Recap of April 2025
- Stylus Sprint: During April, the Stylus Sprint committee reviewed milestone deliverables from 14 teams. A few more teams wrapped up the compliance process in April and began work on their grants as well.
- OpCo: The Snapshot vote to elect the initial three members of the OpCo Oversight and Transparency Committee (OAT) concluded in early April. Patrick McCorry, A.J. Warner, and Frisson were elected with 26.53%, 24.41%, and 19.8% of the vote, respectively. These members will now work alongside the Arbitrum Foundation to appoint two additional members to complete the five-member oversight body. Although OpCo is now largely outside of Entropy’s scope, with responsibility for it moving forward in the hands of the OAT, we believe they have already started an executive search process as well.
- Arbitrum DAO 2025 Events Budget: On April 12th, a payment of $19,350 was made to support Arbitrum’s participation in ETH Bucharest 2025. The event featured a successful hackathon and conference, with follow-up activities including prize distributions and an upcoming impact report.
- Treasury Management v1.2: The DAO approved the stablecoin strategy with 72.3% support, allowing the conversion of 15M ARB into stablecoins to be managed by Karpatkey, Avantgarde & Myso, and Gauntlet in equal parts. Meanwhile, the ARB-only on-chain strategy was rejected, with 58% voting for “No, Deploy Nothing.” The TMC cited insufficient risk management and unclear operational details in the ARB proposals as key reasons for recommending against deployment. The 7,500 ETH in the GMC track should be deployed in the coming weeks after test transactions have been completed by the Arbitrum Foundation.
- Watchdog Program: After evaluating several free, open-source softwares for the Watchdog Program, Entropy posted an update to the proposal last week and announced that GlobaLeaks provides the necessary requirements for the program’s portal.
- Delegate Code of Conduct + Formalizing the DAO’s Operations: Entropy finished an analysis on shielded elections and the impact it had on delegate participation and voting behavior. This analysis will be shared with delegates shortly.
- Strategic Objective Setting (SOS): The Submission Period officially closed on April 9, marking the start of the Feedback Period. Delegates were encouraged to review and provide input on submitted matrices, with no edits or new submissions allowed during the Feedback Period. On April 28, the Feedback Period was extended to May 7 to accommodate community requests and a series of open SOS discussion calls hosted by L2BEAT using Huddle01. The Feedback Period will close on May 7, followed by the Revision Period, which is preliminarily set to last 14 days.
- DeFi Renaissance Incentive Program (DRIP): On April 17, Entropy posted the DRIP proposal to the forum, outlining a flexible, season-based incentive framework focused on specific assets and activities rather than generalized ecosystem incentives. Each 3-month season will target a singular goal (e.g., deepen USDT/ETH liquidity), with incentives distributed directly to users. The program seeks up to 80M ARB across four seasons, with Entropy, Offchain Labs, and the Arbitrum Foundation forming the season selection committee. Due to heavy community input, the originally disclosed timeline will be pushed back to allow for adjustments to be made and more flexibility for the program.
- STEP 2.0: On April 22, Entropy shared the STEP 2 committee’s preferred allocations for the remaining ~$10.66M in ARB earmarked for diversification. The committee recommended allocating 30% to WisdomTree WTGXX, 35% to Spiko USTBL, and 35% to Franklin Templeton FOBXX (BENJI). The recommendations emphasize the need for meaningful exposure per product, the importance of long-term RWA infrastructure, and thoughtful consideration of risk, fees, and community alignment. The proposal was moved to a Snapshot vote on May 1.
- ARDC V2: Following Frisson’s departure, the ARDC Supervisory Council consolidated the Communications role, with JuanRah continuing as the sole Communications lead. Given his increased workload, his compensation was adjusted from 5K to 8.75K ARB/month. This ensures continuity and efficiency for the final three months of the current ARDC term. The ARDC also hosted an X space on April 30th with Nethermind and Castle Capital to discuss their Governance Attack research.
- Entropy’s Data Team built 5 dashboards in April:
- Arbitrum DAO Delegates: This dashboard offers an in-depth analysis of Arbitrum DAO delegates using onchain data. It covers key metrics including delegator counts, voting power distribution, participation rates, voting behavior, and historical trends among top delegates, providing a clear lens into delegate dynamics and governance engagement.
- Arbitrum MEV Atomic Arbitrage: This dashboard offers a transparent view into atomic arbitrage on Arbitrum, a key category of MEV where searchers capture price discrepancies across DEXs within a single transaction. By surfacing detailed metrics on volume, profit, frequency, and complexity of arbitrage loops, the dashboard allows the DAO and the industry to quantify MEV’s impact on network efficiency, Timeboost revenue, DEX Volume, etc.
- Arbitrum Timeboost: This dashboard provides visibility into core Timeboost metrics since day one, including DAO revenue, Expresslane usage patterns, and auction outcomes, offering a clear view of how value flows through the system. It also features a transaction explorer that allows for the analysis of auction winners, their controllers, and the frequency and size of bids.
- Arbitrum DAO Security Council: This dashboard provides visibility into the Arbitrum DAO Security Council elections. As the body responsible for enacting both emergency and non-emergency actions, the Security Council plays a critical role in safeguarding the Arbitrum ecosystem. The dashboard explores how past elections unfolded, offering transparency into delegate voting behavior, candidate progression, and changes in the council’s composition over time.
- Arbitrum MEV Liquidations: This dashboard highlights patterns, key participants, and the economic impact of liquidation events, offering a clearer perspective on how MEV manifests across Arbitrum’s DeFi landscape.
- Arbitrum Ecosystem Support:
- Protocol Highlights: Spiko, Ostium
Current Initiatives
- Stylus Sprint: As teams continue executing on their approved milestones, Entropy remains focused on monitoring progress and ensuring timely milestone evaluations. A more detailed update will be posted in the coming days that recaps the completed work thus far. We continue to expect deliverables and social updates to be shared throughout May as more teams hit key development milestones.
- OpCo: The elected OAT members are collaborating with the Foundation to complete the five-member committee. Once finalized, the OAT will begin its oversight of OpCo’s setup and operations.
- Arbitrum DAO 2025 Events Budget: The ETH Bucharest team is finalizing post-event tasks, including distributing hackathon prizes and preparing a detailed impact report for the DAO. Entropy is actively reworking this proposal to fit in line with the recently unveiled vision post from the Arbitrum Foundation.
- Delegate Code of Conduct + Formalizing the DAO’s Operations: With the trial period now approaching its conclusion, our team is finalizing a few recommended changes to the DAO’s Procedures and will post an update in May. Following additional delegate input and feedback, it is still our intention to move forward with adding the Code of Conduct language to the Arbitrum Constitution.
- Treasury Management v1.2: The stablecoin strategy is moving into the execution phase, with funds being converted and then distributed across the selected partners. The 10M ARB allocated for ARB-only strategies remains with the Foundation. A new RFP process is expected in the coming months to identify stronger proposals before moving forward. Expect delays on the stablecoin portion’s deployment due to market volatility and the AF’s process for conversion. We are actively working on a proposal that rolls up the TMC, GMC, and STEP II committees into a holistic treasury management council to create a more cohesive strategy, more straightforward communication between applicants and committees, streamlined operations with the AF, etc.
- Watchdog Program: Entropy will be moving the Watchdog Program proposal to Tally later today, with the vote scheduled to start on May 8th. If approved by the DAO, funds will be moved into a Foundation controlled address and we will work in tandem with the AF to launch a dedicated GlobaLeak’s instance for the Watchdog. We expect the program can be launched by the end of the month.
- Strategic Objective Setting (SOS): The extended Feedback Period runs through May 7, allowing more time for delegates to share input. Once concluded, the Revision Period will follow (May 7–21), leading to a vote from May 22–29 on which strategic objectives matrix to adopt.
- DeFi Renaissance Incentive Program (DRIP): The DRIP proposal is live on the forum, but the Snapshot vote has been pushed back to accommodate community feedback. The season selection committee - Entropy, the Arbitrum Foundation, and Offchain Labs - is preparing for execution pending DAO approval. If passed, the first DRIP season will launch in early H2 ‘25, with a focus on targeted, user-facing incentives designed to boost Arbitrum’s market share in high-impact DeFi activities and emerging verticals that are showing high potential for organic market penetration.
- STEP 2.0: The STEP committee posted its preferred allocations on April 22nd, with an approval vote having been initiated on May 1st. If ratified, once the Foundation completes the diversification of ARB into stablecoins, funds for STEP II will proceed according to the proposed allocations. Feedback channels remain open for applicants and community members.
- ARDC V2: JuanRah has fully assumed the Communications mandate, and the Supervisory Council is supporting a smooth transition. The Council remains focused on final deliverables and hosted a research-focused X Space on April 30th. Expect the following reports to be published in the short term: DeFiLlama Research’s work on Pricing for Vote Buying Research & Suggestions to Improve the DAO’s Technical Decision-Making Process along with Castle Capital’s analysis incentive programs that builds on their previous ecosystem funding work.
- Data: The primary focus for the upcoming month will be assessing the impact of Timeboost on Arbitrum One, as well as completing the remaining analysis for MEV on Arbitrum. We also plan to initiate app-level data coverage, starting with Fluid, and expanding to more applications over time as we “tie the bow” on much-needed dashboards that cover the fundamentals on Arbitrum One.
- Arbitrum-Aligned Builder Rewards Program: We made great progress on this initiative behind the scenes over the past few months, but we have currently hit a roadblock that has this proposal in stalemate. We will continue to attempt to move forward with this initiative, but we expect delays that could extend if the program we had initially designed needs to be entirely reworked.
Goals for May
- Get the first draft of the Treasury Management committee consolidation proposal to relevant stakeholders for review, and proceed to the forum thereafter. Our goal is to get this proposal up on Snapshot before the end of May, but we anticipate delays as a result of community discussions. We will also be working with the AF to get STEP funds deployed, if passed.
- Post the Events Budget re-work proposal to the forum.
- Our team aims to move the DRIP to Snapshot by the end of the month. Ideally, if it passed, have vendors soft onboarded and ready to go so that once through Tally the program can kick off as quickly as possible. We expect that there may be unforeseen delays, mostly around partnerships, so would like to get ahead of as much of the work as possible. That said, much of the time it’s difficult to finalize aspects involved until funds are allocated and ready to go (partnerships and potentially vendor onboarding). DRIP planning will include a lot of behind the scenes work to efficiently design and implement a season.
- Post a reworking of the MSS so that there is a solution before the committee is out of runway.
- Begin planning and work on the future of the ARDC. We want to ensure plenty of lead time for vendors, with the current mandate ending on July 12th, so the scoped work for May that is assigned in May or June will likely be the last for the ARDC V2.
- If passed on Tally, Entropy aims to launch the Watchdog Program by the end of May. This will involve setting up a dedicated GlobaLeaks portal and amplifying on social media.
- As mentioned above, in relation to our data team’s goals for the month of May, we will continue to prioritize Timeboost’s impact on the broader Arbitrum One ecosystem. The current blocker here is Dune’s ingestion/tagging of Timeboost-labeled transactions, but our team is holding active conversations with the Dune team to get this done. We will also be working on application specific dashboards of Arbitrum protocols.
- Entropy is actively working on our next engagement proposal, which we hope to get on the forum by the end of June. We have received numerous questions from the community about our future involvement in the DAO, and we would like to set expectations here sooner rather than later to prevent interruptions in DAO initiatives / workflows. The sooner we can all get clarity on this, the better.
Requests from the DAO
Please continue to reach out and pass along requests to Entropy Advisors. Our team is always open to input from DAO members on which problems we should dedicate our efforts towards.