Non-Constitutional
Abstract
This proposal extends the DRIP program’s mandate end date from July 1st, 2026 to July 1st, 2027, giving the Season Selection Committee additional time to deploy remaining funds across future seasons. No additional funding is requested in this proposal. All other terms of the original DRIP proposal remain unchanged, such as the committee composition and the DAO’s ability to terminate the program via an offchain vote.
Motivation
As background, when the DAO approved DRIP in June 2025, the proposal outlined a 1-year mandate to execute up to 4 seasons with a total budget of 80M ARB. Season durations were originally estimated to be ~3-months, despite the proposal acknowledging this length was somewhat arbitrary and the Season Selection Committee retained the ability to modify or extend season lengths.
When designing Season 1 in collaboration with the selected distribution partner, Merkl, it became clear that a 3-month season was likely too short of a time period to run an effective campaign. Going live in early September, Season 1 ultimately ran for approximately 5.5 months to fully utilize the distribution partnerships secured and to create a slower tapering of rewards. We believe these design decisions helped the campaign achieve an overall adjusted cost-effectiveness ratio of 51 (76 on USD assets specifically), the highest of any major Arbitrum incentive program to date, alongside yield-bearing stablecoin supply growth on Arbitrum from $130M to over $1B, as detailed in the season retrospective.
We want to address the most obvious question upfront. Since DRIP Season 1 concluded on February 18, 2026, the program has been quiet. We recognize that work on the next season has taken longer than we anticipated and appreciate the DAO’s patience.
There are several strategic developments in flight that materially affect what an effective Season 2 should be designed around. We judged it more prudent to wait than to deploy meaningful ARB in a shortened season that did not fully align with these developments should they be confirmed. Spending 15-20M ARB on the wrong campaign is a much worse outcome than waiting a few additional months to run the right one. We are not in a position to detail every development driving this judgment publicly, but the OAT, Offchain, and the Arbitrum Foundation have been looped in throughout, and we hope to be able to share more in the coming weeks. The remaining ~63.7M ARB budget continues to sit with the AF, with deployment subject to Season Selection Committee approval.
Specification
Extend the DRIP mandate end date from July 1st, 2026 to July 1st, 2027.
The following language from the original proposal:
“DRIP End Date (funds returned if not used or another proposal is not passed): July 1, 2026. An ongoing season may go past this date, but new seasons will not begin after this date.”
Is amended to:
“DRIP End Date (funds returned if not used or another proposal is not passed): July 1, 2027. An ongoing season may go past this date, but new seasons will not begin after this date.”
All other terms of the original DRIP proposal, including the 80M ARB total budget, season structure, Season Selection Committee composition and approval thresholds, and the DAO’s ability to terminate the program remain unchanged.
Timeline
- Forum: Thursday June 11th, 2026
- Offchain vote: Thursday June 18th, 2026