sufficient active voters to reach that quorum. It will require new delegations to overcome the quorum hurdle. Note, this freeze is by design, to ensure there is a minimum legitimacy for every decision made. If we end up in a situation where quorum cannot be reached, then the DAO will be forced to recruit more delegations to overcome the quorum hurdle.

Note that shifting to the proposed model does not lower the cost of a governance attack from the current governance model. An attacker would still have to acquire, either through buying or renting, more ARB tokens than honest delegates to pass a proposal. The suggested model does however make it easier to achieve quorum, and decouple the DAO from various inefficiencies of the current governance model. We encourage you to go over the report that was compiled by Nethermind and Castle Labs as a part of ARDC V2 for more information on this.

Summary & Future Work

Our report has focused on the quorum threshold issue that is currently facing the DAO. It is steadily increasing over time while total delegated voting power has remained relatively steady. This is problematic with the current configuration as quorum will eventually exceed not just active voting power, but total delegated voting power, making it impossible to pass constitutional proposals.

Our proposed solution is to re-visit how the quorum threshold is computed. We believe it should be computed based on the total delegated voting power. This allows quorum to increase or decrease relative to voting power that is registered to actively participate. Based on historical voting data, we have proposed concrete configuration settings between 40% - 50% for non-constitutional proposals and constitutional proposals (with each ideally on the opposite ends of that range) alongside reasonable values for a fixed minimum quorum. Depending on further research and community feedback, these configuration settings may be subject to change in the future.

A proof of concept implementation is available to demonstrate that it is practical to change how the quorum threshold is computed. Additionally, we have put together a dashboard to highlight the data used as part of this report.

In relation to future work, there are two potential directions. While we do not believe this work is required to proceed with DVP-Quorum as a solution to resolving the issues facing the ArbitrumDAO, these solutions might be interesting to explore further:

• Alignment-based Quorum. It may be possible to replace the fixed minimum voting power with a dynamic value that is set based on the composition of votes. If all voters are aligned on a single option, then quorum can possibly be reduced. The downside is that the voting system cannot distinguish between honest or malicious votes, only that voters are aligned. In addition, it introduces new and novel voting strategies as a single vote’s weight is no longer strictly one-for-one.

• Quorum Growth Curve. The voting system can implement a target quorum that it wants to achieve. As more tokens are delegated, the pace of increasing quorum can be reduced as it approaches this target. This may help alleviate a potential attack vector where large token holders delegate their tokens simply to increase the Quorum threshold.

Finally, we have published this report to help kick-start the discussion on the Quorum issue that the DAO is facing. As we can see throughout the report, there is not substantial time remaining to deploy a technical solution to help alleviate the issue. We will follow up with proposed governance call slots for the community to discuss the findings alongside potential next steps.

[paulofonseca]

why is the proportion between non-constitutional and constitutional quorums different in this proposal, than what it currently is?

the current 3% vs. 5% means that constitutional quorum is +66,7% higher than non-constitutional quorum.

in this proposal constitutional quorum is only 50% higher than non-constitutional. this makes constitutional proposals relatively easier to pass than before, which is an obvious governance security concern.

@Arbitrum

under the current total delegated voting power of 324M ARB, constitutional quorum will be approximately 162M ARB (as opposed to 209M ARB now) and non-constitutional quorum will be approximately 130M ARB (as opposed to 139M ARB now)

aka, in this example above, 162M is very different from 209M ARB.

i think the minimum threshold for constitutional quorum should be way higher than the 150M proposed

as I initially proposed, almost 1 year ago in the chats, I think DVP-Quorum should be 50% for non-constitutional proposals, and 66,7% for constitutional proposals. these values are inspired by the common parlimentary rules in many countries.

using the example above, this would compute to:
Current total delegated voting power = 324M ARB
Constitutional quorum will be approximately 216M ARB (as opposed to 209M ARB now)
Non-constitutional quorum will be approximately 162M ARB (as opposed to 139M ARB now)

in this way, the values are higher than the current quorum, but they will go down over time, as less and less tokens are being delegated.

also, this is only true because of the huge delegation bump that @Entropy had in April.

@Arbitrum

As we can see in Figure 2, the total delegated voting power has remained relatively steady over the past two years.

if that hadn’t happen, the overall trend would be going down as previously reported multiple times in the @Curia governance analytics reports, and we would have less than 300M ARB in total delegated voting power right now.

[paulofonseca]

I’ve been looking into this a bit more, and a perspective I think we should take into account is one of using the Nakamoto Coefficient to determine the hardness of each type of quorum.

Right now, as of September 21st, 2025:

• the non-constitutional (3%) quorum threshold is 140,542,046 ARB, and it takes the 12 Biggest Delegates voting For or Abstain, to achieve it.
• the just recently decreased constitutional (4.5%) quorum threshold is 210,813,069 ARB, and it takes the 22 Biggest Delegates voting For or Abstain, to achieve it.
• the previous constitutional (5%) quorum threshold is 234,236,743 ARB, and it takes the 28 Biggest Delegates voting For or Abstain, to achieve it.

With this new DVP-Quorum proposed here:

• the non-constitutional quorum threshold would be 100,000,000 ARB, and it would take the 7 Biggest Delegates voting For or Abstain, to achieve it, instead of the current 12 Biggest Delegates. this makes it almost half as difficult to spend money from our treasury
• the constitutional quorum threshold would be 150,000,000 ARB, and it would take the 13 Biggest Delegates voting For or Abstain, to achieve it, instead of the current 22 Biggest Delegates. this makes it almost half as difficult to change our network parameters

This is a huge reduction in the Nakamoto Coefficient for Arbitrum DAO, making it way easier to pass both type of proposals, and even worse, making it almost as easy to pass constitutional proposals in the future, as it is currently to pass non-constitutional proposals. this would have a very serious impact on the security of our network that secures our TVL, bridge, etc.

I highly recommend that these proposed values are revised, to keep the nakamoto coefficient closer to what it is today.

quorum calculations and comparisons available in this spreadsheet

[Tane]

We appreciate the motivation behind this proposal, but at present, we find it difficult to support. Lowering quorum thresholds directly reduces the difficulty of governance capture, and while there are various benchmarks that can be used to guide the discussion, we believe it is not possible to define a strict line at which risks become acceptable. For this reason, we consider quorum reduction an approach that should be avoided if other options are available.

In that context, it would be helpful to understand what other mechanisms have been considered. For instance, the past discussions around treasury delegation point toward alternative ways of improving governance resilience while ensuring quorum achievement. A system that introduces voting power caps, combined with the selection of trusted delegates, could reduce concentration among a few large delegates and strengthen security. Where delegate selection by performance metrics may be difficult, other approaches could also be explored, such as distributing delegation linearly or sub-linearly up to a threshold based on the amount received, or assigning delegation through community voting.

Looking more specifically at the proposal, we view the situation for non-constitutional proposals differently from constitutional ones. For non-constitutional proposals, the variable quorum adjustment does not appear materially problematic. With delegated voting power relatively stable, the change from the current ~$139M to ~$130M is not significant. So long as the system can withstand temporary spikes in delegated voting power and the associated risk of capture, this adjustment may even prove beneficial.
That said, we do not agree with lowering the minimum threshold to $100M, which is roughly $40M below today’s effective level. Simply halting the continual upward drift of quorum would already provide relief, and a $130M minimum threshold would in our view be sufficient.

For constitutional proposals, however, a reduction of nearly $50M is far more concerning. Here too, preventing quorum from mechanically increasing in line with votable supply is already an important safeguard, but going beyond that to make passage substantially easier seems unnecessary. While we would not oppose a modest reduction to account for the current imbalance between constitutional and non-constitutional quorums, we cannot support a change of the magnitude presented in this proposal.

[karpatkey]

We appreciate the effort to address quorum, which is clearly an ongoing challenge for ArbitrumDAO. Considering the total delegated voting power of ~320–360m ARB, we agree that quorum must be resolved to keep the DAO functional.

That said, we note this proposal follows the previously executed [Constitutional] AIP: Constitutional Quorum Threshold Reduction proposal. While that initiative passed earlier this year, quorum concerns have persisted, and we now find ourselves evaluating another reduction.
In the earlier discussion, @Tane highlighted the risks of governance attacks associated with lowering quorum. This new proposal suggests reducing the quorum to a minimum of 100m ARB (non-constitutional) and 150m ARB (constitutional).
@Arbitrum — could you clarify why you believe these specific levels strike the right balance between quorum-reachability and governance risk management?

Additionally, back in May, we suggested that the Foundation and delegates prioritise implementing some of the ARDC’s recommendations to address quorum issues and mitigate the risks of reduction.

While we support the need to reduce the constitutional quorum to enable necessary protocol upgrades, we believe the Arbitrum Foundation and delegates should first prioritise implementing some of the ARDC’s recommendations. In particular, we’d like to highlight the following:

1. Partner with vote-buying platforms to implement automatic “No” votes for proposals flagged by the Security Council or exceeding specific funding thresholds.

2. Cap token transfers per governance proposal.

3. Enhance Security Council oversight for high-stakes votes.

4. Focus on increasing active delegated participation.

5. Encourage new delegation to improve voter engagement.

   Has there been progress on this front? Specifically regarding point 4: have methods such as treasury delegation or IDVs (cc: @eventhorizon) been explored as mechanisms to increase active delegate participation?

@Arbitrum Has there been progress on this front? Specifically regarding point 4: have methods such as treasury delegation or IDVs (cc: @EventHorizonDAO @EventHorizon ) been explored as mechanisms to increase active delegate participation?

[paulofonseca]

@Tane

it would be helpful to understand what other mechanisms have been considered

i’ve also previously suggested having a big amount of ARB (like 50M for example), delegated from the treasury to an AF/OpCo controlled wallet, where that wallet would always vote Abstain, 49 hours before the end of an onchain vote. that’s how Scroll “solved” governance apathy btw…

[EventHorizonDAO]

Thank you @karpatkey for the shout out.

@Arbitrum team, we’re happy to open discussions around IDVs as a complimentary solution to your existing path.

The solution recently passed the temperature check at Uniswap, and we would be happy to refactor and deploy a similar solution for Arbitrum.

Incentivized Delegation Vaults: IDVs can be thought of as a Merkl.xyz -type solution for DAO token delegations. They offer a low-touch, plug-and-play approach to facilitate delegations toward eligible delegate recipients.

Delegate Experience: Each eligible delegate will receive their own IDV. Delegators to each vault will receive emissions passively once delegated. Below is an example of the Uniswap test instance. This, of course, would be adjusted to include Arbitrum delegates and ARB emissions.

User Experience: IDVs simply track delegation activity on-chain, specifically who delegated to whom and how much, and emit weekly airdropped rewards to participants in exchange for delegating to eligible delegates. There is no transfer of assets, depositing or contract interactions necessary for claims.

Request for Comments: If the Arbitrum Foundation and broader community are interested, Event Horizon will put together a more full and bespoke scope and proposal.

[Arbitrum]

Thank you for the questions and comments. Please see our categorized responses below:

@paulofonseca

the current 3% vs. 5% means that constitutional quorum is +66,7% higher than non-constitutional quorum.

@paulofonseca note that since this proposal, this ratio has changed to 3% vs 4.5%. The baseline quorums we’ve proposed are in line with this ratio. However, we do not believe that maintaining this ratio is a hard requirement, especially as we now have a few years of voting data to rely upon to help make a more informed decision.

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@paulofonseca

in this proposal constitutional quorum is only 50% higher than non-constitutional. this makes constitutional proposals relatively easier to pass than before, which is an obvious governance security concern.

@Tane

Lowering quorum thresholds directly reduces the difficulty of governance capture, and while there are various benchmarks that can be used to guide the discussion, we believe it is not possible to define a strict line at which risks become acceptable. For this reason, we consider quorum reduction an approach that should be avoided if other options are available.

The goal of the report (and hopefully forthcoming proposal) is indeed to make it relatively easier to pass constitutional proposals as it is now reaching a point where it is increasingly difficult to achieve quorum.

In regards to being a governance security concern, we should step back and understand what quorum is trying to achieve. When we think of security, there is normally a trade-off on safety (i.e., what is the final decision that can’t be reversed) and liveness (i.e., minimum number of parties that must be present to make a decision, and inversely, the minimum number of parties that can block a decision by simply not showing up).

Quorum is focused on liveness. Today, as shown in the data, we are just about achieving quorum for constitutional proposals. The inverse is that, it only takes 1-2 top delegates to ignore the proposal for it to fail. That, in its own right, is a governance security concern if 1-2 parties can block entire upgrades.

In a forthcoming proposal, our plan is to provide the DAO with a range of options to vote on, in regards to what the final % of the total delegated voting power should be. It is worth keeping in mind that this proposal is not necessarily a quorum reduction proposal, but to tie the quorum threshold to the total delegated voting power, to ensure it remains a reasonable threshold into the future.

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@paulofonseca

i think the minimum threshold for constitutional quorum should be way higher than the 150M proposed

as I initially proposed, almost 1 year ago in the chats, I think DVP-Quorum should be 50% for non-constitutional proposals, and 66,7% for constitutional proposals. these values are inspired by the common parlimentary rules in many countries.

We should not pick configuration values because they’re common in governmental voting, especially as they have differing approaches to tallying the final result. This is why we worked on the report, to look at historical data and hopefully find a configuration that is reasonable. Additionally, if we set it at 66.7%, then it becomes even harder to pass a constitutional proposal compared to today which is exactly what we are trying to avoid.

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@paulofonseca

the non-constitutional quorum threshold would be 100,000,000 ARB, and it would take the 7 Biggest Delegates voting For or Abstain, to achieve it, instead of the current 12 Biggest Delegates. this makes it almost half as difficult to spend money from our treasury

As noted in our post, 100M ARB is the proposed baseline quorum for non-constitutional proposals. Their quorum is defined as maximum of {100M ARB, α*DVP}, where α is the value the DAO needs to choose.

If we choose an α close to 0.4, the non-constitutional quorum will be very close to what it is right now, meaning no trust assumptions change.

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@paulofonseca

• the constitutional quorum threshold would be 150,000,000 ARB, and it would take the 13 Biggest Delegates voting For or Abstain, to achieve it, instead of the current 22 Biggest Delegates. this makes it almost half as difficult to change our network parameters

The inverse is that it currently takes 1-2 large delegates to block any upgrades. This is a trade-off the report is exploring, and based on historical voting data, we think the proposed configuration is reasonable. If you are interested in exploring the Nakamoto Coefficient concept more, we’d recommend reading https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity25/presentation/fabrega-entropy that proposes a similar metric for evaluating the decentralization of DAOs.

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@Tane

In that context, it would be helpful to understand what other mechanisms have been considered.

@karpatkey

we now find ourselves evaluating another reduction.
In the earlier discussion, @Tane highlighted the risks of governance attacks associated with lowering quorum. This new proposal suggests reducing the quorum to a minimum of 100m ARB (non-constitutional) and 150m ARB (constitutional).
@Arbitrum — could you clarify why you believe these specific levels strike the right balance between quorum-reachability and governance risk management?

Note that this proposal is not a quorum reduction proposal. We are reevaluating how quorum should be defined in ArbitrumDAO going forward given existing values of DVP, apathy, as well as learnings over the past two years.

The recommended baseline quorum thresholds are based on historical quorum averages. The average non-constitutional quorum over the last two years is 104M ARB. Our baseline of 100 ARB for non-constitutional proposals is derived from this datapoint.

The average constitutional quorum over the last two years is 176M ARB. However, if we exclude values from 2025, when it was arguably very difficult to achieve constitutional quorum, the average drops to 156M ARB. Our baseline of 150 ARB for constitutional proposals is derived from this datapoint. Kindly refer to this Dune dashboard for more info.

Additionally, one needs to note that the 100M and 150M baselines will only be met if α*DVP is lower than the baseline, and as such it represents the bare minimum.

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@karpatkey

@Arbitrum Has there been progress on this front? Specifically regarding point 4: have methods such as treasury delegation or IDVs (cc: @EventHorizonDAO @EventHorizon ) been explored as mechanisms to increase active delegate participation?

It is possible for others to receive a delegation, as done in the past like with Event Horizon, but the intention of this proposal is to provide the DAO with a long-term, systematic, and reliable approach.

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@paulofonseca

i’ve also previously suggested having a big amount of ARB (like 50M for example), delegated from the treasury to an AF/OpCo controlled wallet, where that wallet would always vote Abstain, 49 hours before the end of an onchain vote. that’s how Scroll “solved” governance apathy btw…

It is worth highlighting that the Arbitrum Foundation is prohibited from voting on any proposal, so the AF is unable to receive delegation from the DAO treasury and vote ‘abstain’ to help achieve quorum. A better solution is to first re-design how quorum is computed, set reasonable configurations, and adjust further if needed.

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Thanks everyone for all the questions and comments so far! We’ll be hosting an open discussion call on Monday, Sept. 29th at 2:30pm UTC to discuss this report further. All comments and suggestions from the community are welcome, as this is an important discussion.

[cp0x]

This is an excellent proposal – much better than simply lowering the quorum, and I support this initiative.
However, I have a few questions and suggestions:

1. @paulofonseca already mentioned the significant quorum reduction and I saw your reply, but it seemed to me that you only addressed it partially – I still don’t understand why the quorum was reduced so drastically (a small reduction would have been easier to justify).
   Could you please clarify your position in more detail?
2. Based on the risks you mentioned, I have a suggestion to counter apathetic delegates – introduce a Dynamic Quorum with a “falling” upper limit.
   • Instead of fixed 40–50% of DVP, you could implement an adaptive model: if a proposal fails to reach quorum, then the requirement decreases by 5% (for example).
     This approach would allow control to be restored without requiring extra governance adjustments.
3. There is also a question – have you done any calculations on what will happen to the quorum once the proposal “ARB Staking: Unlock ARB Utility and Align Governance” is implemented?
   It seems that the volume of delegations could increase sharply, and the quorum might rise to a level exceeding the current “dangerous” thresholds

[cupojoseph]

I agree this is an operational problem.

Pretty disappointing to me to see a proposal to lower the bar (which is important for security as @Tane explains well above).

Instead of lowering the number of ARB votes needed to reach quorum by 50M ARB, we should:

1. move 50M ARB in 1M ARB chunks to a bunch of 1/1 gnosis safes owned by the DAO (can be done in 1 transaction, ie 1 vote, simply)
2. delegate each to the top contributors to Arbitrum DAO.

we can argue about the exact amount, who gets the delegation, for how long, and size elsewhere.

What do you say @paulofonseca & @Tane? Doesnt that address all your concerns while also solving the operational issues?

Time to revisit my DAO DEAD program pilot proposal, but without any ARB staking:

Arbitrum DAO's Delegate Engagement Apathy Determent program (Arb DAO DEAD Program) - Pilot

On the heels of the ARB Staking Working group’s recent recommendations I want to propose a new program, made possible by ARB staking which would further push the same goals. TL;DR Using the new ARB governance staking system the DAO can maintain 100% ownership over ARB tokens in the treasury while delegating them to different contributing members of the DAO. We should pilot a program that rewards our top 25 most active contributors who have small delegations with responsibility and 200k ARB del…

[paulofonseca]

i agree that we should first do everything we can to increase delegated ARB that votes, before reducing the quorum.

[PossumLabs]

Thank you for the detailed report and reasoning behind the suggested changes of calculating Quorum.

It’s important to acknowledge that the suggested changes are not a quorum reduction by definition. The suggested minima of 100m & 150m for non-/constitutional are understood as fail-save values, not as limits that are expected to be relevant in normal day to day operations or at all.

This fail-safe mechanism is appreciated and the values seem alright. Negotiating a few million up or down seems to miss the bigger picture.

The real weight of this report/pre-proposal is the material change in quorum calculation, so we want to focus on that.

Ideally, changes to quorum happen extremely rarely, if ever. We just had a reduction in May and yet here we are again.
It’s important to future-proof the mechanisms so that we avoid changing the system back and forth every year or two on a fundamental level. Stability is important.

To simplify a bit, the current situation demands a participation of 3%/4.5% of ARB’s circulating supply during important decision making processes. One could also frame the situation as “at most, 95.5% of our token holders are allowed to be completely checked-out before we arrive at a stand-still”.

This is a low bar to meet.

In a functioning system, there are incentives at play (intrinsic and/or extrinsic) to motivate a significant share of stakeholders to participate in important decisions. If this is not happening, it’s a sign that the incentives are not structured in alignment with the operational goal (voter involvement, aka decentralized decision making & economic safety).

The proposed changes appear solid on surface. A change towards quorum based on delegated votes means that only active governance participants matter for governance. This makes sense from a practicability point of view, but not from an economics point of view. Every ARB holder has the option to participate in governance.

The Arbitrum network is more secure the more ARB actively participates in governance.
Hence, the goal must not be to make cosmetic changes on quorum just to avoid a stand-still but to improve the overall situation towards greater ARB delegation.

Instead of trying to treat a symptom (hard to get proposals through) we would challenge everyone to think about ways to cure the underlying disease (low stakeholder involvement overall).

The current voter landscape seems to have intrinsic motivation for the most part - large ARB holders, long time enthusiasts & ecosystem leaders.

The recent downturn of voter involvement since DIP 1.6 shows that extrinsic incentives, i.e. compensation of some sort, are important to activate voters.

However, sustainable incentives must be financed with a sustainable business model for ARB.

In conclusion, the real problem is not quorum.
It’s not even voter apathy.
The problem is a lack of economic energy attributed to ARB, the token, which could be harnessed to solve the above issues via various mechanisms.

In our opinion, this challenge is of outmost priority and, if not solved, makes cosmetic changes to the governance system irrelevant.

Building innovative DeFi protocols from scratch on Arbitrum for over 2 years, we’ve sharpened our understanding of the importance of economic incentives to drive outcomes. In crypto, that’s >80% of the result.

When the DAO and/or the AF is ready for this discussion, we’ll be happy to get involved and explore, analyze and discuss various value accrual and incentive models that can sustainably drive voter participation and value accrual for the DAO & individual ARB holders.

[Curia]

Hi @Arbitrum , thanks for putting this idea forward.

We are currently working on the data side of this report and trying to use the data from your Dune dashboard. We found some miscalculations regarding your query for excluding “TESTING AND CANCELLED PROPOSALS.”

The query you used is:

> LOWER(COALESCE(proposal_outcome,'')) <> 'cancelled’

The correct one should be

LOWER(COALESCE(proposal_category,'')) not in ('cancelled', 'testing')

This changes the result for total proposals from 81 to 69 when excluding “cancelled” and “testing” proposals.

This affects the results in the following tables:

• Average Quorum
• Average Quorum without 2025
• Participation vs Quorum (Non-constitutional)
• Participation vs Quorum (Constitutional)
• Participation - Quorum
• Turnout percentage

Here is what the data should look like in the Average Quorum table:

This doesn’t significantly change your suggestion, but it makes the data more accurate.

We are currently working on the analysis of the recommendations made by the Foundation and will post it in the next few days.

[Arbitrum]

@cp0x

@paulofonseca already mentioned the significant quorum reduction and I saw your reply, but it seemed to me that you only addressed it partially – I still don’t understand why the quorum was reduced so drastically (a small reduction would have been easier to justify).
Could you please clarify your position in more detail?

Comparing the proposed values with present quorum values is unfair as current values have proven to be impractical. The proposal suggests reverting back to a historical quorum that was practical for the DAO – given the total delegated voting power. As @possumlabs mentions, “it’s important to acknowledge that the suggested changes are not a quorum reduction by definition. The suggested minima of 100m & 150m for non-/constitutional are understood as fail-save values.”

The data supports this as you can see from historical quorum averages. If delegated voting power goes up, then so will quorum, and it can in fact far-exceed the 4.5% threshold that is used today. So in essence, we are resetting the system with a more reasonable configuration.

---

@cp0x

Based on the risks you mentioned, I have a suggestion to counter apathetic delegates – introduce a Dynamic Quorum with a “falling” upper limit.

• Instead of fixed 40–50% of DVP, you could implement an adaptive model: if a proposal fails to reach quorum, then the requirement decreases by 5% (for example).
  This approach would allow control to be restored without requiring extra governance adjustments.

Adaptive quorum is something we explored. In particular, we looked at an adaptive quorum biasing-inspired model as well as a custom model where the quorum oscillates between a set range. You can find dashboards built by Claude on the models here and here. The main issue with these models is that they change the voting strategies for participants compared to the existing system – which warrants further analysis and exploration. We may release a research doc at some point on this work.

In summary, for the time being, we did not find enough upside to implementing such models to justify their added complexity and untested edge cases. In any case, a DVP-based quorum model provides strong flexibility for future experimentation. For example, it would be possible to add an adaptive quorum or other systems on top as ‘future extensions’.

---

@cp0x

There is also a question – have you done any calculations on what will happen to the quorum once the proposal “ARB Staking: Unlock ARB Utility and Align Governance” is implemented?
It seems that the volume of delegations could increase sharply, and the quorum might rise to a level exceeding the current “dangerous” thresholds

Any incentive program tied to delegating tokens should only be rewarded if the voting power is actively used. If that is the case, then we should see active voting power remain high, above quorum. So even if quorum does go up because more tokens are delegated, as long as those new tokens are actively used, we will continue to meet quorum.

---

@cupojoseph

Pretty disappointing to me to see a proposal to lower the bar (which is important for security as @Tane explains well above).

Instead of lowering the number of ARB votes needed to reach quorum by 50M ARB, we should:

1. move 50M ARB in 1M ARB chunks to a bunch of 1/1 gnosis safes owned by the DAO (can be done in 1 transaction, ie 1 vote, simply)
2. delegate each to the top contributors to Arbitrum DAO.

In regards to reducing security, this is not strictly true. For example, let’s consider the scenario where an adversary attempts a hostile take over by acquiring enough ARB to overwhelm the DAO and pass a malicious proposal.

We make the following assumptions:

• Honest voters: ~223M voting power, assuming 100% of the current delegation is honest,
• Total delegated voting power: ~318M
• Apathetic votes: 95M ARB (30% of DVP)
• Quorum (current system): ~209M Quorum (4.5% of voteable tokens)
• DVP-Quorum: 50% of delegated voting power

In the current system, an adversary will need to acquire just more than ~223M voting power to pass any proposal in the DAO. This is because the adversary only needs to overcome the set of active (and honest) voters. The current quorum of ~209M has little impact on the adversary.

In DVP-Quorum, if the adversary attempts the same strategy and acquires just more than ~223M voting power, then they will also increase the total delegated voting power to ~547M (324M+223M). As quorum is computed at 50% of the total delegated voting power, then quorum will be ~273.5M. Quorum becomes the new line of defense against the adversary and will halt the attack unless they continue to acquire more ARB.

Put another way, the financial cost to perform a hostile takeover can be greater in DVP-Quorum than the current system. This is why it is not strictly fair to say the new model harms security when in fact, under certain circumstances, it increases the cost of attack.

Finally, in relation to the redelegation campaign, this is a separate endeavor that is not mutually exclusive from changing how quorum is computed. There is no reason why both approaches cannot be pursued in parallel.

---

@Curia

The query you used is:

> LOWER(COALESCE(proposal_outcome,'')) <> 'cancelled’

The correct one should be

LOWER(COALESCE(proposal_category,'')) not in ('cancelled', 'testing')

Thank you for looking into this, @curia. The corrected historical average values are even closer to our recommended baselines.

[GozmanGonzalez]

I really appreciate the effort that went into breaking this down. The way quorum works now feels like it’s slowly pushing us into a corner where even good proposals risk failing just because the bar keeps moving higher. Tying quorum to actual delegated voting power makes sense to me, it feels fairer since it’s based on the people who are actually active in governance, not just tokens sitting idle.

The idea of having a fixed baseline is also important. Even if it means things might get “stuck” for a while, at least it ensures that any decision that passes carries real weight and legitimacy. I’d much rather deal with a pause than have proposals pass with low participation that don’t reflect the community’s voice.

I see the concerns around large holders potentially gaming this by delegating but not voting, but I guess that’s where community vigilance and adjustments over time come in. Overall, this feels like a healthy step toward keeping ArbitrumDAO’s governance alive and realistic.

[Curia]

Our team has been closely monitoring Arbitrum quorum, and we thank the @Arbitrum foundation again for putting forward this well-researched proposal. We are in strong agreement with the core direction and would like to offer our analysis and specific recommendations on the proposed parameters.

1. Support for Shifting Quorum from Votable token to DVP

We strongly support the proposal to shift the quorum calculation from the total votable token to Delegated Voting Power (DVP).

Quorum should be tied to the cohort of token holders who are actively participating in governance, not a theoretical maximum supply. The current mechanism, where quorum continuously rises due to vesting unlocks while DVP remains relatively flat, poses a significant liveness risk to the DAO. We have previously highlighted in this discussion thread that this would become an increasingly urgent problem that requires longer-term solution that aligns quorum with actual participation.

@Curia

However, we believe this should be treated as an interim fix. Because quorum is tied to votable ARB (a figure that continues to grow), with the same problem will re-emerge. A longer-term solution should align quorum with actual participation rather than theoretical capacity.

@Arbitrum

Quorum Threshold Increasing Over Time

Figure 1: Quorum threshold is increasing every month.

As presented in Figure 1, we estimate that quorum is increasing at the following rates:

• 36m ARB/year for non-constitutional proposals
• 54m ARB/year for constitutional proposals

In contrast, the DVP has been relatively stable, with monthly fluctuations as we have documented in our reports:

@Curia

Votable Supply Changes: In November 2024, the votable supply of ARB tokens increased from 321.19 million to 326.64 million from October 2024

@Curia

Votable Supply Changes: In December 2024, the votable supply of ARB tokens decreased from 326.64 million from November 2024 to 318.127 million in December

@Curia

Votable Supply Changes: In January 2025, the votable supply of ARB tokens slightly increased from 326.64 million from December 2024 to 330.608 million in January

@Curia

Votable Supply Changes: In February 2025, the votable supply of ARB tokens decreased from 330.608 million from January to 323.271 million in February

@Curia

Votable Supply Changes: In March 2025, the votable supply of ARB tokens decreased from 323.2 million to 321.39 million from February 2025

@Curia

Votable Supply Changes: In April 2025, the votable supply of ARB tokens increased from 321.39 million to 363.84 million from March 2025

Tying quorum to DVP correctly aligns the metric with the actual pool of engaged voters and resolves this fundamental issue.

2. Recommended Percentage of Quorum

To validate the proposed numbers suggested by the Foundation:

@Arbitrum

We recommend the following configuration:

• Non-constitutional proposals. Set at 40 - 50% of total delegated voting power and a minimum fixed voting power of 100m ARB.
• Constitutional proposals. Set at 40 - 50% of total delegated voting power and a minimum fixed voting power of 150m ARB.

We backtested historical voting data against various DVP-based quorum thresholds. Our goal was to find a range that aligns with the historical average participation margin of 20-40% on different time periods (2023–2024, 2024–2025, 2025, and overall). We believed this margin to be a healthy balance, providing a meaningful hurdle for proposals without making them excessively difficult to pass.

Our analysis, which can be viewed in detail in this spreadsheet, yielded the following recommendations, using the 2025 data as our primary benchmark for its relevance to the current state of the DAO:

• For Non-Constitutional Proposals: A quorum between 42–50% of DVP maintains the target 20-40% participation rate against quorum margin.
  

  

• For Constitutional Proposals: We believed the ideal range is 48–56% of DVP. We believe the threshold should not exceed 60%, as it would begin to severely restrict the DAO’s ability to pass crucial upgrades.
  

  

Based on this data, the Foundation’s proposed range is effective, and we would advocate for values at the lower end for non-constitutional and the higher end for constitutional proposals.

3. Concerns Regarding the Fixed Lower Bound

We understand the rationale for a fixed minimum quorum is to act as a safeguard against governance capture if DVP were to fall dramatically. That said, a static floor, while well-intentioned, introduces its own form of liveness risk. We raised this point during the DVP-Quorum for ArbitrumDAO: Open Discussion community call and wish to elaborate on it here for the broader community.

In a scenario where DVP drops significantly, the fixed lower bound could make it mathematically impossible to reach quorum, effectively freezing the DAO. The table below illustrates this using a 100M ARB lower bound for non-constitutional proposals:

DVP (in millions)	Quorum (40% of DVP)	Effective Quorum (with Lower Bound)	Passable?
300	120 M	120 M	Yes
250	100 M	100 M	Yes
249	99.6 M	100 M	No
80	32 M	100 M	No

While unlikely, this scenario would force the DAO into a difficult position, potentially requiring repeated governance actions to adjust the floor.

We suggest considering alternatives to a static minimum:

1. Remove the fixed lower bound and rely on the percentage-based quorum alone.
2. Implement a dynamic lower bound that adjusts relative to a trailing average of DVP, preventing sudden freezes.

In an extreme edge case where DVP collapses, the Security Council could serve as the ultimate backstop to ensure the DAO remains functional.

Summary

In conclusion, we strongly endorse the move to a DVP-based quorum. Our analysis supports the proposed percentage ranges, and we offer refined suggestions based on historical data. Our primary concern lies with the rigidity of the fixed lower bound.

Parallel to this, the long-term health of the DAO depends on increasing voter participation. We reiterate our support for initiatives that bring idle ARB into the governance system, such as:

@Curia

2. Address token-holder & delegate behaviour

Idle, non-delegated ARB is at the heart of the gap between supply and participation. Ways to bring it into play:

Overall, we support lowering the quorum to 4.5 % as a timely step. In parallel, revisiting the quorum calculation itself and launching initiatives that boost genuine participation will help bolster ArbitrumDAO’s long-term governance resilience.

• Treasury delegation to active delegates (as we have mentioned previously), with clear safeguards.
• Incentive programs that encourage token holders to delegate their ARB rather than keeping it idle.
• Awareness and onboarding efforts to reduce friction for new delegates and improve voter turnout.

Strengthening participation alongside quorum adjustments will help ensure ArbitrumDAO remains resilient, active, and secure over the long run.

[Camelot]

Camelot is aligned with the Foundation’s and DAO’s will to solve the quorum problem. The fix is in principle right: quorum should follow delegated voting power, not float with voteable supply.
A 40% / 50% DVP rule seems reasonable on paper. But we don’t agree to what the current formula would bring to us. With 320M delegated, 50% would put the constitutional bar around 160M, which feels like too low for the security standards we have compared to the 210M we have which seems more reasonable.

There’s a simpler way to reconcile these 2 values: yes, adopt the DVP rule, but pair it with a delegation ramp so we land near today’s hardness and not below it. Concretely: we think the DAO, AF and OCL should push for further delegation up to the point the DVP is around 400-420M. This can happen either through a delegation to top 10-20 delegates, or through other metrics such as ones that favour AAEs or excellent delegates in the ecosystem such as protocols and employees, which have stronger alignment with the chain. We know that there have been effort in the past to do so, and this created several millions more in delegations, but we think we should do more in this sense, either from the treasury of the DAO or from wallet from other entities.

[Griff]

I agree with the proposal’s intention.

It’s clearly been a struggle to hit the quorum which is why we lowered it to 4.5% as a stop gap, to avoid burning too much energy just trying to get people to vote.

The DVP quorum as a more long term solution actually makes a lot of sense for me. In, practice, delegated ARB is the real votable supply, that’s what the quorum should be based on, its as simple as that.

The key is keeping it simple from a code perspective. We need to make sure the DVP math is clear and fully verifiable on-chain. If it’s clean, simple, and secure, I’m all for it.

[Euphoria]

The following reflects the views of the Lampros DAO governance team, composed of Chain_L (@Blueweb) and @Euphoria, based on our combined research, analysis, and ideation.

We are voting “FOR- DVP Quorum” for this proposal in the Snapshot voting.

The rising quorum issue has been visible for a while now. Since the quorum reduction in May, the constitutional quorum has continued to climb past ~209M ARB, while total delegated voting power has stayed largely flat between 320M and 350M ARB. That gap is exactly what’s making governance fragile, not because participation is dropping, but because quorum has become increasingly dependent on a handful of large delegates showing up.

@Arbitrum

It should be set as a percentage of the total delegated voting power (DVP).

DVP is a new concept. We see this shift as a practical response to a structural issue, not a silver bullet. Aligning quorum with DVP makes it more reflective of real participation and lowers the risk of gridlock as quorum keeps rising with token unlocks.

The baseline makes sense in principle, but it will need careful monitoring and a check for the governance risks for the same. We’d like to see more clarity later on how this floor could be adjusted with an analysis back.

@Arbitrum

• Non-constitutional proposals. Set at 40 - 50% of total delegated voting power and a minimum fixed voting power of 100m ARB.
• Constitutional proposals. Set at 40% - 50% of total delegated voting power and a minimum fixed voting power of 150m ARB.

We think these values are a reasonable starting point. But what matters more is how the spread between constitutional and non-constitutional quorum is preserved over time. If it collapses, upgrade security weakens. This is something to watch closely, not set once and forget.

We also believe participation efforts should run in parallel. A re-delegation week, similar to what we saw in 2024, could help boost active delegation. That would strengthen the DVP quorum model rather than just adjusting the parameters around a static base.

And finally, since this vote is only to gauge community sentiment, we’re supporting the DVP quorum direction because it’s a step that can prevent gridlock in the near future and open up more structured discussion on the exact configuration. We are in favour, but also looking forward to seeing how the final proposal evolves.

[jameskbh]

I voted for this proposal as it represents a better solution than what is in place right now. Interested to see how it develops and if further adjustments will be needed