July 2025 DRIP Update
Hey everyone, quick update on where things stand with DRIP:
Distribution & Evaluation Partners Onboarded
We’ve officially onboarded Objective Labs (optimization + evaluation) and Merkl (distribution + frontend). We had a strong pool of applicants across the board and want to thank each of the teams that applied for their time. Both partners came in with highly favorable terms and bring serious firepower to this program.
Timeline Update + Brand Work
Our original target for the end of July has shifted slightly. Season 1 is now expected to launch by the end of August. We underestimated the time needed to properly develop the brand, messaging, and GTM strategy around DRIP. We want to ensure we build a foundation around DRIP that can function as Arbitrum’s long term incentives program, and this requires a lot of thought put into building its own brand within the Arbitrum brand.
To fix this, we have engaged a design agency as a third service provider focused entirely on branding. This includes building a custom frontend wireframe (which will be implemented via Merkl) and ecosystem-facing materials. We want to make sure this is built correctly and not rushed, but acknowledge we should have scoped this timeline better upfront.
What’s Coming in Season 1
Season 1 will focus on ETH and stable looping strategies: incentivizing users to borrow against ETH and stablecoin yield-bearing assets.
The high-level structure:
- ~$10M in ARB incentives (at current prices).
- Largely asset- and lending market-agnostic as long as sufficient market size.
- Asset issuers and lending markets will need to compete to attract the most looped liquidity in order to gain a higher share of the performance-based rewards.
- There will be a mix of supply (debt asset liquidity) and demand (subsidizing debt asset borrowing against whitelisted collaterals) based incentives.
- The goal of season 1 is simple: Make Arbitrum the best place to borrow against yield-bearing ETH and yield-bearing stables.
- Our north star metric is retained TVL following the incentivized period.
In the coming weeks, we’ll share more details on the exact design, but at a high level, the approach is simple: the Arbitrum DAO is providing the lending market incentives, and participating protocols are expected to compete to attract liquidity and earn their share of rewards. We have great reception so far from lending markets, asset issuers, and LPs.
One final note. It’s been a real pleasure working directly with both Offchain Labs and the Arbitrum Foundation throughout this process. Their support and responsiveness have been critical to getting DRIP off the ground in the most robust way to support Arbitrum. We’re excited to keep building alongside them as the program scales.
In closing, our team appreciates the patience and support from the DAO as we continue to move DRIP forward. We’re excited to show what this program can accomplish.
