6 Polls Closing on December 12, 2024
Arbitrum D.A.O. Domain Allocator Offerings) Grant Program - Season 3
Summary: This poll asks ARB holders if they support renewing the Domain Allocator Offerings program (previously known as the Questbook grants program). This poll also asks ARB holders if they wish to expand it from 4 domains (new protocols, dev tooling, gaming, and education + events) to include a 5th (Orbit chains).
Total proposed budget exclusive of operating expenses $6,750,000 – $1,500,000 for each original domain, plus $750,000 for the new Orbit domain.
Operating expenses and a date for electing each domain allocator will be included in the final Tally vote.
Recommendation: Vote Renew with 5 Domains. This has been the primary path for small, quick grants in Arbitrum, and support renewing the program with the trial expansion.
[NON-CONSTITUTIONAL] Arbitrum Onboarding V2: A Governance Bootcamp
Summary: This poll asks ARB holders if they support providing $193,138 to renew the Onboarding Working Group to recruit and train new governance participants.
Recommendation: Vote Against. We support the concept, but are not clear what was accomplished with the first iteration of this program. Additionally, Arbitrum does not appear to suffer from “not enough hands”, so a generalized recruitment for generic governance participants probably isn’t worth the time and resources, which we would prefer to see spent on sourcing more delegators or specialized contributors that Arbitrum may not have access to through governance or hiring.
ARDC (V2) Supervisory Council Election
Summary: This poll asks ARB holders which candidates should fill the three seats – one “Ops Role” and two “Comms Role” seats.
Candidates:
Frisson (Comm Role)
JuanRah + AlexLumley (Comm Role)
Jameskbh (Comm Role)
Entropy Adv. + Tamara (Op Role)
Pedro Breuer (Comm Role)
Violet Benson (Comm Role)
ZER8 (Comm Role)
Abstain
NB: This is a weighted choice vote.
Recommendation: Vote Entropy Adv + Tamara (Op Role) 2%, Pedro Breuer (Comm Role) 49%, Frisson (Comm Role) 49%. Entropy and Tamara are the only candidates for Op Role, so do not need more than a de minimis vote. The rest of our votes are divided amongst Pedro Breuer, whose work as a member of the Sovereign Finance voter committee at Maker favorably impressed us, and Frisson, who we have worked alongside in DAO governances for years, and is deeply knowledgeable about decentralized governance and its challenges.
ARDC (V2) Research Election
Summary: This poll asks ARB holders which candidate they wish to fill the Research seat on the Arbitrum Research and Development Committee.
Candidates:
Revelo Intel
PYOR Research
The Block Research
Llama Research & Castle Capital
Blockworks Advisory
Messari
Abstain
NB: This is a weighted choice vote.
Recommendation: Vote Blockworks Advisory 50%, Llama Research + Castle Capital 50%. Most of these candidates would be proficient for this role, but we limited our vote to two that we felt would be able to quickly get to work because they are already involved with Arbitrum and deeply familiar with it.
ARDC (V2) Risk Election
Summary: This poll asks ARB holders which candidate they wish to fill the Risk seat on the Arbitrum Research and Development Committee.
Candidates:
Vending Machine
TAU Labs
Jupiter Block
DeFiSafety
Nethermind
Abstain
NB: This is a weighted choice vote.
Recommendation: Vote Abstain 100%. We are familiar with the assigned duties for this role:
The ideal Risk Member should possess strong quantitative skills to evaluate and manage risks across DeFi protocols, with sufficient expertise in modelling, simulations, and economic risk analysis. On an as-requested basis, they will assess protocol design, tokenomics, and governance mechanisms to ensure economic efficiency, incentivize usage, and safeguard systemic health. The role involves conducting thorough risk-focused research and applying modelling techniques to identify and mitigate potential threats. Additionally, the Risk Member will provide strategic guidance and data-driven insights to optimise risk management practices, supporting continuous monitoring, reporting, and informed decision-making to promote trust and sustainability in within the ArbitrumDAO.
But we are not entirely certain what this means in practice, even with the first iteration of the ARDC to refer to. Notably, the incumbent chose not to seek reelection, which makes us further wonder what this role is, from a practical perspective, supposed to accomplish.
The previous office holder’s most prominent contributions were around economic risks for fee structures and Timeboost. But overall, there appears to be a limited field of topics for this member to opine upon, and governance is likely relying on a successful candidate really working hard to identify things to research in the Risk domain. Given the vague nature of the role, we feel it is best if we abstain, rather than support someone with low conviction or even set them up to assume a frustrating role.
ARDC (V2) Security Election
Summary: This poll asks ARB holders which candidate they wish to fill the Security seat on the Arbitrum Research and Development Committee.
Candidates:
Open Zeppelin
Trail of Bits
Abstain
NB: This is a weighted choice vote.
Recommendation: Vote Open Zeppelin 50%, Trail of Bits 50%. Both of these candidates are well qualified for the role, which includes both bug detection/correct coding of values in upgrades, and providing educational materials to the wider governance audience to understand technical upgrades.
1 Poll Closing December 19, 2024
[Arbitrum Hackathon Builder Continuation Program
](Tally | Arbitrum | Arbitrum Hackathon Builder Continuation Program)Summary: This proposal asks ARB holders if they support providing 251,930 ARB for a program to support hackathon builders. The program is designed to co-invest alongside RnDAO in these projects, with an anticipated 50/50 split of any equity, tokens, or other consideration. We recommend voters read the full details here.
Recommendation: Vote For. This is a reasonable size, and the service provider (RnDAO) coordinating the program is investing alongside Arbitrum. We’re skeptical about this type of program being effective at retaining builders and projects, but are willing to let this modest experiment disprove our priors.
1 Poll Closing December 20, 2024
Treasury Management V1.2
Summary: This proposal asks ARB holders if they support two programs (Growth and Treasury), each with their corresponding 3-person council to administer the programs.
Growth would make suggestions on how to deploy 7,500 ETH. All use cases would need to be approved by Arbitrum governance before implementation.
Treasury would control 25,000,000 ARB. Of that, 10,000,000 ARB would be allocated on onchain strategies. The remaining 15,000,000 ARB would be liquidated for stables and other cash-like holdings.
Inclusive of compensation, this proposal would transfer 7,500 ETH and 26,000,000 ARB.
Full details are available in the proposal copy, and we recommend voters read it closely.
Recommendation: Vote Against. We are supportive of the Growth track, so will not comment further except to say it is a great idea, and we are excited to see movement on it.
The Treasury track does not, in its current form, have enough of our support to vote in favor. Given the size of the allocation, we will withhold an affirmative vote until we are 100% comfortable with it.
Specifically, we desire to see a more defined investment universe for the Treasury track (which the Growth track does have). This would reduce the possible discretion of this 3-person committee, as well as help governance have some idea of risk and return profiles it is likely to get.
Finally, GFX Labs as a general rule votes against all proposals that simultaneously create an office with significant powers and fill it without an election or date for future election.